Le Trip: A Summary

So we're back and we've managed to survive Spokane.

Day 1
We left around 10am and drove and drove and drove. The border guard asked, 'What's in Spokane that you can't get in Canada?'...ummmmm A LOT. There's a Macy's, a Nordstrom's, Williams Sonoma, etc, etc, etc. Geez! Our first stop was in Mt. Si for some lunch at a Blimpies (a pretty simple sandwich place, but it was clean and it passed the test). And back on the road again, not stopping until we made it to Spokane around 5-ish. It was interesting driving through Washington, I never thought it would have areas like this:

And there are a lot of farms once you get closer to Spokane. At one part they post the names of the crops growing for 14 miles, which was really neat to see. We drove by huge fields of peas, sweet corn, alfafa, wheat, potatoes and seed. Very cool!

Once we made it into Spokane we crashed in the hotel room for half an hour (me complaining of a slight funky smell, then trying to open the window and it being painted shut) -- not to mention a crappy view of an alley.

We left and walked across the river to have dinner at a place called Clinkerdagger's. One word for that restaurant: BUTTER. It was like a haunted mansion with old school heavy 70s food. Heavy sauces, bread slathered with heaps of butter and garlic, caesar salads with soggy dressing...the list goes on. We had the prime rib which wasn't too bad, but even the veggies were sauteed in butter. There was no escaping it! Our arteries were close to closing up by the time we left. At least we went for a walk around...more like rolling ourselves around!

Giant wagon
We came back to the room and found that the funky smell had become more funky (combination of fish and chlorine...blegh!) and the room also seemed more stuffy. So I called down to the front desk and we were upgraded to a king room (a HUGE king room!), and the funky smell was left behind. Our new room was great, with two windows and a view of the street. Much nicer!

Day 2
We got up fairly early so we didn't miss the breakfast down in the lobby/restaurant that ended at 9am. Then we were off to Silverwood, the northwest's largest theme park. It has 65 rides (3 of them rollercoasters). 2 of the rollercoasters are wooden ones, so you get the extra added freaky-ness of the clacking and the squeaks. One of them went 65mph and scared the crap out of me, it even had this sign to prove it:

We got most of the 'barfy' rides out of the way before lunch, which was a smart idea. One menu was just strange:Beefy? Hmmmm...

We also found a gigantic claw game! (No we did not play!)

We went on the antique cars (kind of like Autopia in Disneyland), Trevor drove. I passengered.

After the theme park we hit a Target store, yippee! This was the most interesting part of the day as there was a massive accident in the Target parking lot (say it's not so...the bargains make the peeps go crazy!). Some guy got his reverse and forward and his gas pedal all mixed up and he ended up taking out 6 cars! It was a huge mess, with windows blown out and big dents. No one was hurt though when we left there was still one car left...they were waiting for the person to return to their car...nice surprise there!

We did find one funny thing in the Target:
Corporate Kitty

We drove back to Spokane and had some dinner at a BBQ place that had really great reviews for it's BBQ and fried chicken. It was a very 'down south' sort of place, but sooooo gooooood. Best. Chicken. Ever.


Day 3
The next day we did some shopping around downtown and hit some neat stores (but there's really not all that much in the downtown, it's a bit small), then we had dinner at P.F. Chang's (SO GOOD). We shared garlic noodles (*drool*), beef and broccoli (*drool x 2*), and mu shu pork (so-so). They even gave us a choice of white or brown rice which was cool, brown rice all the way! We then caught Oceans 13 at the movie theatre and called it a night.

Ugly dolls at a neat store
Retro parkade!

Day 4
Back on the road again and back home!