Spirit Lake, Idaho

The local water tower in Spirit lake, Idaho. Cool isn't it?

Hot Rod Cafe

3/20/12 UPDATE: Hot Rod Cafe closed their doors and went out of business in either February or March of 2012. Such a BUMMER - as it was such a great place to go. Here's to hoping someone will eventually resurrect this place when economic times are better.

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We've been staying at the Coeur D' Alene RV Resort in Post Falls, Idaho for about a week.  We had hoped to find a good park in Spokane, or Spokane Valley but found that many weren't all that great.  No place to open your awning and let the kids play, or no yard, or just bad locations.  We finally found the park here in Post Falls and fell in love with it.  They have an amazing staff, an indoor swimming pool, exercise room and the whole park is really well kept.

If your in the area you can find them at:
2652 East Mullan Avenue
Post Falls, ID 83854
(208) 773-3527

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Anyway just down the road is the neatest little cafe!


The parking lot alone is fun to drive through, even on a slow day.








Love this car, very stealth.


1934 Ford

We actually saw much more in the parking lot but I'll stop here and show you inside.


This is their waiting area.  The boys were happy as clams to sit here!


The entrance/exit.








This was an ice-cream station you could access from the other side, the boys went and checked it out while I took the other photos.


And when you order a children's meal, they bring the fries in these lovely fry baskets, aren't they neat looking?

We have several other photos of the Hot Rod Cafe if you'd like to see them.

It's a great place to stop in and have a meal (the food is pretty good), they also have weekend car shows all the time in the parking lot.  In fact at one point during a drive by we saw huge smoke plumes and on closer look from the highway discovered it wasn't some enormous building caught fire, but people smoking their tires during a car show, lol!

Anyway if your in the area and want to stop in, the Cafe can be found at:
1610 Schneidmiller Avenue
Post Falls, ID 83854-7065
(208) 777-1712

Another Day Around Spokane

Today we decided to spend the day exploring more of Spokane.    What better place to start than dining out in a train?  None of us have ever dined in a train car so we were kind of excited to hear about this place.




Just on the end outside is this huge dome in the outdoor ceiling, it really caught my eye.  Amazing craftsmanship.


Isn't it beautiful?


When you walk in there's an area to wait until they're ready to seat you.  With it being a train, seating is limited of course.  :)


You can sit at the counter or at a booth.


The ceiling is just amazing, the little stained glass windows bring such an old classy charm to it.


These are the booths, I wish I had gotten a better picture of them.  Through some of the windows on the left they had displays of old train artifacts.  Very cool to see.

We ordered the eggs benedict, an omelet and the boys got pancakes & oatmeal - although it wasn't the best we've ever had, it was pretty good food.  We'd definitely go back and dine again.

After eating we hit the road looking for neat finds and boy did we ever find one.

We turned down a neighborhood road just down the street from BJ's doctor's office and saw this...

Another wow moment here in Spokane.  :D






There isn't very much information available on the net, so I'm not terribly sure it's accurate but as far as I can tell some guy built this up around his house over the years, for the fun of it.  I would love to get a tour of it!  Very magical looking but hard to get into one shot.  I took several photos of the Vercler Lane castle if you'd like to see more.

We didn't see the house address but the neighbor to the right is 920 N. Vercler Ln, Spokane Valley, WA

The last few things we saw on our outing today were just as eye catching.


An International Harvester, Travelall.  Until today I had never even heard of one.  Kinda looks like a cross between an old Suburban and a Hurst.


My most favorite find of the day was this old vintage travel trailer called a "Holiday House".  Looks like a really fun weekend trailer to renovate doesn't it?  I googled and found photos of a renovated version of the Holiday House, looks very charming.

Spokane Sights

Being here in the Spokane area has been really fun.  They have so many neat things around here to see.


Downtown in Riverfront Park they have the worlds largest Radio Flyer wagon.  It's HUGE and children everywhere just FLOCK to it.  A 26 ton Radio Flyer with a slide handle, rated to hold 300 people.  Crazy huh?  Just looking at this thing makes me joyful, lol.  The boys absolutely love it too.


This is right next to the Radio Flyer wagon.


Another really funny thing we found in Riverfront Park was the garbage eating goat.  If you push that button on the wall just behind the goat, it turns on a vacuum.  I guess it was made years ago as usable art.  You just feed your garbage into it's mouth and it sucks it right up.  The boys are still little, so it really freaked the both of them out.  They took a wide eyed step back in panic until we convinced them the goat wouldn't eat them too.  That was even funnier than running into a garbage eating goat...

So all of that was just in Riverfront Park, but there is even more neat stuff to see out in the city.

