We left the wheat fields of Wilbur and headed further east to Spokane. Our actual campground was in Mead, a few miles from north Spokane. The campground was very nice - paved sites with brick patios. We ventured into Spokane after supper, and headed for a mall I'd seen on our way through town so I could go to Penney's and hopefully get a haircut. Success!
Our first venture into sightseeing was actually on Sunday when we went into downtown to visit the Riverfront Park, site of the 1974 World's Fair. The idea started in the late 1960's when 17 acres of railroad land along the Spokane River was acquired. The construction on Expo '74 began in 1972 with the construction of the largest building, the $11,500,000 US Pavilion which now houses an IMAX theater. The expo focused on the environment, and Spokane was the smallest city to host an international exposition. As you walk through the park, there are plaques indicating where the various countries had built their pavilions. The park is beautiful and has walking/bike paths throughout. We rode the gondolas over the Spokane River Falls and then decided to walk the park. The flowers and sculptures are beautiful! Two of my favorites are the "garbage goat" who will eat your paper garbage (cups, straws, etc.), and the Big Red Wagon which has a slide as the tongue. We enjoyed the Looff Carousel (built in 1904-07 as a wedding gift for his daughter). After walking the majority of the park, we took a trolley tour but the audio was so poor we could not hear what the gentleman was telling us. After 3 1/2 hours, we left the park. Our next stop was the Visitor's Center where a charming lady gave us TONS of brochures on things to see in Spokane and also in Idaho.
Monday found us at Gonzaga University looking for the boyhood home of Bing Crosby. Not only did we go into his home, we also went to the library building he built on campus (now the Student Center) and visited the Crosby Room inside. Jack took my picture by the bronze statue of Bing which sits in front of Crosby Hall. We also visited the St. Aloysius church which was next to the Admin building.
It was still early, so we drove north to a tractor museum in Deer Creek. It's called "the Red Shed" and the owners farm and have their collection of goodies in one of their machine sheds. The owner has the largest historical collection of Ironstone dishes in the northwest. Besides the tractors, there was also a 1950's kitchen, 1940's bedroom, a 1920's kitchen and a Queen Victoria area. There was also an extensive collection of antique and horse drawn equipment. It was the perfect museum -- Jack and the owner talked farming while I poked around the female interests.
Tuesday we drove to Manito Park, a 90 acre facility (FREE) with 5 distinct gardens: the lilac garden, which because of the time of the year is not blooming; the Rose Hill which we could see from the fence, but because of fertilizing and spraying were unable to go in; the quiet Nishinomaya Tsutakawa Japanese Garden, the Perennial Garden and my favorite of them all, the formal English Duncan Garden which had two fountains, a gazebo and beautiful flowers. The park also has a small outdoor restaurant where we enjoyed lunch and rested in the shade of the trees.
August 15 we stayed in camp to take care of housekeeping chores and make reservations for our next campgrounds in Idaho. August 16 was a travel day into Couer d'Alene, Idaho about 50 miles from our Mead campground.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment