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Weekend in Spokane

Sometimes we try to squeeze in a quick random weekend vacation, but there are so many great options, how do we decide what to do? To help with this, we kind of fell into the odd goal of trying to touch every county in Washington with our electric vehicle. The bar is very low. We just have to drive through it and while I try to limit the times we just drive in/out of a county to say we were there, it’s ok if that’s what happens. We invented the challenge so we can invent the rules and we can change them later if we want to!

We’ve been doing this for a while so the counties are getting harder to hit. For this trip, we targeted the northeast corner of the state. There are some really interesting spots in that area. For example, Crawford State Park has an amazing cave system that I would like to explore. But when you try to cram a bunch of stuff into a quick weekend trip and group a couple counties together, it gets tougher.

The itinerary for this trip was that we would drive to Spokane on Friday evening. Saturday we would do a counterclockwise loop north and west of Spokane and then Sunday we would drive back. And of course, we would stay at a Best Western Plus which Elijah thinks is the best hotel chain in the whole world. That status got a bit of a blemish when we pulled up and found out that their pool was closed for repairs!

I chose the Liberty Lake hotel because it was right across the street from a Tesla service center and Supercharger. That was very convenient and made staying there worth it even with the hotel being on the east side of Spokane.

  • Our tour started with driving north to Pend Oreille County Park. The park had a disc golf course but it wasn’t very well kept so we decided not to play and continued heading west.
  • Our next stop was breakfast-all-day at Hunters Holy Grub. We had a seat next to a window with a very active hummingbird feeder which Elijah and I enjoyed watching while Tyla pet the dog that was trying to sleep on the couch.
  • Our main stop for the day was Fort Spokane. I didn’t expect it to be super impressive (and it wasn’t) but to make things a little more interesting, I had AI create a ~15 minute podcast about the history of the fort. This ended up being incredibly interesting and provided great context as we walked through the museum and old buildings. I uploaded the podcast to YouTube with a static image if you are interested in hearing what it created for us.
  • On our way back through Spokane, we stopped at Riverfront Park where we tried the gondola over the falls (not worth it) and visited the trash goat (obviously worth it.)
  • Dinner was at the delicious No-Li Brewhouse

Our whirlwind tour of those counties was fun but our trip wasn’t over because on Sunday, we were invited to a graduation party on the Olympic Peninsula (west of our house.) We didn’t want to miss the opportunity to connect with old friends so we made the drive back home, past our house, and over to the party.

By the time we were done, we had traveled 989 miles. It was probably too much driving but we crammed a lot in and collected 5 new counties along the way. Below is a map of our route as well as an image showing the counties we have hit in total.

We have touched red counties with the Tesla. Blue counties are only with the truck.
benmartens July 3, 2025 Family, Travel No Comments

Leavenworth Chocolate Tour

A couple weeks after Mother’s Day, Tyla finally got her Mother’s Day present. Elijah and I put together our own “chocolate tour” of Leavenworth. There are so many shops there but we used to go to the same one or two every time. But before hitting the sweets, we made a couple other stops.

The first was for the new-ish alpine coaster. Each car on the track holds one (or possibly two) people and you have a hand brake. The brake is not necessary and will annoy the people behind you, but it exists and a lot of people use it. The track is built onto a steep hillside right as you come into town from the west side. There are various YouTube videos if you want to see what the ride looks like, but in general, we all give it the thumbs up, at least to experience once. If you’re a fan of rollercoasters, the thrill level is pretty low, but if you’re a nervous rider, this is good because you can control your speed. It’s worth a visit.

Next we had lunch at Blewitt Brewing. We hadn’t been there before but we enjoyed our pizzas and I enjoyed some beers. They don’t necessarily do flights of beer, but they sell 5oz pours and you can get however many of those you like. I logged (via Untappd) my 1500th different kind of beer there!

Then finally it was time for the chocolate tour! Here are the places we went:

I won’t review them all individually, but it was a blast! It was so fun to explore business and buildings that we don’t normally go in and some of these will definitely get a second visit. This was especially good timing because Rocky Mountain Chocolates used to be our favorite stop by default, but the “Leavenworth Chocolate” business that replaced it is so bad I can’t imagine they will still be there next year. I’m glad we have great alternatives.

