Pulling into the ‘thriving metropolis’ of McMinnville, Oregon, the three Pittsburghers followed the directions Daphne pulled up on her laptop to find the hotel they were scheduled to stay at for the evening. It wasn’t exactly difficult. McMinnville, proper - the County Seat for Yamhill County, no less - was only really about eight square blocks of property once you got away from the typical strip-mall sprawl that followed along the highway. They had reservations at The Hotel Oregon - a refurbished hotel situated on Main Street which was originally built in 1905 and later bought by the entrepreneurial McMenamin Brothers in 1999.
Mike and Brian McMenamin were Portland, Oregon natives who inherited a small pub from their father in 1974. They somehow lucked into the beginnings of the ‘microbrewery revolution’ in the Pacific Northwest in the early 1980’s. Over the next twenty years, these two amazing businessmen parlayed their one small pub into an empire of more than 100 different properties through Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Northern California. They’d sort of made a name for themselves by concentrating on buying down-and-out historic properties (for pennies on the dollar, of course) and then rehabilitating them. They’d turned the old County Work Farm into a resort destination, brought new life to a number of old 1930’s era movie houses, revamped old hotels, WWII Dance halls and even made a decommissioned public elementary school into a premier bed and breakfast. The draw for the old Hotel Oregon in McMinnville seemed to be it’s tie-in to the burgeoning Oregon Wine industry. It really was the only hotel around with any sort of class and with the McMenamin’s savvy marketing skills, the old hotel had become new again.
McMenamins Breweries & History - http://www.mcmenamins.com/382-mcmenamins-breweries-oregon
Hotel Oregon, McMinnville, Oregon - http://www.mcmenamins.com/441-hotel-oregon-home
Louis LaBonte - The first permanent white resident of Oregon. - http://www.ci.dayton.or.us/vertical/sites/%7B0813AE62-E15F-4C65-858B-10DDF2ABA1FE%7D/uploads/Some_Dayton_Chapters_in_the_Oregon_Story-retyped_June_1997.pdf.
The travelers were immediately taken in by the nineteenth century charm of the old hotel. It turns out that their rooms were ‘European Style’ lodgings, which meant that they didn’t have a private bathroom. That was almost a deal breaker for Emmett, until he saw how elegant and accommodating the bathrooms really were. There were separate private cubicles for each bath/shower/toilet area, a comfortable communal lounge area that held the sinks and the hotel provided complimentary fluffy robes and slippers for each guest as well as a whole basketful of bath goodies to try out once he found the facilities. In fact, it was probably the most elegant accommodations the three had ever seen.
A very amenable porter was more than happy to show them to their rooms up on the fourth floor of the building and help with their (i.e., Emmett’s) luggage. The boys were staying in ‘The Amazing Louis LaBonte’ suite while Daphne was in the ‘Miss Olivia Ireland’ room across the hall. The provenance of each room’s name was explained in full on a small plaque next to the door in each suite and the porter wasn’t slow in pointing that particular feature out to the occupants as it was one of the unique selling points of this little hotel. While Emmett started going through his goody-basket of toiletries and the porter took Daphne off to her own room, Justin read the historical information about their room’s patron. It sounded like Monsieur LaBonte was quite the character and a true Oregon pioneer. Justin thought it was apt that the hotel was honoring his memory.***
By the time Justin had finished reading the plaque and thereby getting his history fix for the night, Emmett was already off to revel in the privacy of his own little bathing cubicle. It had been a very long day and Em definitely wasn’t up for any more ‘travelling fun’ this evening. Justin decided to grab Daph and head up the the Rooftop Bar for some dinner and a beer or two before he himself crashed for the evening. As he was leaving his room, though, Justin was almost knocked over by a gaggle of oddly dressed people all heading to a room at the far end of the hall that seemed to be hosting a party of some kind. Justin followed one pair, who were dressed in some type of shiny gold lame outfits - one of whom had a wig of metallic blue hair and the other of whom was wearing buggy plastic glasses - a couple of feet down the hallway until he saw the large lettering on the door of the suite where all the noise was coming from: ‘The UFO Room’.
The door of this suite was wide open and the room seemed packed with people. The first thing that caught Justin’s eye was a painting on the wall just inside the door showing a caricature of the hotel with a flying saucer hovering overhead. As he peeked around the door, he saw the gold-lame couple now seated by a little table in the corner, laughing and drinking pints of beer with another couple. The second couple was dressed in rain ponchos with metal pasta strainers decorated with multi-colored pipe-cleaners on their heads. The rest of the room’s occupants were equally as odd looking and most were costumed as well. Justin wasn’t sure if this room was reserved for actual space aliens or just for deluded humans that thought they were aliens, but he didn’t think he really fit in, so he high-tailed it back towards Daph’s room as quickly as he could.
