McMinnville

McMinnville.

we arrived in McMinnville Wednesday night. pretty small town about an hour outside of Portland. when Andy called to make our reservation at the hotel earlier that day, the lady said that there should be someone to check us in at the desk, but if there wasn't, then we could check in at the pub next door. thought that was pretty weird...until we got there. the hotel was called Hotel Oregon and was very unique. it's not only a hotel, but a restaurant and pub as well. so that explains the weird check-in places. most of the inside, the doors and some of the walls, where all made of heavy wood and some were decorated with writing on the wall. all the writing told stories about wine or famous people in the town, etc, etc.

so we checked in and our room was awesome. we got the room pretty cheap because...it wasn't actually a hotel room. it was more like a hostel in that the bathroom was not inside our room. we had to walk down the hall to use the bathroom. although we did have a sink in our room...which was handy. all of the rooms were named after people and on the walls inside the room was the stories of the people. our room was named Chef Wayne if I remember correctly and inside on the wall it told the story of how he progressed from a singer/entertainer in the hotel to the chef.

that night Andy wanted to see a movie...had been wanting to see Transformers for a while. so we asked if it was playing in any of the theaters in town...and it was. a theater right across the street from the hotel. so we grabbed our jackets and ran over there. the theater was actually *inside a pizzeria. there were tables in front of the chairs in the theater and there were several huge couches, too. so Andy and I got delicious pizza and then sat on the comfy couch in the back and ate. it was so awesome...I'd never seen a theater like that before and I loved it. I wish all theaters were like it.

the next morning, Andy had to get up early and take the car to the shop. thankfully it wasn't too far away because he had to walk back. on the way back, he picked up breakfast at a cafe and brought me breakfast in bed. :) then we explored the town. there were several things going on that day. there was a farmer's market in the middle of town...and homecoming later that day. we walked around the market and got samples of almost everything...it was pretty good. hey, we couldn't be picky. we were broke. :P we also spent a good bit of time in a bookstore and an antique store. oh and we went to an amazing toy store. Andy bought a toy. its basically a propeller on a stick, and when you spin it in between your hands it flies up into the air. I'd never played with one before but it was so much fun. we went into an empty parking lot and had a blast trying to catch it after we spun it up. here's what it looks like:




and again we come back to how awesome the hotel was. even though we had checked out at 11am, we could still go in and do pretty much what we wanted. so we went to the second floor to the balcony there. that's where we watched the homecoming parade. another cool thing was that there were electric outlets there...so we could plug in our computers and get online.
the parade was cool...very small town so not very big but it was fun to watch. and I got this one kid riding by to throw candy up to me. I think he was the only one who saw me. he made one piece of candy up to where I was. the rest fell on the ground. not to worry though, Andy got them later. :P

the trees in McMinnville *and really in Oregon everywhere* were amazing. the most brilliant fall colors I have ever seen. almost every other tree in the town was a bright red, or orange, or a really bright green, or a mixture of them all. it was gorgeous.

later at around 4pm the shop called us and told us the car was ready. so we walked there and picked it up. fairly long walk which only seemed longer because we had alot of our stuff with us, but it was okie. we hopped in the car and headed towards our next stop, Portland.