Day 3: Travel Day
Welcome
Yesterday we travelled from Los Angeles to Spokane, a city at the eastern edge of Washington state.
I initiated a web search shortly after waking up, asking my computer’s web browser for the name of the best breakfast spot in Koreatown. The website reddit.com returned several results and after choosing the best and transferring the address into my phone I rode the elevator downstairs and set out on foot. It was an overcast morning, pleasantly cool but still well within the parameters of shorts weather as long as you kept moving. The thirty minute journey took me through a suburban expanse, a sanctuary for heavily watered and manicured lawns, and it ended when I emerged onto a wide arterial that seemed to exist for the sole purpose of funnelling cars into the wide mouth of the Olympic Car Wash.
“Takes forever, but $16.50 and they're thorough on wiping it down, vacuum it, and armor all tires. Best deal I've found yet!” – Those are the words left by foursquare.com user Andrew Neumiller on October 12, 2013 describing his experience at the Olympic Car Wash.
“Go next door for 30 minute foot massage while you wait” said Patti Rayne on September 5, 2013, recommending her favourite way to experience the Olympic Car Wash.
“Had a friend throw up all over the passenger side and got a car wash, shampoo and air freshener for $27.99. Pretty damn good I say” was what Kim Huynh on September 20 2010 after a pleasing experience at this community-serving business.
If I had brought my car along on tour I would have gifted it a lovely hand scrub but instead I kept my distance, admiring the fine signwriting and handsome architecture of this spiney structure.
Several minutes later and a few blocks further to the west I found my destination, a tiny diner with tall red lettering over the entrance and only a handful of tables inside. This establishment is a couple of years past its 50th birthday and it felt like nothing had changed over the years besides regular cleaning and maintenance.
I sat at the counter and ordered, watching the cook clatter various implements on the grill surface, scraping and hacking his way toward someone’s breakfast nirvana. My food arrived gradually, a plate at a time, first the pancakes, then the toast, and then the scrambled eggs with hash and Portuguese sausage. On the side I had coffee, black, no cream or sugar, fresh and strong, the way I like it.
I walked back to the hotel and worked on the blog for a time. Jon and Gabe had headed to the storage locker to do a last few bits of tinkering on the in-ear-monitor rig before packing everything back into plastic flight cases for the journey to the airport. A shiny black Mercedes Benz Sprinter arrived at the hotel around 3:30pm and Liz and I were ready and waiting. The boot was stacked with gear, all the way up to the ceiling, and the seats were populated with members of the tour party – electric guitarist Jonathan Pearce, sound engineer Gabriel Nardin, and our brand new tour manager Paul Slater.
For an hour we enjoyed the slippery leather seats of this van as the driver carried us southwest towards LAX, another journey of abrupt lane changing and abrupt, confident use of both the vehicle’s foot pedals. The plane journey was much more gentle, thankfully. An air Alaska Boeing 737-800 carried us up and away from Los Angeles and flew north, crossing Nevada and Oregon before beginning a descent towards Spokane, and executing a smooth landing under dark and rainy skies.
The final member of our team picked us up from Spokane International Airport. He arrived in a magnificent vehicle, a Jeep Grand Wagoneer, finished in the magical shade of Silver Zynith, a vehicle suffocating itself with seat warmers, touch screens, and wifi, and with a beautifully large cargo compartment that was deployed with a few switches. The Wagoneer, winner of the J.D. Power award for Highest Ranked Driver Appeal in 2022, set out with our equipment, Tristan Deck behind the wheel, while the rest of the tour party climbed into a cab for the ride to the hotel.
It was late when we arrived, close to midnight, but we still found an unreasonably friendly and helpful clerk behind the counter who welcomed us and helped us stow our equipment in a back room. It was a pleasant establishment that ticked all the boxes for us - a fine business centre took up one end of the lobby, its purpose and permanence established by a sold, brass plaque, and at the other end of the lobby stood a sofa in the shape of a large bell. We saved the enjoyment of those facilities for the morning and headed upstairs to rest.
As a special treat I’m leaving you with some of my favourite features, all of these included standard with a 2024 Jeep Wagoneer. Feel free to let me know how you feel about these features: would you include any of them on your vehicle?