We concluded our 12 days in Spokane last Tuesday, a near two weeks of wine bars and breweries, visiting Coeur d’Alene niece Gaby Buch and her visiting mom, Nancy’s sister Sandy Polichene (that’s her in the other Adirondack chair above), and hanging out in the sometimes sketchy Gonzaga University-adjacent Logan neighborhood, a block west of Hamilton. It’s one of Spokane’s oldest neighborhoods with plenty of gorgeous tree-lined streets and early 20th century architectural style homes. Though I'd lodged in Spokane for work more than a hundred times over my career, I hadn't truly explored the area like we'd have a chance to over our 12 days there.

Our chosen AirBnB was almost perfect, the ground floor of a refurbished Tudor Craftsman home. As recently-frequent guest lodgers we were gobsmacked at the host’s above-and-beyond generosity in both gift snacks and refreshments, but more so the robustly furnished kitchen and bathroom. We’ve become inured to the often inadequately sparse provisions in some lodging - one spoon?, you’ve got to be kidding! - but this place completely flipped that script. (Though we could never quite figure out the multi-family 3-deep 5th-wheel RVs situation going on in the backyard. A head scratcher for sure.)

We arrived in Spokane on a Thursday and spent the full weekend commuting to gorgeous Coeur d’Alene for family fun, though somewhat restricted by temps in the low 90s and wildfire smoke in the air. Though regularly tourist-swamped, CdA is a pretty welcoming town. After coffee and treats at must-visit Doma Coffee, we walked along the beautiful Spokane River, admiring both the varied watercraft cruising by, but also the craveable trailside/riverside townhomes. (Perhaps when our summer season nomad travels diminish and we look to resettle?)

The FIFA World Cup consolation and final matches were played that weekend. We watched the Saturday game at the warmly cavernous Vantage Point Brewing. Fantastic place. We hadn’t expected to spend 5 hours there, but with the 2-hour game delay, plans shifted. And we didn’t mind a bit! Excellent eats and satisfying beers - we went through all on tap via sampler flights. Superstar Alexandra graciously served us the entire time. Thank you. And it was a great FIFA match, too!!!

And a crazy mention: we met a guy in the parking lot on his 15th month of driving his teal blue Tesla Cybertruck around the USofA. (Cybertrucks - talk about love/hate! Conceptually - yeah. Aesthetically - WTF!!). After a few minutes talking about Tesla autopilot, he confessed to nodding off in Atlanta stop-and-go traffic and waking up 45-minutes later 10 miles outside of town, going 70mph. Yikes!

On Sunday we watched the not so great World Cup finale between Argentina and champion Spain. We were rooting for the white-and sky blue La Albiceleste, on behalf of our Baja Sur compadres Eloy and Tuku, but alas, the team played muy mal. España, on the other hand. Gave up one goal the entire WC?! Wowza!! We watched at Capones Pub, the self-proclaimed Best Sports Bar in North Idaho. I think I counted 15 televisions, but unfortunately the one directly in front of us would blink off for a second every 2 minutes or so. Luckily, there were smaller TVs a slight head shift away, but when the black outs happened at those critical Argentina shots on goal . . . yeah, I know, they only had one of those the whole bloody match. At least the grub was decent!

We also experienced exceptional happy hour food and drink at Twig’s Bistro, and non-HH dining at Sweet Lou’s. We lunched at Honey Eatery and Social Club, beered at The Buoy, and wined at the Wine House (nice spot - with new ownership. A place we’d frequent, no doubt). My favorite beers we found at Chalice - both their own and some guest taps - and they have an ear-pleasing library of vinyl for customer selection. And we found the first of the five Moose & Mouse statues making up the Mudgy & Millie Trail.

Sandy spent that second weekend with us in Spokane and we spent a good chunk of it brewery-crawling, with thirst-quenching stops at No-Li, Lumberbeard, Perry Street (quaintly awesome little neighborhood!), the new Salt King, Bellwether (discovered Rosita’s Cuban sandwich food truck here - best since BFF Graeme Lockwood’s Sandwich King Cuban 25 years ago), Whistle Punk, Community Pint taphouse (wish we’d known about this hot spot sooner!), Big Barn up north in Greenbluff (and another excuse for a Rosita’s Cuban), Hat Trick, Uprise (a fabulous favorite), and Humble Abode. Oh, and we did the Spokane Farmer’s Market on Saturday. It’s a good one! Plenty of fantastic produce - we bought fruit!

We also met up with great friends Matt & Lisa Minton - now Phoenix residents, but in town seeing Matt’s folks in Liberty Lake - at Snow Eater Brewing.  Loved seeing them even more than we loved the beer and food. But it was close!

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Oh, and then there’s The Boys’ trip.

I abandoned Nancy for 3 days to rendezvous with buddies Matt, Eric, and Stan at the latter’s brilliantly rustic A-frame cabin on the Chiwawa River, north of Plain near Leavenworth - a twice yearly guy’s gathering we’ve been somewhat successful pulling off for the last couple of decades. I met Stan and Eric in college 50 years ago, and Matt 25 ago at the Pine Lake Ale House. Birds of a feather, no doubt. Stan grilled gorgeous steaks Wednesday night, enjoyed with bottles of red, and we stayed up till past midnight, outside under the slightly smoke-masked stars, warming ourselves by a propane firepit (wood fires banned, of course), sipping pricey bourbon, smoking not quite as pricey non-Cuban cigars, and listening to individually curated playlists of some favorite albums. Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions, Bob Dylan’s The Rolling Thunder Revue - Live 1975, Donald Fagen’s The Nightfly (post-Steely Dan), Joni Mitchell’s Hejira, Allman Brothers Eat a Peach, Bill Withers Just As I Am, and I think we had some Finn Brothers/Crowded House thrown in there, too.