McMenamins

We love McMenamins Grand Lodge in Forest Grove. We first learned of it when Brian's mom and I made a trip up from Utah before Brian graduated from BYU when we were looking for a place to live. We had been traveling all day, so we asked our future landlords (and upstairs neighbors) where the closest place to eat was, and they sent us there, to the Ironwork Grill. We were impressed, and we kept going back. They had free Frisbee golf, free movies for Pacific students, and of course, the soaking pool we never took advantage of. It has Ruby's Spa in the basement, which Brian sent me to for a massage when I was pregnant with Marcus. I loved walking through the hallways, looking at all the crazy pictures and paintings on the wall. The place sure has character, and I love that.

We tried to make reservations for Graduation Weekend last fall, but they were already booked full. So when we decided that the kids and I would accompany Brian for his Capstone classes before graduation, we booked a room for the two days before Graduation Weekend, and I'm so glad we did. Since it's an old, old building, they don't have your normal room with two queen beds or one king. All of the rooms have one bed (of varying sizes) and there are shared bathrooms down the hall. We were originally booked for one of those rooms, but when we checked in, and we learned that the king suite with it's own bathroom was available, we splurged and upgraded to that.

All of the rooms are named after someone or something that had to do with shaping the history and culture of the Portland, Oregon area. Our first room was named after a botanist, and when we went in we were surpsied to find his face painted on the wall, right beside the bed. There were also little anecdotes about his life and accomplishments painted on the wall as well. The room was pretty small, and our plan was to put the kids on an air mattress on the floor, but there wasn't nearly enough room for that, which is the main reason we switched rooms.


The king suite is on the second floor, right across from the Compass Room Theater. It has a bedroom, a sitting room with a fireplace (which is where we put the kids- the sitting room, not the fireplace), and a bathroom in between. It was such a fun room to be in! Our windows looked out over the front lawns, which were beautiful to see. The room is named after two brothers, the Walker Brothers, who were fiddlers during the 1920's.





















Apparently, the portraits on the wall next to the bed is something they do throughout the hotel, because we had the Walker Brothers watching our every move.


There were also descriptions painted on the wall throughout all the rooms. They were even painted in the bathroom. Above the bed there's a quote by "Saturday" Sam Walker that says. "I haven't any use for the Charleston, the Bunny-Hug, the Shimmy, the Texas Tommie, and the Cootie Crawl. I like the old time dances...There is more dignity, decency, and grace to them than the modern dances." There's also one that says, "Sam reckoned he had repaired 60,000 pairs of shoes over the years and probably sent that many to be repaired by getting his dance crowds to really kick up their heels."

Not having anything to do with Sam and Bill Walker, there were fun things painted all about the room, especially using the exposed pipes.

A bride and groom in the sitting room.

A horse.

I'm not sure exactly what this one's supposed to be.

These guys are my favorite.


And here's a close up of one of them.