We enjoyed our four nights near Spokane. There wasn’t anything major we were hoping or wanting to do, but our days were filled with adventure nonetheless.
Liberty patiently waited 4 months after her 9th birthday to finally get her ears pierced. Our first evening in Spokane, Liberty and I wore our mandatory masks and went to Claire’s for her piercing. The video wasn’t near as exciting with a mask on, not being able to see her reaction well. But hey, she’s pierced and she has an interesting story to tell about her wait. She is so happy, and we are so happy for her!
The next evening, Manning redeemed his 13th birthday dinner date. He and I had planned to go to the Melting Pot in Nashville in March. It shut down a couple days before Manning’s birthday, though.
We were happy to find a Melting Pot in Spokane, and we thoroughly enjoyed our Melting Pot experience. We had a blast talking, cooking and trying different foods. Manning and I are two of the pickiest eaters in our family, so that added for some humor.
After dinner, we walked and met the rest of the family at Riverfront Park.
The kids loved this giant Radio Flyer wagon. There was a ladder to climb up, a slide to slide down and monkey bars underneath.
We walked around for awhile, just looking around and hanging out.
Then we saw Spokane Falls, a waterfall and dam on the Spokane River. It was really pretty!
There, Liberty got stung three times by a bee, twice on the hand and once on her newly pierced ear. It was her first time to be stung, so it really scared her and upset her. We decided to head back to the RV then.
Did I mention it was really hot in Spokane? Like, Texas hot – over 100 degrees during the day. We had gotten used to and thoroughly enjoy cooler temperatures, so we mostly went out during the evenings.
Wednesday evening we drove to Mount Spokane State Park. We hiked a really pretty trail in an area filled with evergreens and flowers as we watched the sun set.
We celebrated Jubilee’s birthday on Thursday, and then, it happened. Ryan went to fill up both vehicles, just as he always does the night before we travel to a new place. He realized 8 gallons too late that he’d been filling our diesel truck with unleaded gas. After googling, we quickly found out that was a very big deal. I told Ryan that I might be mad if I was positive I’d never do such a thing, but fortunately for him, I’ve had so very many human mistake moments that I just couldn’t muster up a bit of anger.
We woke up early the next morning and started calling mechanics. The third one said he could not promise to get the tank flushed by noon, but he would try. That was music to our ears! We had the truck towed and the tank flushed. We picked up our truck around 2PM, attached the RV and set out on our 4 1/2 hour drive to our next destination.
Also, we got our oil changed in Kalispell about a week earlier. It was recommended we have our fuel injectors cleaned. We don’t often go for recommendations, but we decided to do it since we do heavily rely on our vehicles for traveling. Immediately after we noticed our van jerking upon acceleration. It has continued jerking for over a week, and now our check engine light is on and we are getting a cylinder 3 misfire code. Apparently getting fuel injectors cleaned can damage spark plugs and cause misfire. Tomorrow we will be having spark plugs replaced. Thankfully, both vehicle issues we are able to submit to insurance.
One more crazy to top off the week, River got an infected mosquito bite. We’ve had two kids who have had bad infections in the past, so thankfully, I knew pretty early that it was likely infected. I messaged back and forth with our awesome doctor in Texas. She sent in an antibiotic. River’s infection continued to get worse and turn into staph. Our doctor taught me how to drain it and sent in two other prescriptions. It’s finally looking much better! After three kids with major infections from minor things, Ryan and I wonder how on earth we survived our childhoods without even knowing this was a possible problem! Ha.
We love our current lifestyle of travel. We have beautiful photos, wonderful memories and great stories to tell. We, also, have bumps in the road, tricky things to sort through, frustrations, aches and pains. Bee stings, vehicle issues and infected bug bites are all minor issues, and for that we are thankful, but I never want to paint an unrealistic picture that all is perfect in our little corner of the world. There is beauty in the good and there is beauty in the broken – this is the life we live. ♥️