May 26

Today is our last day here at the Haymoon Resort. We have really enjoyed our stay, and had some wonderful times. We're going to pack, then head out to Kalispel for a few hours. We're staying in Spokane tonight, then going over to Coeur d'Alene to visit Aunt Virgie Lee and Uncle Harry. Kat, Mom, and Mike are going to join us after taking Pattie to the airport. She has an early afternoon flight.

Mom and Pattie are already planning a Yellowstone adventure two years from now. I can hardly wait. Honestly, no irony.

We spent a couple of hours in Kalispel, running into the rest of the clan a couple of times. It's a very small town and we have a large family. We got on the road about 2 p.m. The drive over to St. Regis really is beautiful. We drove up a couple of mountain valleys - some pretty lonesome places that were a bright, spring green. The weather was cloudy with very intermittent showers, and the sun playing across the rain squalls made the scenery even more beautiful. I can imagine myself in this type of landscape, although I'm probably a city boy through and through by now. I don't know if I could shake 23 years of creature comforts, but I can imagine myself in the midst of this landscape.

We stopped in St. Regis for a rest stop. Grace got her huckleberry shake, at last. Back on I-90, I became concerned that I didn't have directions to the Doubletree Inn in Spokane, thus began our quest for vistor information. In this day of cell phones, yellow pages are difficult to come by. We first stopped at a visitor center outside Coeur d'Alene, but the center was closed. Next we tried Stateline, but got on the wrong exit; well, it was a mess. The next exit took me down a road going the wrong way. I feel naked in situations like that. Of course, I was now completely frazzled. Finally, we found a visitor center in a West Spokane Valley mall (the direction signs are tiny blue markers, hard to see from the car). Of course, once inside the center, we couldn't find any hotel information.

This is when Ron took control. First he located the public phones in the mall. They didn't have phone books (why would you need phone books, anyway?). Next, he walked over to a laser cosmetic skin care boutique and inquired if the shop had a yellow pages. The two young women in the shop were extremely helpful. They knew exactly where the hotel was, and gave us very good directions. We got to the hotel a half hour later, checked in, then set out for dinner.

So the next time you are in Spokane, Washington, I suggest you eat in the Italian Kitchen. The food is very good. Ron even got some veggies with his dinner. He was happy. Grace had a seafood dish, and I had scampi with a tasty risotto. I realize that seafood in the Inland Empire may seem a little weird, but I'm sure they caught it all off a dock in the Spokane River, fresh, daily. I'm sure of it. Great food. Check it out.