McMinnville, Oregon: A Weekend Getaway in Your Own Back Yard

This morning as I was laying in bed and dreamily debating whether to get up and do something productive or just stay wrapped up in the luxury of our warm cozy bed (and in case you are wondering - the bed was winning), my husband shot up with a bound of energy and exclaimed, "Let's go on an adventure today!"

I slowly opened one eye and looked at him across the covers. "OK," I said, "Which direction should we go?" This is how we decide our little excursions across the Pacific NorthWest - never with an actual destination, always with a compass and a Road Atlas. (Actually, to be fair we never use the Road Atlas. Or the compass.)

We went North last weekend and spent time in Southern Washington huddled under the quilts of a relative's cozy cottage. After being snowed in for over a week we weren't in the mood to spend time surrounded by white powder, so East was definitely out. The coastline can be dreary in the winter months and we weren't thrilled at the idea of getting wet sand out of the car in January, so we nixed West as well.

Within the hour we were headed South on Highway 47, slowly crawling between rolling country hills covered with thin layers of frost and dotted with small houses with smoke lazily wafting from chimneys.

As we passed through the little town of Carlton, I caught glimpse of a huge barn-looking building with an open door and a sign that said something about Antiques. "Turn around!" I yelled a little more excitedly than I had intended. My husband has become accustomed to this type of thing and patiently asked where I would like him to go. After a bit of maneuvering around some side-streets we pulled up to RD Steeves Imports.

If you like quirky stained-glass windows from buildings that are no more, antique wardrobes and trinkets from another place and time - you must visit RD Steeves Imports. Bring a jacket - the warehouse full of antique furniture, and the warehouse full of antique furniture behind that, and the warehouse full of antique furniture behind THAT isn't heated; but each section of Steeves is packed with quirky, beautiful and rare collections in every type you can imagine, and maybe a few that you never knew existed. This place could be a day-trip in itself, and now that we know it exists we will definitely be back (with a trailer big enough to haul home some awesome finds).

Once back on the road, we headed down Highway 99 to McMinnville and after some wandering ended up at the Evergreen Aviation & Space Museum. The museum is split up between three buildings housing the Aviation Museum, the Space Museum and an IMAX theater respectively. We opted to stick with the Aviation Museum portion (we'll check out the other two next time around) and were not disappointed. We walked beneath replicas of flying machines by Leonardo da Vinci, the Wright brothers, and got within spitting distance of aircraft from every era known to aviation (spitting is discouraged in the museum). After wandering from plane to plane under the wing of the Spruce Goose we enjoyed a wine-tasting in the museum café and enjoyed a conversation with a couple of the museum's many volunteers. Our visit was enlightening, awe inspiring, dangerous (I believe that there is a helicopter or glider in our future because of it) and amazingly fun. I encourage you to visit it if you ever get the chance, even if only to taste the wine and view the Spruce Goose from the gift-shop.

Like many other things, learning makes us hungry so we took a quick jaunt into old downtown McMinnville and stopped in at McMenamins Pub at Hotel Oregon. We are well acquainted with several of the other McMenamins properties, and the Hotel Oregon held true to the McMenamins family standard of elegant quirky design, friendly staff and quality brews. We started with an appetizer of mussels coated in a sauce of Terminator Stout, garlic and chilies that were cooked to perfection with a delightfully flavorful kick. In fact, my husband enjoyed the sauce so much that once we had finished the mussels he asked the waiter for bread to dip in it and proceeded to eat it as a soup.

Our meals arrived and my husband's Matties Special Pizza heaping with Canadian bacon, pepperoni, fennel sausage and black olives was delicious as always - but it paled in comparison to my Grilled Portobello Sandwich. This sandwich was hands down THE BEST sandwich I have had in my life. Every bite of melted mozzarella, roasted red pepper and Portobello was better than the last and I cannot wait for the opportunity to have it again.

We finished off the afternoon by taking a romantic walk around the old downtown district, peering into the windows of quirky shops (most of which are sadly closed on Sundays) and around old brick warehouses from another time. On our way back home we agreed that today was a great little getaway from our normal lives; a time for us to reconnect away from home, and for us to experience something new together. We both look forward to visiting all of these places again, and we hope that you will check each of them out with someone you love, too.