Wanderings in Spokane

I'm catching up...this was LAST Saturday. I had some things on my mind, so I decided to go for a walk. (Some people meditate, some do yoga, I like to walk. I think it puts me in the same semi-hypnotic state that people get from meditating, and when I'm done walking, it seems like all my problems are solved!) I took my camera along, so this blog post mostly just has disjointed pictures and commentary from that stroll.

I had a destination in mind at the beginning. In Spokane, there used to be a famous and beautiful park called Natatorium Park. There was a large heated pool, an amusement park with a few roller coasters and other rides, a baseball park, and extensive outdoor gardens for picnicking. It opened back in the 1880s and stayed open through the 1960s. Since moving to Spokane I've run across countless references to Natatorium Park, along with sepia-toned pictures of men in full suits and women in their big hats picnicking at the park. Again and again I read about the beautiful location, and how people thought the gardens were the prettiest they'd ever seen. I decided to head over to the old site of the park to see if anything was left.

Here's Natatorium Park today. An old trailer park. It's still a very beautiful location, so I guess I should be glad it's not a gated housing development for rich people.

This is the view of the river near the trailer park.

One of the things I LOVE about this city is that you can be walking along with no particular destination in mind, and then suddenly there will be a bike path that leads somewhere really cool: to the top of a bluff, along a stream, through a wooded area right in the middle of town, etc. In this case, I followed a bike path down to the river where it intersected with half a dozen other bike paths going different directions.

Here are some rafters enjoying the beautiful day. Both of these pictures were taken at the same location, which shows how close we were to downtown. I love the fact that some of the prettiest places in Spokane are still undeveloped. Eventually somebody's going to come along and decide this would be a wonderful place for a Wal-Mart, but for now, we can enjoy it.

A sign by the river. Kind of made me not want to get any closer.

Graffiti on a bench near downtown. It made me wonder who Kyle is and why his dad needs to write to him on a bench. (Mental note: Call Mom and Dad and tell them that I love them!)