Central & Eastern Washington - Washington, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest - page 410

From Spokane International Airport ( www.spokaneairports.net ) , 8 miles southwest of
downtown off US 2, Alaska, Delta, US Airways and United airlines all offer daily ser-
vices to destinations including Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Denver, Minneapolis,
Salt Lake City and Phoenix.
BUS
All buses arrive at and depart from the Spokane Intermodal Transportation Center (221
W 1st Ave) , a combination bus-and-train station. Greyhound ( www.greyhound.com ) buses
head off daily to Seattle ($36, six hours, three daily) and Pasco ($44, 2½ hours), the
former via Moses Lake and Wenatchee.
TRAIN
The Amtrak ( www.amtrak.com ) Chicago-Seattle Empire Builder divides in Spokane, with
trains heading to both Portland via Pasco and Seattle via Wenatchee once a day in either
direction. Fares are Chicago $163, Portland $53 and Seattle $46.
Getting Around
Spokane Transit ( www.spokanetransit.com ) buses depart from streets bordering the Plaza,
a huge indoor transit station at Sprague Ave and Wall St. Bus fares are $1.50. Bus 64
runs hourly on weekdays between the Plaza and Spokane International Airport, from
6:20am to 5:50pm.
TOP OF CHAPTER
Grand Coulee Dam Area
While the more famous Hoover Dam (conveniently located between Las Vegas and the
Grand Canyon) gets around 1.6 million visitors per year, the much larger (four times) and
arguably more significant Grand Coulee Dam (inconveniently located far from
everything) gets only a trickle of tourism. If you're lucky enough to find yourself out this
way don't miss a stop here: it's one of the country's most spectacular displays of engin-
eering and you'll get to enjoy it crowd free.
Utilizing the raw power of the mighty Columbia River was always going to be logist-
ically difficult. The problem was solved in the 1930s by the building of the gargantuan
dam, still the largest concrete structure in the US and also the country's largest producer
of electricity. Aside from providing enough hydroelectric power to fuel multiple cities,
the dam irrigates more than half a million acres of central Washington and provides year-