Portland International Airport

Swap a PDX memory for a PDX carpet mat

Airports, Contests, , ,

2_PDX_Foot-forward selfies with the PDX carpet are very popular at Portland Int'l Airport

Want your very own piece of the world-famous PDX carpet?

Here’s one way to get: Portland International Airport is turning 75 and is asking people to share their favorite PDX memories in a written note, video, photo, audio recording or email at PDXmoments.

Each week through Nov. 29, the airport will pick one of the stories and share it on the PDXmoments website and on social media and, if your story is selected, you’ll get a PDX Carpet mat as a prize.

At the end of the celebration, the airport will pick one special story from the bunch and award a $500 PDX air travel voucher.

I’ll start…when I first moved to Portland (waaay, back in the early 1980s) I lived not too far from the airport and there was free parking out in front. Just inside the front door: the city’s first Haagen Daz outlet. So going to the airport just for ice-cream became a regular, and very sweet, outing.

The PDX Carpet – now a jam & a parade leader

Gambling, Souvenirs, , ,

2_PDX_Foot-forward selfies with the PDX carpet are very popular at Portland Int'l Airport

The carpet at Portland International Airport gained cult status long before the announcement that the flooring was being replaced.

T-shirts, water bottles, caps, socks, a beer and other souvenirs bearing a copy of the carpet pattern were created and the airport recently announced the distribution of large patches of the original flooring to local companies and creative-types for repurposing.

The latest news came Friday during the airport’s “Carpetfest,” where it was announced that the carpet will be the grand marshal of the Starlight Parade on May 30, 2015 during the city’s Rose Festival.

Also unveiled yesterday: the newest product created to honor the carpet: “Preserve The Memory” Triple Berry Preserves jam – from Columbia Empire Farms and now on sale in the airport at the Your Northwest store.

PDX JAM

 

How to get a piece of the PDX carpet

Souvenirs, ,

2_PDX_Foot-forward selfies with the PDX carpet are very popular at Portland Int'l Airport

Want a piece of the world’s most famous airport carpet?

Now’s your chance.

The 30-year old green, blue and pink carpeting in the terminals at Portland International Airport became an iconic symbol of home celebrated on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

Now, to the chagrin of hipsters in the hippest of cities, the PDX carpet is being replaced.

Souvenirs mimicking the rug’s criss-cross runway pattern exist on everything from socks, caps and water bottles to tote bags, sneakers and bike helmets.

But because there’s nothing like the real thing – and because so many PDX carpet fans and creative entrepreneurs want pieces of the real rug the airport is replacing – PDX officials decided to take applications and choose a few groups that would be awarded 1,000 square-yard carpets sections to use for creative re-purposing projects.

Four local organizations were chosen from an applicant pool of 32 and they will each get their coveted cache of carpet sometime in May.

City Liquidators plans to make welcome mats and rugs out of the portion of the PDX carpet it receives.

Carpet Mill Outlet will make large sections of its PDX carpet allotment available for installation and create bound area rugs with the rest.

Sling Chair 'in the works' at The PDX Project

The PDX Project hopes to make area rugs, door mats, sling chairs (above), and cat accessories.

And MyPDXCarpet.com , is taking pre-orders for products that include pieces of the carpet bound and unbound, coasters and sections of carpet suitable for framing.

Farmers market at Portland International Airport

Airports, Food, ,

PDX_Capers_Cafe_Aug_2014_edited

Who says you can’t find healthy food at an airport?

For about a month now, Capers Café, one of the long-time concessionaires at Oregon’s Portland International Airport, has been hosting its own mini-farmers market out there on Concourse C with 12 linear feet of berries, melons, apricots and peaches for sale each Tuesday and Thursday.

“Owners Christian and Annette Joly live in Portland and have been managing this family-owned business for nearly 25 years. They receive fresh produce weekly from local growers in Hood River, Troutdale, Mt. Hood, and farmers along the Columbia River,” said airport spokeswoman Annie Linstrom. “They’re selling out daily, and it’s really becoming a big hit.”

Travel Tidbits: Fresh art Portland Int’l Airport

Art, , ,

Fresh art at Portland International Airport

PDX Art

Window Seat, an exhibit of large-scale aerial photographic prints and handmade quilts inspired by the view artist and writer James W. Earl had out of airplane windows between Indianapolis and Portland is at Portland International Airport through October 31, 2014.

Earl is a professor of English at the University of Oregon and his illustrated explanation about his interest in this subject – and how he got the images he worked with -is a great read.

Of the image above Earl writes:

“My delight in this image has little to do with planets or any other imagined resemblance. It’s more purely abstract, like classical geometry, like abstract art. Why do these fields strike me as so perfectly balanced, so perfectly . . . beautiful? As always, each of the squares is different. I love the two pearl-like small circles above, echoing the larger ones. (Pearls? My imagination won’t quit. I found myself calling this image “Cherry Pie,” before I finally settled on “Farm,” which is what it actually is.) For scale, note the tiny barn in the lower left corner.”