Monster trucks in Spokane

After work on Friday, February 18th, we set off on a spontaneous weekend road trip to Spokane, WA, to celebrate getting our new visas and being able to leave Canada again. The reason for choosing Spokane (rhymes with "man") was that it offered the opportunity to see monster trucks, a hilarious American sport we were keen to experience! More on that in a minute.

On Friday night, we crossed the border and drove a couple of hours south, then turned inland and spent the night at a B&B near North Bend, a small town just west of Snoqualmie Pass on the I-90. Our B&B was called The Old Hen, and it was really nice... it's ranked #1 on TripAdvisor out of all the B&Bs in North Bend. All two of them, that is!


After checking in to the B&B, we had dinner at a grill in North Bend - a huge steak with blue cheese that was big enough to share - and then settled in to our room at The Old Hen. In the morning, the man of the house cooked us a delicious breakfast, and afterwards I went outside and got acquainted with the family's pet goats. Including a really, really pregnant one, lying under a red lamp and looking like she had swallowed two basketballs!







After leaving the B&B, we had a 4-hour drive to Spokane. We travelled through the mountain range over the Snoqualmie Pass, with stunning views of snow-covered mountains, pine trees, and partially frozen lakes. Here's a view of the mountains after we'd passed through them...


After we left the mountains, the scenery changed dramatially. The land was flatter, quite brown, and mostly treeless. We saw hundreds of large white wind turbines, and tumbleweeds blew across the road in front of us.



Upon reaching Spokane, we drove straight to the arena where the Monster Jam would be held, arriving half an hour early. Inside the arena, we found our seats, stuffed our earplugs in, and settled in to watch the show. It began with some quad bike racing and a significant display of national pride.



There were five monster trucks, and their names were Monster Mutt, Iron Outlaw, Stone Crusher, Captain USA, and Grave Digger. Grave Digger is one of the sport's champions and seemed to be the crowd favourite, but we liked Monster Mutt the best - it had teeth, a tongue, a tail, and big floppy ears that flew up when it jumped over things! The drivers (all men) had some pretty serious harnesses on inside these machines, and it was quite obvious why they were necessary. It was insane... and hilariously awesome! We had a ball!

Here are a few photos Ben took during the first half of the show. This involved pairs of monster trucks racing around the arena in opposite directions to each other and jumping over/on the rows of four cars, as well as individual timed trials. There are a lot more photos in the corresponding Picasa album if you're interested!







Then, we were introduced to Megasaurus. This was a huge metal monster that rose up out of an armoured personnel carrier, red eyes glowing, teeth clacking, and fire pouring out of its mouth. It proceded to pick up a car and slowly chomp it in half (see video below). Yes, indeed. Who wouldn't love a sport that shows that during halftime?!







We also saw some remote control cars doing the same jumps as the monster trucks did (and getting a similar amount of air), a golf cart with a jet engine in it, and a three-legged race, before it was time for part 2 of the Monster Jam.



Part 2 was the freestyle competition. Each monster truck got one minute in the arena, during which they could do whatever they liked. The judges were three people in the audience! The most exciting thing we saw was Grave Digger doing a jump in reverse (see fourth photo below; you can also catch half of it in the video below if you watch carefully!).







And here's a video compilation of the sights throughout the event. Watch out for the quad bikes, remote control cars, jet-propelled golf cart, metal dinosaur eating a car... and, of course, extremely large vehicles driving over smaller vehicles. Ah, what a sport!!

After the Monster Jam, we checked into our motel, the Apple Tree Inn, then did a bit of shopping before having dinner at a lovely restaurant called Europa. It was a gem of a restaurant that I found via TripAdvisor when researching dinner destinations from our motel room. From the outside of the unassuming brick building, located in a business district, there was little indication that the atmosphere inside was so delightfully European. It was a real contrast to our afternoon at the Monster Jam, and I think that's what made it such a pleasant surprise!

The next morning, we checked out of the motel, headed to the local meeting, and then continued on our way home. Oh, and we also found a World Market store and bought some Arnott's Mint Slice and Bundaberg Ginger Beer. Yay!! Here are a few sights we saw on the way home...










Back in the Seattle area, we stopped to stock up on some groceries at Trader Joe's - in my opinion the coolest grocery store ever. Then, after making sure we had passed the 48-hour mark for our absence from Canada (to avoid paying import duty on our purchases), we headed for the border, where the line-up was the longest we've ever seen it on the US side.


However, it didn't take long to get to the front, and soon we were back home, unpacking our purchases and reminiscing about those crazy monster trucks. It was a great weekend away!

PS. We know some of our blog readers come here via a mutual friend's blog rather than knowing us personally... so if that's you, don't be a stranger... if you're interested enough to read our blog, we'd love it if you said hello!!