Happy Mother’s Day, Tyla!

benmartens June 26, 2025 Family, Travel

DGPT Shelton Review

Last year our family went to our first professional disc golf tournament in Portland. We had such a great time that when we heard about the tour stopping closer to home in Shelton, WA, we quickly bought tickets.

The day was extremely wet at home but thankfully, the tournament happened to be in the rain shadow for the Olympic Mountains. The winds were very strong, but it was warm enough to make for a pleasant day outside. We arrived about an hour before the leaders teed off and stayed through the event.

One highlight for us was seeing Simon Lizotte who wasn’t at the previous tournament. Elijah was also very excited to see Niklas Anttila. Niklas was defending a tournament win at this course from last year but unfortunately wasn’t able to string together enough good holes to contend for the win this year.

When we arrived, we took a lap around the spectator areas getting a feel for the course and watching a few of Niklas’s holes. Then we made our back to the start of the course and watched the lead groups come through. This course looked fun to play but since it was mostly in the woods, it was much more difficult to watch as a spectator. There were way less people at this one which helped, but I think part of the lower attendance might be because there just weren’t many spots to get a really good view of the action.

Towards the end of the day, we parked ourselves at the end of the course and Elijah collected as many autographs as he could. He got a signature from Niklas on one of Niklas’s custom-stamped discs and then loaded up a second disc with signatures from most of the players in the last ~5 groups.

It was another good experience and the whole event was very family friendly, but next year I think I’ll eyeball the course a little more to see what the spectator experience is like. If it’s another wooded course, it might be worth paying for the VIP ticket which lets you follow behind the players on the course.

benmartens May 29, 2025 Family, Sports, Travel

MLC Visit

When you list top places to visit for your 15th wedding anniversary, New Ulm, MN is near the top of the list, right? Ok that’s probably not the case in general, but it is for Tyla, and it just happened to work out that we took a trip there on our anniversary weekend. Because of Elijah’s spring break, he was able to come along on this trip too.

After we landed in Minneapolis, we made a very quick stop at the Mall of America. Tyla and I had both spent time separately there before, but it was Elijah’s first time. We took a quick spin on the Pepsi Orange Streak roller coaster and then had dinner at the food court before quickly exiting and making the 1.5 hour drive down to New Ulm.

New Ulm is home to Martin Luther College which is the school that trains every one of the pastors and teachers in our national church body. The solid Biblical doctrine and training received at MLC is a key factor in the consistency of teaching across all of our churches and schools. As with our previous trip last fall, this was another trip to work with the MLC leadership team. Tyla and I had a full day of meetings talking about work they are doing, asking questions, and providing feedback. It was exciting to see all the projects that are in motion there and hopefully our input was valuable to them.

While we were in the meetings, we had planned to just have Elijah hang out next door in the library and enjoy some bonus time on his tablet, but they set him up with a student ambassador for the day! Elijah got to tour some buildings, have lunch in the cafeteria, and play disc golf. Getting all that personalized attention was a dream day for him! After lunch, Elijah was supposed to attend a history class with the student but it turned out that he had a test that day. While they were eating lunch, another student mentioned that he was heading for Greek class. Elijah thought that sounded like fun so the student offered to take him to Greek! It’s hard to imagine a sixth grader going to a senior-level Greek/theology class, but he loved it.

We stayed an extra day to attend a baseball doubleheader and tennis matches. Everywhere we went that day, we saw people we knew and we had great conversations. We even found someone to give us a quick tour of the Betty Kohn fieldhouse.

As always, the faculty and staff made us feel incredibly welcome. We’re so thankful for their kindness and hospitality in addition to the amazing work they are doing at the school.

benmartens April 17, 2025 Family, Travel

Christmas in Indiana

Living thousands of miles from where I grew up, it’s amazing to me how often we’re able to get back there. My parents were gracious enough to host the whole gang for Christmas yet again. There was a tiny bit of snow when we arrived and then it warmed up making travel simple. We made good use of the clear roads by heading down to see my 94-year-old Grandpa. Other than that, we had a couple church services, board games, good food, a chocolate factory with bison and dinosaurs, and a pile o’ presents. And oh yeah, Luke brought a giant 1.3 gallon beer to go with Dad’s craft beer sampler pack mountain.

I’ve gotten in the habit of putting together a quick video recap of the trip. It’s probably not super interesting to anyone else, but we enjoy looking back at them.

And here are a few pictures from the trip as well:

benmartens January 9, 2025 Family, Travel

Moses Lake for a Weekend

While we did just get back from a great trip, we decided to squeeze one more in before the weather gets rainy. I don’t remember how it started but we have a random family goal of visiting all the counties in Washington together. With that in mind, we headed east. For those of you not familiar with our state, you may picture Washington state as wet and cloudy. That’s true on the west side of the state between October and May but the east side of the estate is a desert. There are literally tumbleweeds blowing around. It’s a dramatic change with just an hour drive east over the mountains.

Our base of operations was Moses Lake, but the drive out there was slower than expected because the I-90 bridge over the Columbia River is being worked on for the next couple months. We sat through a 5-mile, 75 minute backup squeezing down to one lane. Oops.

Saturday morning we headed north for Grand Coulee Dam. Tyla and I have been there before but Elijah had never seen it. Grand Coulee Dam is mind-boggling big. It was originally created to supply a huge part of central Washington with irrigation but now it also supplies power for about 2 million homes per year. There are lots of stats, but suffice it to say the ~1 mile long dam is one of the biggest concrete structures in the world and the 10th most powerful hydroelectric dam (3.2 times more powerful than the famous Hoover Dam.) We got there for the first tour at 10am, but unfortunately the tour has really been neutered even after the initial changes after 9/11. You no longer get to visit the generator area. The tour briefly takes you down to the pumping facility which is interesting but too short. The rest of the tour is a drive across the top of the dam with a stop walk around at the top. I guess it’s still worth doing if you’re there, but don’t make that the key point of your day. Luckily for us, it was just one piece of the puzzle!

After the tour we had lunch at the apparently brand new Billups Sub Co. It was delicious but way more expensive than I was expecting. We got our food to go and ate it at a nearby park that had free EV charging (more on that in a later post.)

After lunch we headed northeast to Koontzville and then east to Highway 21. I don’t think we saw any other cars on that part of the drive and a forest fire had ravaged the area only a couple months before. It was quite a sight. Once on Hwy 21, we headed south to the Keller Ferry. This ferry is tiny compared to the ones we’re used to in the Puget Sound. It only holds 20 cars! The north dock is movable and gets moved upriver to a different spot when the river is too low. There’s no schedule and no fee for the 10 minute crossing. This sounds like a simple part of the trip, but we all said it was our favorite!

From the south ferry dock, we headed straight back to our hotel in Moses Lake for some swimming, food, and rest. Our drive back home went smoothly and we got through the construction in Vantage, WA before it had backed up at all. After getting through that, we did stop at the Thorp Fruit & Antique Mall. It was fun to go inside afer driving by so many times. We came back with a box of apples, but if you’re looking for really good deals, I think you should look elsewhere. It wasn’t bad but it felt like a mildly good sale at the grocery store, not the kind of deal you get buying straight out of a field.

So none of those activities were monumental but it added up to a nice weekend and some more family memories to add to the pile.

benmartens September 26, 2024 Family, Travel

2024 PDGA Portland Open

In addition to playing disc golf fairly regularly, Elijah and I have watched a lot of the pro tournaments online. They have a subscription network for live coverage, but we generally watch an edited version of the final round for free on the JomezPro YouTube channel. Most of the tournaments are in the midwest and southeast but there were a couple Oregon tournaments on this year’s schedule, so last weekend we made a day trip to Portland for day 3 of the 2024 Portland Open.

I didn’t really know what to expect and it was going to be a long day (6 hours in the car plus ~8 hours at the tournament) so I was hoping for the best. I had so many questions starting with “What is parking going to be like?” There wasn’t a lot of info available ahead of time about parking but I was thrilled to see that we could just street park within about a 5 minute walk of the course!

The tournament schedule had the ladies teeing off first followed by the guys. Elijah’s disc golf teacher was in one of the first groups of ladies to tee off and that had happened a couple hours before we got there. After checking scores on my phone, we made a beeline back to hole 16. There was almost no one around and we weren’t even sure we were in the right area, but then we saw his teacher come through. She spotted after teeing off and came running over to give Elijah a hug! We watched her through the final holes and got to chat with her after. She made Elijah feel super special and even took him up onto the #1 tee between groups to get a great photo by one of the big PDGA sign boards. You can see it on her Instagram account.

