neal family adventures: Spokane, childhood home of Dan Neal and the garbage eating goat

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Spokane, childhood home of Dan Neal and the garbage eating goat

The trip to Spokane was a long one. As I noted in the last post we spent longer than anticipated in Seattle at the Space Needle. We didn't know if we'd make it all the way to Spokane or not so we picked up a hotel discount book at the rest stop of the unwashed (if you've been to Washington State you know why it is called that — it even came with literature about GMOs and how water fluoridation is bad for you).

The original schedule had us camping the night at the Ginkgo Petrified Forest in Washington. We had mostly scrapped that idea when a google search told us the park was closed due to dam damage and flood danger. When we got to the park, we were all glad we'd chosen to skip camping. We got there after business hours so the park office was closed and the landscape and the park was deserted. It was much more desert than the Grand Canyon in my mind. Rocks, sand and very few plants. Also a rattle snake warning which freaked Lea out. The petrified wood however was beautiful, rick with color and amazing formations. We walked around the park area, reading plaques, taking pictures and eating cherries (if in 10 years a cherry orchard unexplainably grows in the area you'll know who to blame!). There was a small site of petroglyphs (I'll let Dan explain those in a video, btw its funny!). We took our cherry stained faces down the road. There were not a lot of stops so yelp was no help (it listed a lot of closed restaurants) and we ate at the first stop we found that was open Ritz Roadhouse in Ritzville, WA — worst meal of the trip. We did have poutine (french fries with gravy and cheese), it being Canada Day and all, but over all the service was terrible and the food was almost inedible.

For the majority of the trip through Washington, Lea read aloud all the amenities and prices of hotels in each city in Washington. We learned that Spokane hotels mostly offer warm cookies in the evening (better in theory than in practice — we just got cold cookies at the desk, but perhaps they were fresh and warm earlier). Lea stumbled upon a hotel with a 24 hour pool! Since we wouldn't get to Spokane until about 11pm this was perfect. Lea had fallen asleep in the car and as we unpacked said "I'm too tired to swim." That was until she smelled the chlorine as we passed the pool on our way to the elevator. "As soon as the smell of chlorine hit my nose I was wide awake and ready to swim." So yes we swam at midnight in Spokane with Canadians — we met a family who comes down just for the hotel with a 24 hour pool.

After a quick night's sleep and a hotel breakfast we were off to find all Spokane had to offer. Lea's detour was: Little Red Wagon or Giant Red Wagon. Lea chose Little Red Wagon which was seeing where Daddy grew up. We headed Northeast to find "the house on Eighth." Many stories have had to do with "the house on Eighth" so we were all thrilled when Dan found it. The house was there, though there were more houses and a fence between it and the school. Dan used to be able to walk from his backyard to school and play in an open field with the boy down the street. He talked of watching his dad build a playground (that was no longer there) for the school and riding down a ramp in the cafeteria on a 4 wheel dolly while his dad worked on PTA projects. Lots of stories and memories. We walked around Adam's Elementary and found they were having summer school so we wandered in and talked to an administrator who walked with us down the hall (I'm sure she thought we were wierdos, but she did a good job of humoring us and keeping an eye on us to make sure we weren't trouble makers).

From there we wandered around a bit and found the next house (Dan wasn't as sure about that one until we got close and then it all came back). Big pine trees that he climbed in the back yard and a visit to McDonald Elementary. We didn't do much but take pictures there. We drove by the junior high and we didn't even get out of the car there. We stopped for gas and groceries (another Fred Meyer's, but I was prepared this time and kept the distractions to a minimum, but we did get more fresh cherries).

About noon we headed to Riverfront park, the main attraction in Spokane. They have all kinds of exciting stuff in the park. We ate at a cafe where we could watch Lea play in the three story high water feature/fountain. She enjoyed splashing around, but possibly enjoyed the sno cone more. We all took a ride on the Looff Carrousel from 1909. Lea rode twice and tried to grab the brass ring, but couldn't quite reach. We then headed for the sculpture garden with the garbage eating goat (it vacuumed up any trash you fed it — created by a nun who was bothered by litter for the 1976 expo which Dan remembers attending). Then finally the Big Red Wagon with a slide and monkey bars.
We wrapped up our day in Spokane at a crazy little shop (it was no Peculiarium, but fun) and got a few trinkets like an arrow ipad stylus (because Grandpa Ron had a stylus). We passed up the solar powered waving queen like Lorrie had and the wood grain post it notes. We were off to Jellystone!