Spokane is the biggest city between Seattle and Minneapolis, about two hundred thousand people in the dry country on the eastern side of Washington state, and it exists because of a waterfall. The Spokane River drops through a basalt gorge in the middle of downtown, a thundering set of falls that is the heart of Riverfront Park, a space created for the 1974 World's Fair. The Spokane tribe lived and fished here for thousands of years, and the name means children of the sun.
The city grew in the late nineteenth century as a hub for silver mining in Idaho, timber and wheat farming, and railroads, and a fire in 1889 destroyed much of the downtown, which was then rebuilt in brick and stone. You can still see the grand old buildings of that period, and the neighbourhoods on the South Hill, with their large houses and green parks, feel somewhat like an old eastern city. It is a good place to eat, with a lively food and brewing scene, and a very easy place to fill the tank and top up supplies before you leave.
The ride south follows the Palouse Scenic Byway, which crosses one of the most unusual landscapes in America. The Palouse is a region of rolling loess hills, deep, wind-blown soil laid down over thousands of years, and the hills are covered in wheat, peas and lentils, in broad swells of gold and green that look almost like sand dunes under a blanket. Steptoe Butte, a quartzite peak that pokes out above the farmland, offers a vast view from its summit, and the roads wind between small farm towns such as Colfax and Pullman.
Roads in the Palouse are quiet, well paved, and mostly gentle, with long climbs over the hills and sudden dips into stream valleys. The best seasons are late spring, when the fields are bright green, and midsummer, when the wheat turns gold. There is little shade and the wind can be strong, so allow for that, and remember that distances between towns are significant. Tractors and combines are common, especially at harvest time, and they take up a lot of road.