I was last in Spokane in 1974. For the World’s Fair.
Before I arrived, the state of Washington and the rail-hub city of Spokane did a massive amount of work:
View from helicopter, Expo ’74 World’s Fair Spokane
41 years later, I returned for the World Con.
I anticipated the removal of most of the fair buildings, and the reclamation of that land as park, but I looked forward to exploring those changes. It should have looked like this:
Instead, because of the record fires surrounding Spokane, staying at a hotel across the waterways and park (which had seemed such an idyllic notion just days before), proved a fascinating challenge when the going got tough.
One does not simply …expect Mordor:
