This past week we were able to take a family trip to Spokane. Chad was asked to go to a conference down there for work. It's not a place we had ever thought about going to. It was so unexpected and last minute and the kids wound up missing almost a week of school, but I'm so glad we decided to all go. It turned out to be a blast. It was one of the prettiest places I've been. The drive was mostly through the mountains in BC and then through a really pretty area of Idaho. We were in Salt Lake a couple years ago and the drive through Idaho to get there is nothing spectacular, in my opinion. Just some weird brush in the ditches. Here there were beautiful golden fields with huge trees lining the road. Huge lakes with cool bridges and Spokane was even better. We stayed downtown at the Red Lion Hotel. It was probably the most amazing hotel we've ever stayed in and the kids were so sad to leave it. They had two swimming pools. An outdoor one and an indoor one.
It just seemed so amazing that we were actually able to still use the outdoor one at this time of year. I guess we had nice weather here while we were gone, but that usually is not the case. Anyways, all we had to do was walk out the back of the hotel and cross a bridge and we were at this huge park with walking trails leading to various spots in the downtown--shopping, a huge wagon made into a slide, a 100-year-old carousel and a gondola ride. The gondola ride was a bit disappointing, but the kids loved the wagon and the carousel. There was also a fountain that they played in a couple times.
We decided to stay an extra night and that was awesome as it allowed us the time to find some of the orchards down there that allow you to come and pick your own fruit. We wound up going to only one, but I loved it. The kids went through a little corn maze there, then we shopped at a little store that had some really fun stuff and then we picked some apples.
We didn't get too many as we weren't sure what we could bring back over the border, but it turned out that they didn't ask, so I guess we should have found some peaches and other stuff. Oh well, we'll sure enjoy these delicious apples. The kids have decided they will not eat any other apple! I think it would be so awesome to live there and have some of this beautiful land. I don't know that I would want all the work that comes with such a huge orchard, but I figure if we had a couple apple, peach, pear and cherry trees we could eat all we wanted fresh and then put away enough to enjoy all winter too! Oh, of course we would need some raspberries and strawberries, but seriously we'd be all set.
On our way back from the orchard we found this zoo called Cat Tales. It wasn't very big, but it was very neat. They had a couple bears and cougars, a lion and a baby lynx and tigers. We seriously were so close. It was so cool. Ella even fed a tiger. That was definitely a highlight!
It was such a fun trip and I'm so glad we were given the opportunity to go! There will be a future post reviewing all the delicious pizza we ate there. Maybe I will make Chad do that though.
- H
2 comments:
Sweet! What a fun holiday. Sure looks like you had a ton of fun. Nothing like feeling like it's "summer holidays, weather and all" again!!!!
Wow you guys that looks AWESOME! I'm pretty sure you could have brought any fruit back. Canada is way more tolerant:)))
How fun for the kids!
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