So my wife and I flew into Spokane on Friday morning to watch the game and got back home today. She bought a pair of club seats for the game right at the 40 yard line. A few observations from the weekend:
1) National "upgraded" us to a Chrysler Pacifica PHEV at no extra charge. There is nothing dumber than a rental EV. It was a hybrid so it was ok, but the battery was at 4% when we picked it up and never got over 1% since my driving was mostly highway driving. It got decent mileage and drove pretty well but it was a joke from an EV standpoint. Available charging spots are too sparse to be worthwhile.
2) Ate dinner at Black Cypress restaurant on Main Street on Friday night. It was decent but over-priced considering the quality of the food. Their roasted chicken was pretty good but their ribeye was not as good as steaks I've had in Kansas for half the price. Parking in downtown P-town is a PITA. You could do worse if you want a quieter atmosphere but spending $100 for dinner without alcohol is not a bargain.
3) Went to the Zzumania event on Friday night featuring Yung Gravy. WSU deserves to get fined for the crime of charging grown adults $45 a person for a concert that nobody my age cared about. They barely showed the basketball teams off and the event was primarily watching the cheerleaders and dance teams doing their thing for 80% of the time. Almost no returning men's players from last year but there are dudes all over the place. Of course, the ladies basketball team got the biggest cheer. Watching college students chant with a "rapper" that I've never heard of was a unique experience. If you've never heard of Yung Gravy, you aren't missing anything, but it was kind of cultish watching the students getting into it. The highlight of the night for my wife was when she spotted Charlisse Ledger Walker and some of the other gals from the basketball team watching the concert from the concourse. I went over and told them that they were the only reason that we paid to get into the event. They asked if we wanted pictures and they asked a lot more about us than we expected. You can tell that they enjoy interacting with fans.
4) We stayed at an AirBNB in someone's basement a little over a block from campus. Paid too much but the room was pretty well finished and the hosts were more generous than normal. They provided a bottle of WSU branded wine, some sodas and snacks in the room. Of course, for $459 for a night....you hope that they treat you ok. It was a 7 minute walk to Beasley though...so it was good overall.
5) Ate lunch at Cougar Country Drive-In. It is what it is. Over-priced run of the mill burgers but a Pullman tradition.
6) Hung out at Valhalla with a former Coug football player and a few other folks before the game. My wife was astonished by the number of $16 pitchers of beer that were consumed. It was busy but not nearly as busy as i expected. Great way to burn 3 hours before the game.
7) As mentioned to start, we had club seats and let's just say that they were well worth the $250 we paid for the pair of tickets. We didn't get a single drop of rain on us, the club area was heated and we had good neighbors. I guarantee that we will look at those when we go to another game in the future. The food was decently priced for the situation but nobody would claim it was a good deal. My wife is afraid of heights but the club seats we had were at the back of the section against the wall and she held up ok.
8) The game itself was a turd and I'm not going to expend energy discussing it.
9) We paid for general parking and parked near Daggy Hall. We should have parked 400' further down the hill. It took longer to get out of the parking lot and across Spokane Street than it took to get the rest of the way out of town. If we had parked in the spot west of Spokane Street, we would have been out of town at least 15 minutes earlier.
10) We were in traffic for almost the entire trip to Spokane on Saturday night. The Pacifica had pretty decent Adaptive Cruise Control and took care of absorbing the rubber banding of the idiot drivers who bounced from 45 mph to 65 mph all the way past Colfax. By the time we got to Rosalia, it was loosening up some, but still bunches of cars along the way. It never ceases to amaze me to see idiots drive 55 mph until they get to the passing lane and then speed up to 65 mph like some kind of f#ckin' monkey who doesn't want people to pass them. Got to the hotel at 11:20 pm.
11) Stayed at the Springhill Suites right across the street from the airport terminal but we were there for only 5 hours since we had an early morning flight. Nicer than the Ramada that we normally stay at but the bathroom fan would turn on and off at random and we never saw a switch for it. Worth the price if you don't want to deal with driving and dropping off a rental car at 4 am.
12) At our layover in Denver, we used the free United Club passes that my wife gets once per year as a United Miles Plus member. The breakfast was "ok" and complimentary with entry. It's much quieter in there than outside in the terminal. That said, not really worth the money and we would never pay to use it on it's own.
