Spokane

I flew to Spokane this morning for a quick visit to Gonzaga. My trip to the airport was a little interesting as Seattle is installing a light rail to the airport and they had huge portions of the route into the airport closed today for some work they are doing in preparation. I had issues finding the rental car return facility, but eventually found it on the third round around the airport :)

My flight was nice and short (about an hour from gate to gate) and I made it to the hotel without a problem. I didn't get a rental car because I found a hotel close enough to Gonzaga where I could walk to campus and the hotel also offered a free shuttle service to the airport. I arrived early enough that I had time to walk around downtown Spokane for a little while before I had to head to Gonzaga. Spokane is an interesting city because it has a population of about 200,000 (about 1/4 the size of the Omaha metro), but it has a huge downtown shopping district, an INTERNATIONAL airport, and does not feel like a city of that size - it feels much larger.

I headed over to Gonzaga in the afternoon and met with some fantastic students and then hosted a presentation on campus this evening. Gonzaga is a pretty campus and actually reminds me alot of Creighton's campus - except that it is flat :)

I walked to a local mexican restaurant tonight for dinner and then returned to the hotel because I have an early flight out tomorrow back to Seattle.

One intereting note about my hotel - it took me amost 10 minutes to walk from the lobby of the hotel to my room. The hotel is a long, flat (two levels) hotel and my room is about the farthest away from the lobby. When I first walked to it today I just kept walking, and walking, and walking.