I recently had a business trip to Oregon. Our first stop was Salem, the state capitol. I was visiting a pear cannery but got to town early enough to visit the capitol building. It has a very pretty rotunda and an intriguing golden lumberjack gracing the outdoors top of the rotunda. I’ve never seen a similar top on a capitol.

After visiting the pear cannery, which was housed in an ancient looking building and even has a building that is listed on the National Registry of Historical Buildings, we drove back to Portland. I had made reservations at a McMenamins lodging called the Kennedy School. Originally an elementary school built in the early 1900’s and taken out of use in the ’70s, the building has been turned into a site with guestrooms/ restaurant/ bars/brewery/meeting rooms/ theater and performance center.

The guestrooms used to be classrooms, and still have the old chalkboards on the wall. We stayed in Miss Kinney’s room:

The room had high ceilings, lots of chalkboards, and a comfortable bed. Of course, I had to write my name on the chalkboard as soon as we arrived.

The hallways were wide and covered with original artwork and historical photographs. We had dinner and breakfast at the restaurant (which used to be the cafeteria although I couldn’t see many signs remaining of its former life except the tall windows looking into an enclosed courtyard).

I especially enjoyed the soaking pool, with relaxation stops both in the evening and the following morning.

After dinner, we spent a while in the former gym, listening to live music, then ambled down to the theater, where we munched on popcorn and lounged on large sofas while watching a movie. The movie, District 9, a fantasy film, wasn’t very good in my view, so we didn’t stay for all of it, but it was still fun to be able to leave the theater and just walk down the school hallway back to our room. No need to leave the building, except it was in a quiet residential neighborhood and was a good area for walking. All in all, a great place to spend the night.