Wednesday, July 23 – Missoula to Spokane

We had a leisurely morning with a large included breakfast and hit the road about 9:30, arriving Spokane around noon Pacific Time (one hour earlier).

It took a few minutes to figure out our accommodation. The convention is at the Davenport Hotel, but our reservation is in the Davenport Tower, kitty corner across the street. We weren’t sure whether they had separate check-ins or one check-in for both. We soon sorted it out and also learned that parking was in a parking garage on a third corner. We are on the 21st floor of the tower, surpassed only by the penthouse. Nice view, except for the office tower across the street. 

We learned that the Davenport has quite a history and is quite a point of local pride. The original hotel opened in 1914 and was one of the grandest hotels in North America in its day. Mr. Davenport sold it in 1945 and it began a steady decline until it closed in 1985. At one time demolition was considered, but in 2000, it was purchased by local entrepreneurs who restored the grand lobby and public rooms and completely gutted the upper floors and rebuilt them with new guest rooms built to modern standards.

The new tower was added in 2006. Our room is quite spacious and well-appointed, although, oddly, it does not have a coffee station or fridge, which is pretty standard these days in other places we have been. The shower is large enough to have a party and much larger than the whole bathroom in a couple of the places I was recently at in Europe. 

The Davenport story, although more extreme, is similar to the story of Regina’s own Saskatchewan Hotel: vintage hotel, starting to show its age, falling behind the times, in a bit of a decline, purchased by new investors, rejuvenated and updated, and returned to its former glory as a destination of distinction.

We settled into our room and joined our planned tour at 2:30. The bus tour took us around downtown, some of the historic residential areas, a viewpoint out of town from the cemetery (What would a trip be without a visit to a cemetery?), a look around Gonzaga University (Where Bing Crosby attended school.), and to dinner. We returned to the hotel about 7:30.

The drive today was again quite scenic, although less so than yesterday. Approaching Spokane, we left the mountains and entered more of an open plain surrounded by distant hills.