After walking around the booths and grabbing some lunch, we watched the top ladies groups finish up on hole 18. Then we headed over to hole 1 and parked ourselves in a great spot with some shade but also great views of the green.

It ended up being a magical spot. One of the first groups we watched had Niklas Anttila in it (one of Elijah’s favorites.) As Niklas walked by, he fist bumped Elijah and blew Elijah’s mind! It was a tiny act but the unnecessary kindness of it was so wonderful.

That was more than we expected but it certainly wasn’t the end. When Andrew Presnell came through, his caddy handed Elijah a signed trading card. And then when Ricky Wysocki came through, his caddy rummaged around in his bag for quite a while and came out with a Ricky t-shirt in Elijah’s size! Elijah immediately put it on and Ricky gave him a big smile as he walked by. Just being close to all the people he watches on TV was a hit but these extra interactions sent him over the moon. In this image below, we are back against the trees just to the left of the guy’s disc in his hand in front in front of the person in the red shirt.

We watched everyone come through and then we headed further out on the course to watch a few more players come through before finally settling on hole 18 to watch everyone come through again. It was about 10 minutes between groups but Elijah never once talked about being bored or tired even though it was about 8 hours on the course in total.

If Elijah had to pick one player as his favorite, it would probably be Calvin Heimburg. Calvin was in the second to last group. We got to watch him make a stellar eagle on the last hole. You can see us in this photo below to the left of the basket. We are all standing and Elijah has an aqua colored shirt on. Or watch this video for a longer clip of the video that this screenshot was taken from. You can see Elijah jump up and cheer.

If you kept watching that video clip to see Calvin’s putt, you might have noticed that Tyla and Elijah were gone. (I was standing there recording a phone video like a dork.) Earlier in the day, Elijah had picked out a Calvin Heimburg disc as his souvenier. After the round, he waited in line to get it signed by Calvin and even got a picture with him too!

As I mentioned, it was a long day and we were wiped out by the time we got home. The morning drive wasn’t too bad but it would have been really nice to have a hotel that evening. I was really thankful for the autosteer feature on the Tesla as it took a lot of pressure off both of the drives.

If you can’t tell by now, we were very impressed with the event. Yes, disc golf is still a niche sport, but they put on an excellent show. You can tell they’re putting a ton of effort into really polishing it as much as possible. But since it’s still picking up steam, it’s very easy to attend an event like this and tickets were only $21 (plus Elijah got in free.) The only time when a crowd was minorly annoying was on the final hole of the day with the final group, but realistically it was probably only 200-300 people. I was still able to see just fine, and there was zero traffic leaving the event.

Most of these same players will be playing next week a little farther south in Oregon. We’re excited to do this again sometime, but that’s probably a little too soon. We’ll have our eyes on the schedule next year though! Most events are east of the Mississippi but it’s nice to see a couple within driving distance for us.

A huge thank you goes from our family to everyone who made our day special, but especially Corey! She made Elijah feel like a VIP!

benmartens June 6, 2024 Family, Sports, Travel

Legends Confidence App Review

I don’t know about other parents, but Tyla and I often chat about ways to help Elijah build confidence. That’s probably what made the “Legends” app catch my attention. It’s a paid app, but that link includes a referral code which currently gets you a free month and we started with a similar code.

The idea is that you sit down with your child (ages 7-11) for about 5-7 minutes every day and go through the next coaching session. The coach is funny and approachable and many of the sessions draw on lessons from celebrities. For example, it might be helpful to know that Kobe Bryant wasn’t always good at basketball, he just worked harder than everyone else. Or it might help to know that Billie Eilish has to deal with anxiety about performing on stage. There are usually quick activities with the lessons like coming up with things you can say to downplay negative self-talk or words you can use to build yourself up.

I don’t know if we’ll continue to subscribe to the service or for how long, but this first free month has been great. I wouldn’t say Elijah necessarily looks forward to it, but he has never once given me the eye roll when I suggest that we do our daily session. That’s saying a lot.

So yes, the app is wonderful and I recommend it, but as a Christian I found myself wishing that there was more to it. It’s the same feeling I get when I listen to any secular self-help/counseling type of content. Jesus is the ultimate source of comfort, confidence, and peace. Without him, you’re grasping at straws. The whole experience made me wish that I had the time and skillset to work with some people in our church body to create something in a similar space but combine it with the Bible.

benmartens May 16, 2024 Family