Our 14-year old daughter Christina wants to be a vet, so we looked around for ways for her to volunteer or spend time taking a look at that career. We found that Washington State University, which has a vet program, holds a summer camp for kids to learn about microbes, fish, and horses. So we put her on a plane and she headed across the state to Pullman, Washington.

We drove over to pick her up on Friday. The weather on the other side of the Cascade mountains is quite different, as is the landscape. In the summer, it's incredibly hot and dry, and in the winter, it's bitter cold. It's more like the landscape in New Mexico than here on this side of the mountains.

After we picked up Christina we headed back to Spokane, Washington, where we got to stay at the Davenport hotel. The Davenport is a very old hotel that has had visitors of the likes of President Roosevelt, and several kings and queens. It fell into to disrepair until recently a family called "Worthy" purchased it and put millions and millions into it's restoration. It is the height of 19th century elegance, and my pictures don't do it justice. I'll put a link at the end of this post to better pictures so you can see it. If you ever come to Washington state, you should definitely save up to stay there. They treat you like royalty.

We then spent the day in Spokane, visiting the parks and riding the skyride.

On the way home, we stopped just before the we crossed the Cascade mountains and visited "Washington's Grand Canyon" - not quite as deep, but very stunning as its namesake. It was 106 degrees, so we didn't stay out too long!

If you get a chance, check out these photos as well: Davenport Hotel