An Ode to Spokane

When you work in management consulting, every so often you switch projects, but sometimes you’re on one client for a long time and you find yourself traveling to the same location from your home base city for months on end (remember my guide to New Orleans? THAT was a fun project). That city pretty much becomes your temporary home Monday through Thursday. I’ve been on the same team since I started this blog back in October 2014, and the main place I’ve been traveling to is Spokane, Washington.

When I first found out I was traveling to Spokane…I had to look it up on a map. It’s pretty much all the way across Washington and is 20 minutes away from Idaho. News to me!

As my project shifts a bit, we will likely be traveling to Spokane no longer. It will mainly be Olympia, WA (the yellow star a little SW of Seattle!) and working from home! So as I wrap up my final day in Spokane (don’t ask why I had to be here on a Sunday), I got a tad nostalgic and wanted to share a few things that I’ve grown to love about the city.

• As I became acquainted with the restaurant scene, I discovered a couple of favorite items that I went back to time and time again:
  • Pretty much everything at Mizuna (founded by food blogger Feasting at Home), but especially their ahi salad and tofu lettuce wraps and mahi mahi wraps
    
  • The kale salad from Luna - especially when you add a piece of perfectly cooked salmon to it!
  • The roasted lemon garlic tofu from Main Market Co-Op http://
    

    Lunch today was kale and tofu with a homemade lemon tahini dressing!

    A photo posted by Dani Nemzer (@danicaliforniacooks) on Nov 3, 2015 at 2:00pm PST

  • The omelettes at the Davenport hotel
  • The gluten free, vegan peanut butter chocolate chip cookies from Boots Bakery
  • Coffee from Atticus coffee shop
  • Acai parfaits from Method Juice Cafe
  • 

• Spinning classes at The Union!
• The fact that there was always the perfect amount of traffic on the road. Never enough to get in your way, but always enough cars on the road to make it feel like if you were in an accident help would be right there <- kind of a weird observation!

• The most ADORABLE drive-through coffee shops
• Did I mention our hotel downtown was a block away from the mall (read: Ann Taylor LOFT, Nordstrom, Lululemon, movie theaters…) <- HUGE perk

• Also found manicurists, waxers, hair stylists and masseuses who were great and a lot cheaper than SF or LA!

• I loved stumbling upon random beautiful parts of the city, like the downtown river waterfalls or the parks that seemed to just pop up out of nowhere!

So Spokane, thank you for your hospitality, your delicious salmon, and your hidden gems within the city. Thank you to the lovely people I met and worked with!

Til next time, Spokansas/Spokanistan/Spokompton!

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