Spokane & Coeur d'Alene

On the laundry list of poor decisions and extreme planning was driving out to Spokane to grab Gina and hang out with Lauren for a day then turn right around to go back to Seattle. And that's exactly what we did. 

Lauren was driving from Colorado back to Spokane for school. THAT is one long haul, especially on your own. Gina's summer was beginning to wind down with school starting for her in a few weeks, so she decided to tag a long on the road trip and give Lauren some company. I wasn't about to have my sister and best friend hang out without me, and I made the trek across the state to meet up with them. Plus, Gina needed a way to get to Seattle, it all somehow worked out. 

I worked all Saturday morning and made the drive to Spokane that afternoon. Lemme tell ya, when you're driving on your own, you start to think about all sorts of stuff. Life gets REAL. After a brief existential crisis, a whole lot of bad singing, and griping about how weird the streets are in Spokane, I rolled up to Lauren's house where they had begun to make dinner. 

Everyone was clearly tired from driving and I moved my bags from the car into the house. At dinner we recounted all of the exciting stories from the last few days. Gina and Lauren told me about all of the road kill they saw, how desolate Eastern Oregon is, and the FUNNIEST story about them floating the river in Bosie, Idaho. Those two knuckleheads spent a day in Bosie with Lauren's roommate Evanann. The three of them wanted to embrace summer and float down the river. To cut costs, they purchased a raft from the store which ended up being the smallest raft known to man. The three of the squeezed in and "floated" down, scraping the bottom of the river and ripping holes in the raft. Maybe we were just exhausted so everything was 10x funnier, but the story was hilarious and I nearly choked on my food. 

We finished up the night with a trip to Safeway for a necessary ice cream run and ate it while we watched the movie Stardust. 

The next day was our fun, explore day. We had a few ideas as to what we wanted to do, but thought we'd see where the day took us. First on the list was Manito Park.

I have no idea how I've not made it here before. It's absolutely gorgeous! It's so nicely manicured and groomed, plus peaceful to walk around. There's different gardens, a conservatory, cafe, the place has it all. Shoot, if I lived here I'd be visiting every weekend because I love it so much.

We had fun finding all the little nooks and crannies of the park. We started off in the rose garden where all of the flowers were blooming. This also happened to be my third rose garden of the summer, whoopee! 

There were a few other locations in the park that we wanted to hit and we found a map to locate them all. Turns out we're all severely challenged with directions and ended up aimlessly walking around until we made the decision to hop in the car and drive. 

Of course, the conservatory we were looking for was one parking lot over from the rose garden. Lots of lovely plants in there! Right outside the conservatory was one of the most beautiful landscapes right on par with Versailles. 

I love spending time with these two!   

After the park, we went to Lauren's and strolled around the Gonzaga campus. Lots of freshman were walking campus getting oriented with their new school. We, however, were just admiring the new student center and figuring out how to climb up Spike, the big bulldog statue.

There's the true Zag!

I mean seventeen hours of driving wasn't enough for Gina and Lauren, nor was working/driving across the state enough for me, so we decided to cross the border to Idaho and spend the afternoon in Coeur d'Alene. What's another 30 minutes? It's just a drop in the bucket. 

We changed into swimsuits and packed some sandwiches, then hopped in the car listening to the Chainsmokers' song "Closer" on repeat because it had been the road trip song. On the way, we made some goals: (in order of importance)find Ben Higgins the Bachelor, eat ice cream, and paddleboard. Ben had posted a picture of himself in CDA that day, so we were on the hunt. 

Coeur d'Alene is such a cute little summer town. It was a perfect sunny day with boats dotting the water and people strolling down the main street. We parked our car and found a nice grassy hill to eat our sandwiches and snacks. There was a boat show in the marina and people soaking in some rays. 

On one of the docks we found a water sports rental shop. Unfortunately the water was way too choppy to paddleboard, and opted to kayak instead. 

Kayaking was a blast. It was so much fun, but we were loopy and tired, acting so silly. We would drift close to the shore and dodge the seaplanes a few feet above our head. 

Well after making it an hour on the water, we scurried back into town and settled on grabbing a scoop of ice cream at Sweet Peaks Ice Cream. We're idiots and peppered the gals working there with flavor requests. I settled on the huckleberry and salty caramel. Delicious!

I think Lauren and Gina enjoyed theirs too! :)

We took the rest of the afternoon nice and slow, relaxing by the water and driving to Spokane. Once back, we freshened up for dinner near the river. 

With full bellies, we left our evening completely open and helped Lauren unpack all of her clothes. Lauren, though, lives in the basement of her house, which is totally fine (it's super nice!) but it means BUGS. Lauren has not ever been great with bugs, and Gina is one of the worst. Out of the three of us, I'd be the one tackling the bugs. Our first encounter of the night was one of the big mosquito looking things that aren't mosquitoes (?). It took a bit, but I got the little sucker as it danced all around Lauren's room. 

The second instance though was much more traumatic. I was arranging Lauren's boots when one of the largest spiders I've ever seen popped out. I screamed, then demanded something to squish it with. Side note: I have no idea why I didn't pick up a shoe. Anyway, of all things, Lauren hands me a clothes hanger and I begin jabbing at it. Well, I lost it which freaked all of us out. There was no way we were going to sleep knowing that spider was crawling around in the room especially since Gina and I were sleeping on the floor. Thus, commenced the dismantling of Lauren's closet. After moving some bins we spotted the spider in the corner (along with a few other spiders). Lauren ran off to grab something to squish it with, I kept an eye on the spider, and Gina just snapchatted the whole thing (thanks). In the end we got it. This was definitely the most harrowing spider experience I've had. It should also be noted that we're dumb and overreact. 

Of course the night was not over with the bug incidents. Right after the spider, a GIANT moth began flying all around the room. I was so done with these insects and tried to track down the moth. We lost it though and gave up. A few days later, Lauren told us she found it in her closet lol. WHAT a night. 

Our final day in Spokane was pretty lowkey. Gina and I needed to leave early to allow us enough time to get back to Seattle. It was a slow morning packing up the car and double checking we grabbed all of our stuff. 

We had one last hoorah which was walking downtown to Madeleine's Cafe for breakfast. After that, we said goodbye and were off!

Lauren has been my bestest friend for 16 years and it's so cool we both ended up in Washington. Good luck your first day Laur! So proud of you!