Is Spokane A Happening Town??
We went to church at Clinton Presbyterian in Clinton, New Jersey with my daughter and her fam yesterday. The pastor there, Tim Harrison, had his previous pastoring gig in Spokane, Washington. He loved it. Painted a picture of a very cool medium-sized town, reasonable real estate prices, backed up against the Rocky Mountains out by the Idaho border so lots of outdoor activities, and he suggested we look around out there. I checked at Realtor.com and indeed you can get a lot of house for $150K - much less than on either coast.
So I'm pondering paying a visit there on our way west, even though it would mean a big swoop up through Wyoming and Idaho and add a lot of miles to our emigration activities.
Would the change in route be worth it? Anybody been up there in the last few years? I'd love to hear your take on the town.
Labels: Across America
posted by Christopher Newton at 6:05 AM
6 Comments:
This is not personal knowledge, but my distant cousin and her husband moved to the greater Spokane area after living in Amsterdam for many years where the cousin was an employee of the U.S. Embassy.
They have West Coast roots, but perhaps it's notable that they chose Spokane as a retirement home out of that entire part of the nation.
In the early 50's I spent a couple of years in the Spokane area. It was during the Korean Conflict. My California Air National Guard Unit had been ordered to active duty as part of the Western Air Defense Force.
Aside from my duty assignment with the Air Force Police, I recall Spokane itself was an open-armed friendly small city.
The summers were nice. The winters were snow and ice, but, strangely enough, not overly cold. The humidity, I recall, was dry; so when the temperature was at freezing or a little below it didn't seem much different to me than during a cool evening walk in SF when the heavy July fog was rolling down Geary Street.
Hmmm. Very interesting. Thanks, Genevieve and Gary. We will have to ponder this as we travel along.
Spokane seemed nice when I was through there many moons ago. Me and some buddies were going for Seattle and stopped in Spokane for 2 days while our purple Dodge van was being repaired. I recall pizza at a little mom and pop place called, I believe, Donatelli's. It was our last restaurant meal for the trip. We stayed camping near Ft. Spokane, near the Grand Coulee Dam, for about a week.
People were, as Gary said, friendly. It was much better than what we'd encountered driving back roads through Idaho. I guess a bunch of long hairs in a purple van in 1975 was still a little bit of a stretch for some people.
Check out the wikipedia entry on Spokane - I wrote some of it. I'm a Spokane native and currently serving in the military in Iraq. I love Spokane and now is the time to be there - it's about to hit boom-town status again.
Thanks for the tip, Jon. I'll check it out. Actually, as of today (July 21), Patrushka and I are in Spokane and like it a lot - in spite of the unseasonable heat wave. It's supposed to hit 103 tomorrow.
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