Justin rounded up his compatriot, Daphne, and the two got into the miniscule, rickety old elevator that seemed like it might be original to the Hotel. It seemed to work just fine, though, and they made it up to the rooftop of the Hotel without incident. The entire roof of the building, which was by far the tallest building in the area, had been set up as an intimate eating area and bar with an unsurpassed view of the entire region. It was a gorgeous, warm, late spring evening. The temperature was perfect for dining outside under the shady umbrellas that kept off the last rays of the setting sun. Justin and Daphne made their way over to a small table in the corner that was just being vacated and made themselves comfortable while the busgirl cleaned off the former diners’ detritus.
Up here in the pub, there were even more of the oddly dressed people mingling around. It seemed like green skin was the ‘In’ thing here in Oregon. Antenna were commonplace. And, there were more than a few people dressed in ‘official’ Star Trek uniforms. Justin was beginning to see a theme here. Daphne felt that they were being left out of some really good joke and were definitely underdressed. Even the Hotel’s serving staff was wearing various UFO paraphernalia - sparkly antenna headpieces, odd glasses, etc. It was like the travelers had landed on some alien planet and where they were the only true humans.
They were saved from their uncomfortable curiosity when the porter who had previously helped them to their rooms spied the pair and came over to say hello. It seems Porter-Boy, was rather taken with sweet little Daphne, and he was more than happy to find a reason to talk to the cute curly-headed brunette again. With a flirty wave, Daph invited the young man to join them for dinner and he agilely pulled up another chair.
“So, um, maybe we missed the memo or something,” Daphne started off the conversation, directing her questions to Porter-Boy. “We didn’t expect to be spending the night in the middle of the waiting room at the end of the Universe. I didn’t bring my towel, my babble-fish is apparently on the fritz and I’ve lost my copy of the Hitchhikers Guide to The Galaxy. What gives?”
Porter-Boy laughed sycophantically at Daph’s little sci-fi reference. “This weekend is the annual UFO Fest!” he explained. “One of the most famous UFO photos ever came from a little farm just outside of McMinnville back in 1950###. Life magazine even ran a story about the photos and after that the whole town because a bit of a cult destination. The hotel has been hosting an annual party and parade for the past 15 years. It’s become quite the event.”
The History of the Famous 1950 McMinnville UFO Photos. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMinnville_UFO_photographs
“You’re kidding, right?” Justin couldn’t help scoffing a bit at the idea that this many people would be here to celebrate their beliefs in little green men and flying saucers.
“Not at all!” Porter-Boy laughed right back at the credulous visitor. “Some of the folks that come here every year are convinced it’s all true. Of course, some people just come for the fun of it all, but still, I’m not going to be the one to tell them they’re wrong. McMenamin’s is all about tolerance and acceptance. The owners of the company would much rather celebrate this anomaly - and by the way, make buckets of money off it - than turn people away. Besides, who really knows? Don’t you think it’s rather arrogant to think that we’re the only intelligent life in the Universe?”
“I like the way you think,” Daphne conceded on Justin’s behalf and raised her pint of Hammerhead Lager to the brave little Porter-Boy.
And, that was all it took for Porter-Boy to ingratiate himself into Daphne’s good books forever. The rest of the meal was fun and they all laughed a lot, with Porter-Boy supplying background info on the area and lots of the local history. Their host managed to get them his employee’s discount on their next several rounds of drinks, which meant that the three of them had about double the amount of alcohol they would normally have been able to indulge in. At a certain point in the evening, Daphne ran down to her word and got her laptop and brought it up to the rooftop to show Porter-boy all the pics she’d downloaded so far from their trip.
It was only about 10:00 pm when Daphne, who’d clearly had more of the hand-crafted microbrews than she should have indulged in, brought the whole evening to an abrupt end by dumping her last pint of beer all over her open laptop as she gesticulated wildly while trying to describe the exploding head-cheese incident to a fawning Porter-Boy. There was a loud grinding noise, a tiny bit of smoke and then the laptop screen went blank. Daph was too toasted at that point to do anything other than laugh hysterically as her computer died a beer-drenched and ugly death.
Porter-Boy, who appeared to be more than willing to help out a damsel in distress, gathered up the still smoking computer and the clearly tipsy girl and carried them both out the door of the bar. Justin stopped his best friend long enough to confirm that, even in her inebriated state she wasn’t averse to Porter-Boy’s attentions, and then backed off and let her have her fun. At least his two friends had had a good time today. Justin only hoped that he would also get his turn to have a little bit of fun once he located his dream man.
☂☂☂☂☂☂☂☂☂☂☂☂☂☂☂☂
It took a lot longer than the three Pittsburghers thought it would to get out of the Hotel Oregon the next morning.
Justin was out of bed at seven am and nervously pacing around the room, up and down the hallway and knocking at Daphne’s door way too early. He was yelled at by Emmett, given dirty looks from the other guests that came to their doors to see what was going on in the hall and finally had the door slammed in his face by a hung over Daphne. Finally, an exasperated Emmett sent the youth downstairs on a reconnaissance mission to get info from the hotel staff about whatever wineries were in the vicinity and see if anyone knew where this Wine Grower’s Association Meeting was being held.
Justin soon discovered that his mission wouldn’t be an easy one, however. The hordes of costumed aliens were even thicker this morning than they had been the night before. He was almost run over while walking down the stairs by a vicious pack of blue and green striped Navi that seemed to be on the hunt. By comparison, the three Klingons and even the Imperial Storm Troopers down in the lobby were far more polite. As soon as the desk clerk answered a few minor questions for the family of purple bug-eyed aliens, and they hustled their hybrid human-alien children off to the restaurant for breakfast, Justin was finally able to get the clerk’s attention.
“It’s impossible!” Justin moaned as he slammed the door to their room closed a few minutes later and dramatically threw himself on the bed next to Emmett.
“Nothing’s IMPOSSIBLE,” Em replied groggily, “except getting you to leave me alone long enough to get some sleep.”
Justin ignored his whiney friend though, and continued to flap a stack of papers in Em’s face. “It is fucking impossible, Emmett. We’ll never find Brian. Did you know there are more than 45 wineries in the Yamhill Valley alone, not even counting all the ones nearby. Nobody at the Hotel knows anything about any Wine Growers Association Meeting today so it could be at any one of them. And, this fucking county is more than 700 square miles in area: That’s almost as big as the entire fucking state of Rhode Island. Not to mention that this is going to be one of the busiest weekends of the whole year what with all the aliens landing and all. How the hell are we going to find one man in all that? Huh? HOW?”
“Justin. . . JUSTIN! Will you stop hitting me in the face with those paper things and calm down,” Emmett demanded, sitting up and finally awake enough to take charge of his panicky friend. He grabbed the sheaf of paper that Justin had been fanning him with. “Now, what the hell is all this . . . Ohhhh, goodie, maps and brochures! Well, that’s nice, especially since my phone is out of order. So, what’s so hard about this, Jus? We just go around to a few of these lovely looking wineries and ask THEM where the big meeting is. They’re the ones who would know, right. And, in the meantime, we get to sip a little wine, probably nosh on some yummies at the wineries, soak up the culture and all that shit. It’ll be just fine, baby, you’ll see. . .Now, what was that about ‘Aliens landing’?”
It still took another hour after that to get Emmett fully ready to leave. Daphne was even harder to get moving than Em, seeing as all she seemed able to do was grunt, moan and roll over every time Justin tried to get her to so much as sit up. But, half a pot of coffee later, they managed to get her down the hall to the showers. Twenty minutes later, a completely different girl appeared, this one tired but more like her usual cheery self.
With Justin chivvying them along, they managed to get down to the restaurant for breakfast by nine o’clock. It was packed with swarms of crazy-looking, mostly humanoid, beings of all colors and sizes - all of whom wanted a big hearty country breakfast before they set off to conquer the human race and take over Planet Earth. The three humans from Pittsburgh had to bear with the slow service, however, since Daphne refused to leave the hotel until she got enough greasy breakfast in her to sop up all the leftover alcohol from her beer-drinking binge the night before.
By the time they were finished with breakfast and had gathered their bags to check out, the big UFO Fest Parade had already started. It was barely controlled chaos out on Main Street in front of the Hotel. There seemed to be just as many costumes on the people watching the parade from the sidelines as there were on the folks marching in the parade. The sidewalks were packed and it wasn’t easy for the three travelers to make it even the couple blocks away to the parking structure to get to their rental car. But, that was simple compared to trying to drive anywhere once they got in the car. Everyone was almost as grouchy as the hungover Daphne by the time they threaded their way through the festival traffic sufficiently enough to get out of downtown McMinnville.
“Finally!” Justin groused as they hit the highway, following the map to Yamhill proper and the first winery on their list.