Bend Oregon

Cool town – similar to all the other towns that we thought were cool on the road. There seems to be a pretty healthy outdoors scene here and a good deal of culture. I would imagine that this is a cool town to live in. We stayed at the coolest hotel – McMenamins. This McMenamin family takes old property with history and revamps them into cool places like this hotel. We were lucky enough to stay in the old St. Francis School now a hotel, pub, Movie Theater, and Turkish bath. All of these things were really trendy and awesome. They managed to maintain an old flare and keep the history alive while making it a mostly modern and neat place. If we are ever near another McMenamin’s establishment we will definitely check it out. Before check-in time we checked out the pub. We had the sampler – which is our favorite thing to get at microbrews. We were both able to try six of their beers. They were all pretty tasty but neither one of us fell madly in love with any of them. The only problem was that they did not have robes as they said they would. Apparently the linens would be in tomorrow which for us was a day too late and I guess they went through more robes than usual. I really wanted to walk around the Turkish bath in a terrycloth robe – I mean who doesn’t want to do that. All the same the bath was way cool without the sweet robes. As in traditional Turkish style the water was salty and warm. We made our way to this big soaking pool a shortly after we checked in and again before we went to sleep. There was a glass opening in the ceiling that let in natural light. Due to this smart feature the pool is entirely different during the day than it is at night. Brad and I decided that if we ever win the lottery we are building one of these in our house. I love the tile work and the feel of the whole thing. There were stained glass windows on the side that made the filtering sunlight different colors and of course the sun window is a must for this type of pool. Brad liked to sit under the lions as they spit salty water on his head. I liked to sit on the step beneath the big fountain in the middle of the pool and close my eyes as the water rained on my head and shoulders. It was neat to lay back and float in this tub too, very relaxing. I found the vent with the hottest water and mostly hung out by it. I hope we win the lottery soon so we can have one of these. Then we could have dinner parties and invite everyone for an after dinner drink and a soak in the Turkish bath – don’t you worry we will be sure to have enough robes for everyone.
Since we were guests at the hotel we were given free movie passes to the movies playing at the brew and view. Since we have not been able to watch movies let alone go to a theater we decided that we should get comfortable and relax while in Bend. This is what we did. I opted for comfy cloths rather than sassy ones and we decided – Movie Night. Lucky for us we really could have dinner and a show. We ordered our dinner from the little pub/concession stand. I got a pizza with black olives and artichoke hearts and Brad went with a Hawaiian Chicken Sandwich. The food was really good – I did not really know what to expect but my expectations were surpassed. We stuck around for a double feature presentation of The Incredible Hulk followed by Iron Man. Hmm, it was comic book night. They were both entertaining and fun to see especially at a place like this. For the first movie we were able to sit in sweet corduroy love seats. We were not as lucky during the second movie. There were more people for the second feature and the couches were taken, but there were chairs that were not as fun but they were not bad either. I love the idea of trendy brew and views. Following the movie we made it back to the Turkish bath for a night soak. This got us good and sleepy and while in the water I was actually starting to feel better. Once we got back to the room and were snuggled up I realized I was not better at all but was sneezing more and more. By the morning we did not want to leave and I just wanted to lay around all day and get better. We got me some medicine because in our intense first aid kit the only thing we did not prepare for was a cold. Who gets colds in the Summer time? We prepared for almost every random thing but not for a cold. After getting my pitiful self some meds we got pancakes and hit the road.