Day 30,
Spending time in
Spokane
In the morning Jenny and her girlfriend Alex drove me to the library in downtown. The library was still closed when they dropped me off, so I went to look around the nice shopping center located above the road with cool glass overpasses.
I walked through several pleasant stores and ate a piece of cake in some café.
When I walked out of the building back to the street, I saw a middle-aged man with a touring bike sitting at a little summer café. I approached him friendly and asked where he was riding from.
His name is Billy. He is a professor of
microbiology (biology or something like this) at the university in
Cool, huh?
By the way, you can see him on the picture in “today’s pictures”. What a nice muscular legs. J I wish I looked like that. J By the way, this is his sixth time crossing the country.
Few words about his bike. It’s not just a bike like mine or some old Centurion or Raleigh. J It’s a custom built titanium bike that costs a lot. I think he said it costs like a car, something about 5-10 thousand dollars. J
By the way, in few minutes after we
started talking, another nice older gentleman joined the conversation. Of
course he was also a devoted cyclist- named Chuck. J Chuck done some
touring in his younger years, but I forgot what exactly he has done. Something
has to do with
Anyway, the conversation was superb. It was so great to suddenly talk to someone who doesn’t think you are crazy. J Billy also told us about the few weeks of rain he was riding through in the beginning of his ride. He said it didn’t really bother him.
He also said something about smoke
caused by forest fires in
After talking to Billy and Chuck, I finally went to the library. There I was able to check e-mail and started charging the camera. My plan was to call Jenny around 4, when she was supposed to return from work. Jenny worked at some kind of nursing home and was caring for an old old lady.
Spending time in the library was a lot of fun to me, as always. I feel it’s like my second home, anywhere I go, I can always find safety and something interesting to do in the library.
The window in there was overlooking a bridge that was under construction. It’s actually a pride of local heritage, 90 years old Monroe Street Bridge. (Refer to pictures).
I talked to an old gentleman from
Anyway, this old gentleman said that city hired a private contractor for the bridge repair with agreement not to drop a single stone in the water. Major parts of it supposed to be replaced one by one.
After the camera was charged and journal notes organized, I walked to Safeway and bought few yoghurts, then I stopped at Mc Donald’s and ate a cheeseburger. J
The weather was nice and warm, so it was good to walk, but I noticed of course how slow walking was.
I walked into some old looking building which turned out to be a museum, and talked to a lady that was lonely sitting at the front desk.
By this time it was close to 4, so I called Jenny and found out that she was at home already, so I walked to her house.
Jenny is a very wise person, but for some reason she bought a Chevy Corsica. J
Last year, when she was shopping for a
car, I several times suggested her to get some
Well, maybe because her sister in
Well, the consequence was that the car was broken for a week or more already and mechanics quoted Jenny a way too high of a price repair it, something around 900$.
So, we went outside to look at the car and it turned out that the belt tensioner was broken. We decided to try to buy a new one tomorrow and replace it.
After this we went to Chinese buffet in downtown.
All I have to say is that food was gorgeous there. Selection was the best I ever seen in the States.
I ate there so much that eventually
Jenny and restaurant workers were looking at me with a bit rounded eyes. It was
already
Well, am I being greedy or just hungry for a nice food after leaving like that? J I am not sure what the case is. J
Anyway, hardly being able to walk after the buffet, Jenny offered to show me something cool in the local park that was not far from there.
When we were about to enter the park, I felt the urgent need to use the restroom, so I excused myself and quickly went to the bar across the street. J There I went into the bathroom and when almost ready to start the thing, I heard that someone walked to the next cabin and set on the toilet. The problem here is that it was a girl’s foot in sleepers in the next cabin.
Shoot, I mistakenly walked into ladies bathroom! :O I waited quietly until she left and quickly left the room myself. I was afraid to freak her out if she would have seen me there. J
When I looked at the door though, the men’s sign was indeed on the right side of this door, but there was also lady’s sign on the side of the door, so the next door was men’s restroom apparently.
Anyway, in the park Jenny showed me a
real cool thing - the goat. This is what someone
said about this goat on the internet: “I often have to
work in Spokane, Washington, and that's no treat, except that there is a fun
piece of public art in Riverfront Park there: it's the Garbage Eating Goat — a
bronze (?) goat sculpture that is hooked up to a trash
compactor. You hold trash up to the goat's mouth, activating a suction which
pulls the trash out of your hand, and shoots it out the goat's ass into the
trash compactor. Hours of fun. [Erin Merritt,
So, it was indeed a cool thing to see. Jenny also showed me huge fish in the pond. She said that this is a spiritual place to her, and that she sometimes likes to come here and look at the fish being on her own. Thank you, Jenny, for showing me all of this. J
On the way back, we tried to wait for a
bus, but it was already too late – close to the
Today – 0 miles riding.
Return to Day 29 Today’s Pictures Continue to Day 31