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This building is at 800 W. Garland Ave., Spokane, WA.

This building is at the corner of 4th Ave. West and S Cedar St. in Spokane.

Both of these buildings were Benewah Milk Bottles built in the 30's as retail outlets for the creamery.  I guess each of these buildings only cost about $3,700 to build.  Ha, can you imagine how much it would run today?

I really wanna show up and help volunteer to paint the first building.  So nostalgic, I love them both!

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One more thing we've finally gotten to do is eat at PF Changs.  It wasn't talk of great food that drew me in, but the fierce horse that they have standing guard at their doors.  We've seen them all over the country but have never been able to stop.  Beautiful isn't it?  I guess one of those horses  runs about $40,000 a piece!  That's a mighty stout steed isn't it??

We're really looking forward to exploring the city more and finding out what other wonderful treasures it has hiding.

The Blue Steed

We were in Denver again in late May and I had a chance to get better pictures of the blue stallion.  I love horses, and at first glance I am always awed at this thing.  It's massive, and kinda fierce looking...  


The site of it on the horizon just commands respect doesn't it? 

32 feet tall so they say.

But then you get closer and it's just one of those weird things that makes you think "Oh My.  What. on. earth??"


There's an eye full of an anatomy lesson for one.


Then the second thing that strikes you is the glowing red eyes.  At certain angles they don't glow, but as you drive by they really come out. 

So the horses manhood showing wasn't necessary, but OK... ? 

The red evil eyes though??  Kinda doesn't make it so neat when you see those. 

But then there's one more thing about this horse that just really gives you pause to give it some distance.  Apparently during it's making while pieces of the horse were being hoisted for final assembly, the torso swung out of control and crushed the artist which sadly killed him...  His family choose to continue on with the plan of putting the horse together and out on display (and I definitely respect their decision on that).

So with all of this, the locals have dubbed the horse "Bluecifer","Satan's Steed" and/or "Blue Devil Horse."

Isn't it such a shame? 

I think it needs a make-over, something to give public opinion a fresh start and a pleasant view.  Some lovely brown eyes would do the trick nicely don't you think?  And yes, maybe even a loin cloth...

Royal Gorge Bridge

In mid April my husband took us out to Royal Gorge Bridge, just outside of Canyon City, Colorado.  He was really excited to see it because it holds the title of highest bridge in North America and highest suspension bridge anywhere in the world.

It was really high.  When someone drives across the bridge it creates a ripple effect in front of the car - and the whole bridge bounces and sways either from driving over it, or by the winds.  It's funny to watch people standing on it grab a hold of the side rails in panic when a car gets close.





For a small all in one price of admission you get access to the bridge, a small zoo, an aerial tram, an incline railway, a carousel, and loads of other things.  It was really worth the trip and the price.


This is the incline railway that takes you to the bottom of the gorge.  It's fun, so long as you don't think about the possibility of the brakes going out.


This was taken from the bottom looking up.  The pictures just don't do the incredibly STEEP height justice.


The petting zoo/non petting zoo had a horse, donkey's and burrows...


Buffalo...


Elk...


And bighorn sheep.

It was a fun visit and on the drive there we got to see the "World's Largest Rocking Chair" which was in Penrose, Colorado.

Excitement.

Denver

Before we went up into the mountains I had to drive over to pick up Marty from the Denver airport. That's another city that might have been fun to spend a few days in.

Lots of entertainment as I pulled up to get him... Did you know the airport looks like a giant circus tent?

Weird huh?

They also have a huge, HUGE bronco statue out in front of the airport.

That was cool to see, I love horses. The street lights in the background look small compared to that horse, don't they?

I wish I had been prepared for those and gotten a better picture of each. I guess I'll be prepared if there is ever a next time.

ETA: (I made it back and did another post on the horse!)

On our way back down south we went through Denver again, and just outside the city on the outskirts of Golden, Colorado we spotted the strangest house from the interstate....

I wish I had gotten better pictures but I spotted it just as we were about to pass it and didn't have time to stop, or go in search of a better angle.

Isn't it strange?

I guess it's called "The sculptured house". It was also in the move "Sleeper" with Woody Allen and sometimes referred to as "The Sleeper house". This website has some photos that actually do this place justice if your curious.

And if you wanna see for yourself, I found the directions online! The house is located about 20 miles west of downtown Denver at 24501 Ski Hill Drive in Golden. Head west out of Denver on I-70 to Exit 254, toward Genesee Park. Turn left on US-40 eastbound, then right at South Genesee Mountain Road. After about a mile and a half, turn left on Genesee Avenue, then left again on Ski Hill Drive.