Riverfront Park, Spokane, Washington

Sunday 10/7/2012

 

The next day we drove to the Browne's Addition of Spokane to have lunch at another of Guy Fieri's recommendations on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives.

The restaurant we went to is called the, "Elk Public House".

 

 

If you share a meal, they charge $1 or $2 extra. Joe and I like to share the meals because we do not know if they are going to be good, and don't want to get stuck with a lousy meal and a big bill, plus servings are too large anyway. To avoid the extra charge I order a cup of their soup of the day. So cute how they put their name in the soup.The soup was a lentil/ bean soup and was delicious.

Joe ordered the Ruben which was the featured dish. Neither one of us had any complaints. This Ruben was to die for. The potato salad was also superb. Most potato salads have a tang to them that we don't like and they leave out eggs. This potato salad was like how I make it at home. You will not be disappointed with this special feature of Guy Fieri at the Elk Public House. I just wish it wasn't so far away. Maybe it is a good thing it is so far away, I'd want to go there every week to have it.


 



A cute mural next to the Elk Public House.

 

After lunch we went to into Spokane to see the Spokane Falls. Joe didn't want to spend the money to ride the Skyride to see them because he said he saw a picture where you could see them from a bridge. The problem was that we didn't know where to go to do that. Joe had asked how to get to the falls at the Visitor Center and she gave us a map and circled the skyride. He should have asked how you saw them without doing the Skyride. I told him we were doing the Skyride because we didn't know where else to go.

All aboard the Skyride.
 

 

Once we got to the highest point, we could see that the Skyride was very short.

If we had just walked across the street and looked down we could have saved $15 and got some exercise to boot.

Sorry Joe, if you want to save money, get the specifics. I just didn't want to waste time wondering around trying to find it.We had a very full day planned and our we had paid for just 3 hours at the parking lot.

We saw the falls, but I am sure they are much better in the spring.

Joe pointed out the steer heads on the bridge above us.

 

The ride goes under this bridge and then back up. It is great for older people or children who can not handle all the stairs, but if you are able, heads up, the walkway is across the street from the parking lot for the Skyride.

After the Skyride, we wanted to walk around Spokane's Riverfront Park.

The park has the Spokane Sculpture Walk. This is the, "Runners in the Park Sculpture". These sculptures are also referred to as "The Joy of Running Together".

Spokane Riverfront Park walkway.

The Rotary Riverfront Fountain. I am sure this sculpture is very busy on a hot summer day.

Near the Rotary Riverfront Sculpture, we found this park map.

With the maps help, we found our way to the Upper Falls.

The Mountain Sheep Sculpture depicting it climbing the rocks near the river.

The Clock Tower that is in the center of the park.

We really couldn't figure out what this was in the park. It looked like some kind of auditorium with lights above it.

The Centennial Sculpture, an abstract aluminum sculpture that floats in the river.

View as we cross back over the river and then headed back toward our car. There were more sculptures if you continued up the river.

The Michael P. Anderson Memorial. At the base of the statue it says, " Keep The Dreams Alive" Micheal was a  Spokane resident that perished along with the six other heroes in the Columbia Space Shuttle Tragedy in 2003.

Spokane River

A concrete sculpture in the form of a large scale Japanese Lantern. The description says that this sculptured is untitled, but has it named (lantern) in parenthesis.

" The Childhood Expression". Note Joe in the picture to see the size of the sculpture.

This sculpture was a 1989 Centennial for the state of Washington and a gift to the Spokane children. The Red Wagon slide was closed for repairs that week.

Next to the slide we found the City Spokane Blocks.

Down from the Red wagon and City Blocks was a Riverfront park's 1909 Looff Carrousel.

 

$2 for a ride.

We went back to our car and changed our sunglasses to regular glasses, then walked across the street to the Riverfront Park Mall. Joe got bored very quickly so we didn't stay long.

Our next stop was at the Garden Food Co-op in Spokane. I could have spent hours in that store, but I got want I needed and headed out the door. Joe stays in the car to hurry me along. ( one reason I am glad when we get places where I can ditch my husband for a few hours - Like Cedar Rapids, IA and Golf Shores, AL- were we both feel comfortable driving alone on roads we know)

The day was waning and we had one more stop before headed back to Cheney, our present home. We missed a road and we ended up taking a much longer route to the Riverside State Park.

We scurried up the path as the the sun was setting. If we had more time, we would have hike down to the bridge and crossed it.

Joe looking for the "Pitcher and Bowl".

We think the tall rock is the Pitcher, and the shorter rock is the Bowl. We drove many miles to see this. I will blame it on Joe. He picked this out as something to see.

