Stopping for gas in the late afternoon, we encounter The Guy From Seattle (sorry, I forgot his name) who was driving a 997 Porsche cabriolet much like Herman’s own (except for color). So, of course, we spent some time discussing matters of mutual interest, learning about the best sports car roads in the Seattle area, and discovering that his friend is an NPR executive whose 944 (my model!) won his class in the concours earlier that day.
Buzzing around the streets, we kept seeing — big surprise here — Porsches aplently and other sights from the shotgun position.
We had been advised by a couple of people that one of Spokane’s best was — unlikely as it might seem in this inland locale — a seafood restaurant overlooking the Spokane River. So we beat a track there, found it at the end of a dead-end street on a cliff overhanging the river. As we dismounted, we discovered that the parking lot was itself something of a mini-Porsche-car-show.
Anthony’s Seafood (where I had the specialty of the house: the Idaho River Trout) saddled the Spokane River, overlooking the falls and the power house. Main restaurant seating was behind tall windows that provided the view, but we chose to occupy the last remaining table on the open-air deck, inches from a straight downward plummet into the river.
Our waiter, Ted, turned out to be a sommelier-in-training who not only expanded our previous night’s wine education, but told us that the best Washington wines were probably those from Walla Walla.
As the evening wore on, we became aware of a festive table beside us, which turned out to be occupied by four ladies from New Mexico, old classmates, one of whose number was celebrating a birthday and had transplanted to Spokane to accept employment in the telecomm industry.
Eventually, we returned to our hotel, debated whether to depart the next day or stay on, and generally wound down by reading email and relaxing.
