The older you get, the more “past” you have. It’s inevitable. It gets pretty easy to live in your past (well, as long as there’s some good moments), but sometimes it hinders future growth. But self-reflection is also good, as you can see what worked and what didn’t and learn from it. Looking back can also be good for revisiting past interests and seeing which ones are worth giving another go.
I think all of us go through phases of interests throughout our life, and these phases can be pretty intense for a hot second and then discarded when something more interesting, or in the case of youthful pursuits, something more “adult” comes by. I remember being really into stamp and coin collecting for maybe a year around 1986 or 1987, but pretty much lost any interest after that. And there was an inevitable superhero phase during my teen years. Once I found “alternative” comics, that was all over.
Getting closer to the present, the first several years living in Portland I got really interested in this city’s geography and history. I would see things on the street, wonder what the deal was with it, and then research it. I’d spend many hours on the internet, at the Portland Archives (which was at that time up in Chimney Park), the Oregon Historical Society in a time when admission to the library was not free, 1 and Central Library. Then I’d gather up all my notes and photocopies and design either a walking or cycling tour around the themes of South Portland History or Historic East Side Theatres.
Of course, I still do this type of stuff. But it’s not with the intensity that I did it from 2004 to 2007, the first years of Urban Adventure League. With the first four rides/walks I actually crafted self-guided tour zines for all of them and would give it out to participants and sell them through shops. Eventually I collected them all into one zine to make things easier. But that collection has long been out of print (I don’t even know where the masters are for them anymore!) and I haven’t made a print guided tour zine since then.
Then pandemic happened, and people needed to occupy themselves. I started planning a thicker ride and walk guide with newer routes. I went out several times to test out the routes. This became tedious after a while, because this was the era when getting on transit was a risky proposition, so I had to ride to and from the ride, and then follow the ride exactly as I planned it. I cannot tell you how hard this is for me, someone who likes poking around and exploring new things vs. what I’ve already seen. And I was hung-up on making this guide “great” and worth people’s hard-earned cash. You know what they say: Perfect is the enemy of good. I got a few routes half-done, then lost interest, especially as the intensity of pandemic decreased.
Then I decided to revisit this project. This was partially due to finally getting my Cycle Touring Project revision done, an even longer-suffering project. Another reason was I decided to make it easier on myself: Instead of trying to create one big publication, I’d do a zine series with one ride a zine. This was quite the epiphany and removed a mental block. And finally, I got inspired by other people.
I mentioned last month here on the blog the exhaustive report on a pedestrian bridge over a suburban Twin Cities freeway. The author, Tyler Vigen, was wondering why this random pedestrian facility was there, as it seemed to serve no real purpose. I saw Tyler do some similar things to what I would do, like hit up local archives and libraries. But he even went a stop more than me, flying to a federal archive in Kansas City to look at documents. Eventually he got the aha! moment that the bridge was to connect a school to a neighborhood on the other side of the highway, and the municipality included it in their demands for the highway to get built.
That type of report made me remember how fun it was spending several hours at the research library at Oregon Historical Society, looking at documents to figure out a past that I wasn’t around for, and because I did not grow up here, have no real connection to. That inspired me to plan a trip down to the Society to finish up a couple of those rides I mentioned.
There’s also another person that rekindled my interest. A couple years ago I wrote about the cross-country bike tour that Nathan Tolzmann drew up into a comic. At that time I didn’t look too much at the work of the other gent along for the tour, Matt Bergstrom. But the randomness of the internet led me to him again: I came across a blog post of a Replacements Walking Tour, That author, Andy Sturdevant, wrote some other pieces for the Minn Post under The Stroll, where he explores various “in plain sight” nooks and crannies of the Twin Cities. One was about Bassett Creek, an urban creek that goes underground for its last two miles. I’m always fascinated by the routes of hidden waterways, so I dug in. In the piece they mentioned an organization called the “Explorers Club”, who put out some quarterly zines about their adventures during the turn of the ’90s. In the August 1989 edition they do a subterranean exploration of this hidden creek, wading through the dark tunnels. And who wrote that piece? Matt Bergstrom.
So I checked out the website and ordered a book from him, Flood and Flotsam: A waterlogged voyage down Chicago’s drain in a homemade boat. This publication recounts an adventure he and Mike Pippen took in August of 2007, where they followed the Chicago River to the Ship and Sanitary Canal and eventually the Des Plaines River, all on a boat made from scrap. It’s an interesting read and I’m glad to see it through the eyes of someone else, as there’s a lot of some calls and a few difficult portages.
It appears that Matt is more into what’s called Urban Exploration, or urbex. This generally involves exploring the abandoned, secret, and often illegal. I know there’s a tight-knit community of these folks, but I never got into it. For one, Portland is a city lacking in old abandoned buildings, we’re not the Midwest or Northeast. Also, I’m maybe too much of a scaredy cat when it comes to urbex, as it usually involves trespassing, and some of the places can be downright dangerous. Plus, I’m more interested in the readily available than the “secret” when it comes to my explorations, especially when I share these things with others, as I want to make what I do as accessible as possible.2 I will admit that the name Urban Adventure League has confused a few earlier on, when zines like Infiltration promoted urbex (R.I.P. Ninjalicious), but not so much anymore.
Anyways, I really enjoyed the work that Matt Bergstrom, Andy Sturdevant, and Tyler Vigen have done. It’s reignited an interest that I’ve let dwindle over the past few years. I’ll be working on more local exploration zine projects in the near future. Yes, I’ll still be nerdy about bikes and cameras too. But perhaps you’ll join me on my new old adventure?
- In 2004 it cost the princely sum of $8 to enter. Since I was really broke then, I found a workaround: I’d use a Cultural Pass that certain libraries had available; Reserve the pass, pick it up, and return it the same day (or you’d get penalized.) The problem was that none of the Multnomah County Libraries offered it, so the nearest was in Lake Oswego. I’d take the bus down in the AM, head to OHS, then return it in the evening. The day bus pass then was $3.30, which meant all this wasn’t free, but it was cheaper than $8! Oh, the things I used to do to save some cash… ↩︎
- One of my big beefs with urbex is it is often ableist, as it often involves scaling fences, climbing in/around/under things, etc., in order to participate. There’s also a whiff of white privilege, as being caught trespassing while Black often has different penalties. These are also reasons why I never got into trainhopping. I know it seems romantic, but I chafe at those who tout ‘hopping as a viable transportation alternative. ↩︎
Urban Adventure League 