On a Mission in Oregon

The kids took over our house in Idaho for 10 days, so Don and I decided to take a road trip to southwestern Washington and several stops in Oregon. After an afternoon and evening hanging out with “The Bigs”, as they call themselves, we hightailed it to Washougal, Washington to hangout with my transplanted Texas friend, Katy. After the relaxing long weekend the mission began – get some stamps on my McMenamins passport. McMenamins is a chain of bars, restaurants, and hotels in Oregon and Washington. Most have unique venues with a history and backstory. Several are old schoolhouses. All have a similar style of distinctive decor – colorful, fun and eccentric. Participants in their passport program get their passport stamped at each location (some places require clues to be solved to get the stamp). An invitation to a once a year gala is granted to those with fully stamped passports. We headed south to hit the places in Salem, Corvallis, Eugene and Roseburg. Katy accompanied us on that leg as she has a McMenamins passport, too. Then she took the train back north and we went east to Bend (more stamps), Burns, Boise and then back to McCall.

So… about the Washougal stop. Katy used to be my friend until Don realized that he could fly us into a small airport near Washougal and that she’s an amazing host and cook. Her dinners are so good Don reheats them for breakfast and adds an egg on top. If Don enjoyed board games, I might be worried about the two of them. Seriously though, at this point, she’s a friend of the family as all my kids know and love her, too.

The four days with Katy and her two dogs were relaxing and delightful. She read, walked her dogs, chatted and cooked. Don worked, chatted and read. And I chatted and wrote my Galapagos blogpost. See the common thread? Oh, and we played one board game. Our son, Will, was in the area visiting his transplanted Texas friend, Erica. Katy hosted them for dinner Tuesday evening. Great conversation, delicious food and a game – Sushi Go, to be exact.

The next morning we headed south to Salem to meet a friend for lunch whom both of us knew (independently) from The Woodlands. They remembered each other from elementary school book fairs! It was a fabulous lunch catching up with Sarah and the first stamp on our three day McMenamins mission.

Salem is the third most populous city in Oregon and the state capital. The city is split in half by the Willamette River and has acres and acres of park space along it. I just discovered that there is a Rhododendron Hillside Park in Salem full of, you guessed it, rhododendrons. I missed it this time, but you can bet your bottom dollar I won’t miss it again. 🌺

After our Salem stops, we continued south to Corvallis which is home to Oregon State University, Hewlett Packard R & D Center and two McMenamins restaurants. A few of the town’s claims to fame include: being the western most city in the contiguous United States with a population 50,000 or more, where both the laser printer and computer mouse were developed, and being part of the Silicon Forest – the tech area of the Pacific Northwest.

We visited both McMenamins in town. The restaurant near campus has an art piece featuring dozens of sinks on the wall. The inspectors kept denying their occupancy certificate because there weren’t enough sinks in the restrooms. McMenamins on Monroe finally got enough sinks.

We headed further south to Eugene to take in the sights and visit the McMenamins properties. Ugh, just found out there is rhododendron garden in Eugene, too. I might just have to go back to visit these parks featuring gorgeous flowering bushes.

The next morning Katy hopped a train back north and Don and I headed east. We discovered our first covered bridge. We’ve since learned that Oregon has almost fifty remaining covered bridges. Lane County, with Eugene as its county seat, has more covered bridges than any other county west of the Mississippi. When I come back for the rhododendrons, I’ll seek out more covered bridges, too.

The McMenamins passport stamps weren’t our only mission. The other one was seeing The War and Treaty again. We first saw them at a free concert in Battery Park before the pandemic. We’ve been wanting to see them again ever since. They happened to be at the Fairwell Festival at the Deschutes County fairground while we were in Oregon. It was our first C3 Presents festival. They’re the people who produce the Lalapalooza and ACL music festivals along with many others. We were amazed by the orderliness of the venue and equally astonished at the number of attendees in the middle of Oregon. It was great to see one of our favorite bands again and an experience to attend a festival of that magnitude.

The closest reasonably priced hotel room the night of the festival was in Bend, Oregon which was fine with me because guess who has one of their flagship properties in Bend? Yep, McMenamins! Not only does the property have a hotel, restaurant, bar, movie theater, soaking pool, but it has a secret bar, too!

We had one final night on the road. We chose Burns, Oregon, because the timing worked well. It’s about half way between Bend and Boise. The small town exceeded expectations in every way. We ate at a steakhouse in town which had a five piece place setting. And that didn’t include the steak knife or dessert utensils. And the food was delicious, too!

But the Central Hotel was the highlight of the day. It is a restored 1929 hotel decorated with period furniture. Quirky, fun and peaceful – this hotel had it all!

Burns was our last stop in Oregon, but we enjoyed the gorgeous drive on our way back to Idaho. The route took us along the Malheur River and through some beautiful farming communities on our drive.