Day 14: Spokane, Washington

After two weeks on the road, I have a new appreciation for simple pleasures such as a day without driving! Not that the driving has been bad, to the contrary I've enjoyed it, and yet it was very relaxing to just hang around Spokane today and to be squired around by my cousin Dan. When we were growing up the Erbs were our closest cousins in age, geographically, and relationally. We remember always getting to be so completely rambunctious and silly when visiting each other that we would occasionally be "punished" by having to sit down on opposite sides of the room separating Erbs from Nichols, I suppose to give the adult's ears and nerves a rest. And even 40 years later, we still have an awful lot of fun together. In 1978 the Erbs moved from Michigan out to Spokane, so our times together have been fewer and more precious since then. I visited them once here in 1987 when my cousins Dan and Steve got married six days apart, but this has been my only other visit out here. So today Dan gave the kids, Mom, and me a blue ribbon tour of Spokane which is just a great American city. We went downtown today and rode the historic merry-go-round, rode gondola cars over the waterfall, toured the spectacular Davenport Hotel, had lunch at the Pita Pit (which is a GREAT place to eat!) and then saw the incredible city parks of Spokane--a whole series of ornate flower gardens: conservatory, rose garden, Japanese garden, fountains, perennials,wild flowers, etc. It was a gorgeous day and Spokane's park system look like the Garden of Eden! (Just a side note: we haven't seen a rain drop since we left New York, which leads me to ponder: "Why the heck do I live in NY again?!") We stopped for ice cream on the way home, the kids have had a lot of fun with Dan and Kathy's SIX kids. We came back to Uncle Dick and Aunt Kay's for enchiladas for dinner. Uncle Dick raises raspberries and picks 3-5 pounds of them per day! So we've been eating them by the handful, they are wonderful. It was a great day, and best of all, Dan and I never had to separated even once today! We've gotten to be so mature! Tomorrow we are going to see my other cousin, Steve and his four kids and the rumor is that he is grilling salmon for dinner at his place and that Aunt Kay is making pies - yum to both! Olga arrives at the Spokane airport late tomorrow night and then we depart for Oregon on Sunday morning.