Spokane, WA – June 2019
Andrew and I have always loved to visit what we call “secondary cities”. These are basically the hidden gems that nobody considers a ‘tourist destination’, and Spokane falls right into that category. It’s the perfect blend of interesting things to do without overcrowding and high prices. Our group of college friends tries to get together at least once a year. Normally we rotate among the various homes (Dallas, Houston, Albuquerque, and of course Kansas City), but this year we wanted to change it up and go somewhere new. Spokane, with its gorgeous trails, cooler weather, plentiful breweries/wineries/cider mills, decent size downtown, and the ever important airport was the perfect location for us.
This year, we had 3 couples in attendance (so 6 people: Jaimee, Eric, Kelsey, Curtis, and of course Andrew and I). We decided to stay in a three bedroom AirB&B (Ginger’s place) in north Spokane. The lodging was perfect, because it allowed us to have a place to chill (watch a few Soccer World Cup games) and gave us each some personal space. It also came equipped with breakfast and candy bowls! That was a nice touch since you don’t usually get that at an AirB&B.
Day 1: Thursday, June 6, 2019
J, E, A, & A arrived really late Wednesday night, so after some brief catching up we fell asleep pretty fast. With how the planning had worked out, the 4 of us were car-less until the others arrived around lunch time. Rather than waste the morning we decided to wander around. Looking at the map, there was a “scenic view” less than a mile away, so we decided to head that way. The map was not wrong, it turned out to be an amazing view of the Spokane River at the bottom of a gorge. After taking too many pictures we then decided to just follow the trail along the bluffs.
After a few hours of wandering, the final 2 of our group, K & C arrived in Spokane (rocking a sweet brand new rental minivan). We all met up for lunch at the Flying Goat. The thin crust pizza and draft pours of local beers was exactly what we needed to get this trip started. It was also the first of many times we got the “why are you here?” question as our server checked our TX and MO IDs. While the locals may not realize how great their home city is, I was truly impressed and would definitely go back!
After lunch we decided to do the Bowl and Pitcher hike at the Riverside Park. This was a super cute, simple, yet poorly marked hike just outside of town. It seemed to be a local favorite with all sorts of spur trails allowing you to make the trail whatever length you want (which for us meant 3.25 miles). I do wish they would have had a sign telling me what was supposed to be the namesake “bowl and pitcher”. I think we found it, but I guess I’ll never get that confirmation. (Note: you do need a park pass for this hike, but you can buy it right at the parking lot)
After showering we made our way downtown to taste some wines at Helix Winery. None of us are knowledgeable on wines, but that doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy tasting it! It was nice to sample all sorts of wines with grapes from the general area. After filling up on wine we ended our evening with beers and pub food at the Onion Bar and Grill.
Day 2: Friday, June 7, 2019
International Donut Day
Friday was international donut day, so of course we had to go check out a local favorite, Hello Sugar. Hello Sugar specializes in miniature artisan donuts, so rather than order by the donut, you order by the dozen. Being the ‘holiday’ that it was, the wait was over an hour, but the weather was pretty nice, the company was great, and the donuts were amazing and on sale so we weren’t too upset. After satisfying our sweet tooths, we made our way to the Spokane Falls. The falls are located just off of downtown, and they are enormous. The whole area was split into like 3 parks – including an island named Canada Island. There was the lower falls and the upper falls and probably the middle falls too. Needless to say, we spent plenty of time walking the length of the riverfront and taking pictures. It’s so cool that Spokane has such an amazing geological feature right on their doorstep! They were renovating parts of the area while we were there, so we couldn’t walk a full loop like you will one day, but it was still really cool.
After a quick lunch downtown we decided to see if we could drive to the top of Mount Spokane – we could not. Apparently it gets cold and snows a lot in those northern states, and June isn’t late enough in the season for them to have the roads cleared for traffic. Alas we got a pretty okay view from part way up the mountain so that’s something.
^^Photo credit to Eric and Kelsey on several of these and other pics throughout this post
Being the first Friday of the month, we made our way back downtown for Spokane’s “First Friday”. The event is supposed to promote local art and just be a fun way to encourage people to come downtown. The event didn’t start until 5 and we had some time to kill, so we decided to check out a local cidery. We went to One Tree Cider house, and enjoyed flights from their extensive menu and had our hand at Oregon Trail the board game – apparently you can get a LOT further in the game with more people playing – what a concept (you win the game if at least one person makes it to Oregon). The cidery was great, Spokane’s first Friday however was a little disappointing – I guess Kansas City’s First Friday is just too good that my expectations were too high. The spaces were spread out pretty far so it wasn’t the most walker friendly. The first art space we stumbled into was too heavy and full of emotions for us. The 2nd space however, Ben Joyce Studios, was really cool. His main shtick was cutting wood plank and filling the spaces with colored epoxy to create a bird’s eye view of iconic (and local) bodies of water. We even got to meet Ben and talk to him for a bit! Sadly, his work is way out of our price ranges.
After the 2 art stops we were ready for some wine, so we walked a few blocks over to the closest “First Friday” wine venue, Barili Cellars for a wine tasting. This was a real treat because it’s more of a mom and pop shop, and the “mom and pop” were there serving the tastings! Russ, the owner, even took us on a tour of their cellar. And going a step beyond, let us try some wine straight from the barrel! (Now, none of our group is a wine connoisseur, so the barrel wine just tasted like regular wine to us, but Russ said it tasted “green” – basically it wasn’t done, but still really cool experience!).
Day 3: Saturday, June 8, 2019
National Get Outdoors Day
Saturday was our main hike day. Andrew had picked out a 6.8 mile hike known as the Rocks of Sharon. The hike was amazing. It had trees, it had views, it had large rocks, it had friendly critters, it even had moose droppings – you know, all the things that make a hike worth your time. There’s not much else to say, so I’ll le tthe pictures speak for themselves.
After the hike we were all pretty much exhausted, so we made a pit stop for ice cream before heading back to the air B&B and watching some soccer world cup games on TV. We ended our friendiversary with takeout Thai food and ping pong. All in all a very good mini vacation!
Day 4 & 5: Sunday, June 9-10, 2019
Seattle, WA
Well, we weren’t quite ready to head back to the Midwest, so we hitched a ride with C&K back to Seattle in the am (they flew out of Seattle instead of Spokane). Our friends had some time to kill before their flight home, so we all hung out for a bit. Andrew’s brother, Patrick, lives in downtown Seattle, so us being in Washington was a perfect excuse to go visit him. All of us had already been to Seattle before so we basically let him take us to the cool places. We got some Hawaiin Korean fushion from Marination and ate in the park, where we happened to stumble across an open house for a 1+ bed apartment on Capitol Hill – which of course we had to check out. Seeing that place really helped me appreciate the Midwest cost of living. After wandering a little bit more, and a quick look through an old theater rummage sale, we made our way to our first Seattle tourist destination, the Starbuck’s Reserve Roastery. This was really cool, and as one would expect, overpriced for what it is. At this point, our friends headed off to the airport, and we made our way to the Amazon Headquarters. We went into the first floor of the bubbles (but the greenhouse upstairs area is employees and guests only). I wanted to try out the gimmicky ‘just walk out store’ and I did, so that was cool – check. Not wanting to go back to Patrick’s ‘shoebox’ apartment we made our way down to the Pike’s Place Market, looked at the bay, explored the purple store, saw the first Starbuck’s, and it’s associated line, went past the cheesemakers, and stopped to browse at a fun soap shop. We ended our day with dinner and cupcakes before making our way back to Patrick’s place where we crashed (Not Patrick though, he had energy to spare and went out to a concert before calling it a day).
We didn’t have to be at the airport until 1ish on Monday, so after a delicious (but a little slow) breakfast at Ben Paris we caught the monorail out to the Seattle center (the bus would have been cheaper, but we were short on time, and on vacation, so the slight up charge was justified). We saw the space needle from the ground and explored the area. I am too cheap to pay $40 a person to go to the top, but the view from the park is still pretty cool. It was great getting to see some family and adding a little tourism into the mix while we were at it!
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