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.