The Pitcher might be the one with the flat top. I googled it and some picture showed the rock with the flat top, and others show the other two rocks. I think you get a better view of them also when you cross the swinging bridge to the other side of the river.

Some Canadian geese flew over head as we stood at the upper point.

View down the river. I read that there are several trails on the other side of the bridge.

We followed the river road, then crossed it to get back to I-90.

We got beautiful sky views, as we drove on I-90.



 

 

Cheney, Waddell's Bar & Grill, and Green Bluff in Spokane

Friday 10/5/2012

Our first day in the Spokane area we drove to the town of Cheney. Our campground had a mailing address of Cheney, WA, but we were about 8 miles from the town. This was a view on the way to Cheney.

Cheney is 17 miles SW of Spokane, a small town of 10,000 people.

Cheney is the home of Eastern Washington University.
We found a Safeway in Cheney and then headed home.

Joe taking a picture of Mallery waiting outside the bathroom for me. Dog's are so faithful. They even follow you to the bathroom.

                                 Saturday 10/6/2012

The next day we drove 10 miles east to Spokane.

Spokane sits in the bottom of a bowl.

Our fist stop, was at their Saturday Farmers Market. We missed the regular farmers market that ran from 8AM to 1PM, so we went to the Public Market that runs Thursday, Friday, and Saturday from 10AM to 6PM. It's not the same as a regular market, but we did find some goat meat and cheese and some smoked salmon.

Then we headed to the suburb of Lincoln Heights in Spokane for a Diners, Drive- Ins and Dives Restaurant.

We had heard about Waddell's Neighborhood Bar and Grill, about a month before we arrived in Spokane, so we wrote the name down, knowing we would be there soon.

I liked their draft beer handle decoration.

It's a great sports bar. When you go to the bathroom, you can watch TV, even though I am not into sports.

We ordered what Guy Fieri had featured on his show.

It was the Reuben Burger. The burger was really good, the first few bites, but as you got to the center you didn't taste the Reuben part as much. My suggestion would be to make the burger small and add more of the special sauce. The fries were the worse fries I have ever had. They tasted like cardboard. We did have to wait a long time to get our sandwich, so maybe we hit a busy time and the fries got over cooked.

After lunch, we headed north of Spokane.

An area called Green Bluff is 15 miles north of Spokane in the foothills of Mt. Spokane. In 1902 an Growers Association was started to protect local strawberry growers from outside competition. Now there are 30 to 40 growers that are in a two loop drive on the bluff. Each farm/grower has their own hours of operation depending on the season and what they are growing.

Mrs Kalin's Barn had a gift shop in her garage, as well as some raspberries you could pick. She also had wine tasting for $1.

The next farm that we stopped at was Colca.

Colca is a Alpaca Ranch.

The ranch has around 100 alpaca's This little alpaca's was less than 24 hours old.

I was told by the owner that her husband had to pull it out during it's birth, and it was not doing well. Normally they get right up and start to nurse. When this little guy got up it was very wobbly.

This is the Colca Fashion Shop. The home had been turned into the shop that carried imported alpaca clothing and yarn.

The ranch is named Super Suris Alpacas. There was a wall of blue ribbons for their alpacas.

There were several other baby alpacas, but they were like a week old.

I have also toyed with raising a few alpacas if not goats on my someday farm!

 

The husband came out to bottle feed the newborn baby. He told me the mother was a new mother, and she was not being a very good mother. He said most mothers nudge their babies to nurse, but she was not doing that.



Once the alpaca drank some milk it got up on wobbly legs and went to it's mother.

On our loop drive we came to a very busy spot called the Harvest House, having their Harvest Festival.

A corn maze was at the back of the yard.

There were hay rack rides,

pony rides,

and you could pick pumpkins or apples if you wanted to.

There was a very long line for their annual famous pumpkin donuts. I always have to try whatever is famous, so I got in line for 1/2 dozen donuts. Yum!

The crowd was also entertained by a band.

They had candy apples, ice cream, and pies. In the store you could buy anything from wine, apple cider to squash or home made frozen pies. From spring to fall there are several festivals going on depending on what is growing in the season. I thought it was a great idea for growers, and local purchasers, beside fun for the kids. More towns need to start this kind of  association for growers.

It was getting close to five and the farms were closing up shop, so we headed down the bluff for home.
 We arrived in Cedar Rapids, IA today. We got in town just in time to set up before dark at Squaw Creek Campground. We will see our mom's tomorrow since we were both tired from the 268 mile drive today.