Anyway, had a good time this weekend despite the turkey of a game.
1) National "upgraded" us to a Chrysler Pacifica PHEV at no extra charge. There is nothing dumber than a rental EV. It was a hybrid so it was ok, but the battery was at 4% when we picked it up and never got over 1% since my driving was mostly highway driving. It got decent mileage and drove pretty well but it was a joke from an EV standpoint. Available charging spots are too sparse to be worthwhile.
2) Ate dinner at Black Cypress restaurant on Main Street on Friday night. It was decent but over-priced considering the quality of the food. Their roasted chicken was pretty good but their ribeye was not as good as steaks I've had in Kansas for half the price. Parking in downtown P-town is a PITA. You could do worse if you want a quieter atmosphere but spending $100 for dinner without alcohol is not a bargain.
3) Went to the Zzumania event on Friday night featuring Yung Gravy. WSU deserves to get fined for the crime of charging grown adults $45 a person for a concert that nobody my age cared about. They barely showed the basketball teams off and the event was primarily watching the cheerleaders and dance teams doing their thing for 80% of the time. Almost no returning men's players from last year but there are dudes all over the place. Of course, the ladies basketball team got the biggest cheer. Watching college students chant with a "rapper" that I've never heard of was a unique experience. If you've never heard of Yung Gravy, you aren't missing anything, but it was kind of cultish watching the students getting into it. The highlight of the night for my wife was when she spotted Charlisse Ledger Walker and some of the other gals from the basketball team watching the concert from the concourse. I went over and told them that they were the only reason that we paid to get into the event. They asked if we wanted pictures and they asked a lot more about us than we expected. You can tell that they enjoy interacting with fans.
4) We stayed at an AirBNB in someone's basement a little over a block from campus. Paid too much but the room was pretty well finished and the hosts were more generous than normal. They provided a bottle of WSU branded wine, some sodas and snacks in the room. Of course, for $459 for a night....you hope that they treat you ok. It was a 7 minute walk to Beasley though...so it was good overall.
5) Ate lunch at Cougar Country Drive-In. It is what it is. Over-priced run of the mill burgers but a Pullman tradition.
6) Hung out at Valhalla with a former Coug football player and a few other folks before the game. My wife was astonished by the number of $16 pitchers of beer that were consumed. It was busy but not nearly as busy as i expected. Great way to burn 3 hours before the game.
7) As mentioned to start, we had club seats and let's just say that they were well worth the $250 we paid for the pair of tickets. We didn't get a single drop of rain on us, the club area was heated and we had good neighbors. I guarantee that we will look at those when we go to another game in the future. The food was decently priced for the situation but nobody would claim it was a good deal. My wife is afraid of heights but the club seats we had were at the back of the section against the wall and she held up ok.
8) The game itself was a turd and I'm not going to expend energy discussing it.
9) We paid for general parking and parked near Daggy Hall. We should have parked 400' further down the hill. It took longer to get out of the parking lot and across Spokane Street than it took to get the rest of the way out of town. If we had parked in the spot west of Spokane Street, we would have been out of town at least 15 minutes earlier.
10) We were in traffic for almost the entire trip to Spokane on Saturday night. The Pacifica had pretty decent Adaptive Cruise Control and took care of absorbing the rubber banding of the idiot drivers who bounced from 45 mph to 65 mph all the way past Colfax. By the time we got to Rosalia, it was loosening up some, but still bunches of cars along the way. It never ceases to amaze me to see idiots drive 55 mph until they get to the passing lane and then speed up to 65 mph like some kind of f#ckin' monkey who doesn't want people to pass them. Got to the hotel at 11:20 pm.
11) Stayed at the Springhill Suites right across the street from the airport terminal but we were there for only 5 hours since we had an early morning flight. Nicer than the Ramada that we normally stay at but the bathroom fan would turn on and off at random and we never saw a switch for it. Worth the price if you don't want to deal with driving and dropping off a rental car at 4 am.
12) At our layover in Denver, we used the free United Club passes that my wife gets once per year as a United Miles Plus member. The breakfast was "ok" and complimentary with entry. It's much quieter in there than outside in the terminal. That said, not really worth the money and we would never pay to use it on it's own.
Anyway, had a good time this weekend despite the turkey of a game.
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