Talking Roses at the Ruby

Spokane turned out to be accommodating to my needs for a couple days while I tended to some work issues. The Hotel Ruby was about how I expected for a boutique hotel---comfortable with hip amenities, and lots of different colored neon. My room looked out over the parking lot, a peaceful plaza in the middle of downtown.

Television selection was abysmal, but I barely turn on the tube much anymore anyway. Wi-fi was good--a must.

Got away into Spokane a few times in the afternoons and strolled along the waterfront and the incredible Spokane Falls---upper and lower, which I'd never really seen before. I particularly liked the remnants of the '74 Worlds Fair, with such a period feel.

Spokane is one of those strange cities that fall just below the consciousness of America at large.  I always kept looking to compare it to elsewhere---Portland, San Diego, Fresno, Sacramento---and then remembering that it is its own place. Such is the way my mind gropes to understand a place.

"You ever been to Spokane before?" the bartender asked me at the hotel bar one evening.

"Years ago," I said. "On a college choir tour. Stayed a little house with a family---college alumni I guess. Nice folks."

The house was old, I remember---an organic Midwestern kind of old family house, like something from an older section of a city in Iowa. I couldn't find it again to save my life. It feels like a childhood memory of its own now.

"You from here?" I asked him.

"No, I came here from Portland."

"Oh, that's where I'm heading," I said. "I've always wanted to go to the Rose Parade."

"I think I've heard of that," he said.

I laughed. "You're obviously not old Portland," I said.

Turns out he was from Olympia and only lived in a Portland a short time. Young Twenties, gay.   Spokane probably wouldn't be his last stop, I figured. I tipped him that my hometown in Colorado was a great place "for young people like yourself."

"Where you staying in Portland?" he asked.

"The Heathman," I said. "I wanted some place downtown on the parade route."

We talked hotels a bit. I mentioned the Hotel Jupiter in Portland, and said I thought of staying there,  but it was booked up over the weekend of the parade. He said people always compared the Jupiter to the Ruby. It gave me an idea of what I might expect if I stay there after the weekend.