Spencer Jack & Jason Take Us Back To Spokane's Expo 74

FNJ and FNSJ (also known as Favorite Nephew Jason and Favorite Nephew Spencer Jack) ventured to Eastern Washington, again, this time to far east Washington, almost to west Idaho. 

Multiple photos arrived in my email inbox this morning documenting this roadtrip to the warmer side of Washington.

Explanatory text accompanying the photos...

FUD --

I'm pretty confident that you can guess the Washington State location that Spencer Jack and I drove to today.

Did you attend Expo '74? I'm thinking that you may have, given that you might have been living in Ellensburg at the time.

I did not, but I did travel out of the country to attend Expo '86.

Has Texas hosted a world exposition? Now that I think about it, Spencer Jack and I have 3 such sites within a half days driving distance from our home.

Hope you are staying cool, -FNJ & FNSJ

PS -- It was a perfect 80 degrees and sunshine today in Eastern Washington. I had Spencer take some photos of Snoqualmie Pass to share with you. I will send them to you.

 

Yes, I can tell Spencer Jack and Jason are in Spokane, at the site of Expo 74. That is the scenic Spokane River moving rapidly behind Spencer and Jason.

In the first photo, at the top, it appears Spencer and Jason are standing under the remains of the United States Pavilion. Or was it the Washington State Pavilion? I can't remember for sure. That pavilion was a fabric covered frame. After the Expo the fabric eventually disappeared, with the frame remaining.

I did go to Spokane's Expo 74. The theme of the Expo, if I remember right, was Energy. Or some such thing.

I remember my favorite pavilion was the Soviet Union one. It felt oppressive, just like the Soviet Union did, at that point in time. I remember sneaking in at the exit point, avoiding the long line. And a giant bust of Lenin being at the entry.

Yes, Texas has hosted a world exposition. Hemisfair 68, in San Antonio. A Space Needle like structure called Tower of the Americas remains.

I do not know if the site of the San Antonio World's Fair was turned into a lasting landmark, such as what happened in Seattle when the Century 21 site was turned into the Seattle Center, with many of the fair structures still standing, including the Space Needle, the Monorail, the Coliseum (now Climate Pledge Arena), the Pacific Science Center, and more.

I enjoyed Vancouver's Expo 86 much more than the Spokane World's Fair. I went to Expo 86 twice.

Above is one of Spencer Jack's I-90 Snoqualmie Pass photos, showing the wildlife overpass which has been added since last I was at this location.

Earlier in the year I was fairly certain I would be driving by this location this coming July or August. But, that is not going to happen...

The 2034 Fort Worth World's Fair Trinity River Vision Product Nightmare

Last night I had a nightmare, a cinematic nightmare, a possibly prophetic cinematic nightmare.

The nightmare began back in the late 1950s in Seattle, where a pair of Seattle businessmen were discussing the idea of bringing a World's Fair to Seattle. One of the pair drew a tower on a napkin, suggesting this be the centerpiece of Seattle's World's Fair. A couple years later, on April 21, 1962, Seattle's Century 21 World Fair opened.

A few years later people in Spokane got the idea they wanted to have a World's Fair. Soon thereafter Expo '74 opened. Less than a decade later Vancouver decided to have a World's Fair. A few years later Expo 86 opened.

All three of these Pacific Northwest World's Fairs were much bigger projects than Fort Worth's relatively puny Trinity River Vision Boondoggle project, with the Pacific Northwest's projects coming to fruition in just a few years, while Fort Worth's Boondoggle has been boondoggling for well over a decade, currently with three simple bridges under construction, slated to take four years to build, as in longer to build than it took Seattle to build the Space Needle and the World's Fair the needle hovered over.

My nightmare became a bit muddled when the plot got to Fort Worth and its ineptly executed public works project known as The Boondoggle Product.

When my nightmare got to the present moment is when the nightmare really started getting scary.

Fast forward four years from 2014.

In my prophetic nightmare vision of the future, those Three Bridge Over Nothing do get completed, in four years. And then sit there, with no ditch being dug under them, with the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle stalled, due to lack of funding.

By the time the Three Bridges Over Nothing are finished, in 2018, we are in year two of the Hillary Clinton presidency.

Kay Granger is unable to get her baby boy any pork barrel earmarks for the TRVB ditch or any other aspect of The Boondoggle, no un-needed flood diversion channel, no imaginary island, no promenade, no parks, no more beer parties.

Nothing.

The mess just sits there as an embarrassing monument to corrupt hubris.

The years pass, those Three Bridges Over Nothing become an iconic international symbol of a Boondoggle  run amok.

And then the nightmare turns into a horror movie.

In the presidential election of 2024, Kay Granger is elected president, shocking much of America even more than when George W. Bush somehow became president after getting a couple million fewer votes than Al Gore.

In my nightmare, Kay Granger, already the oldest, and worst,  president in American history, then wins re-election in 2028.

As the nightmare continues it is as if America has sunk to being like the era of the bad Roman emperors, with Empress Kay basically fiddling while America burns in frustration over what a low voter turnout has wrought.

After year after year of promising to finally secure federal money, President Granger is somehow able to  get the  Republican majority in both houses to pour dollars in to Fort Worth to her then semi-retired son, J.D.'s, long stalled Trinity River Vision Boondoggle Product, from which he continued to draw a hefty salary, during all the decades the project sat stalled.

Stalled, except for the continuing Rockin' the River Happy Hour Inner Tube Floats in the increasingly polluted Trinity River.

With it having been years since J.D.'s dream of building an imaginary island died, J.D., in 2029, has a brainstorm of the sort that brought about rockin' the polluted river, drive-in movie theaters, the world's premiere wakeboard facility, breweries, ice rinks and more, all of which had long ceased operating, except for those aforementioned Rockin' the River Inner Tube events.

J.D. Granger decides it would be a great idea to use that money his mama, the president, is sending him, to bring about something much bigger than the long dead Trinity River Vision, J.D. decides that if other towns could bring about a World's Fair in just a few short years, well, so could Fort Worth, despite no historical record of anything but boondoggles being the result when it comes to Fort Worth trying to do anything BIG, in any sort of timely fashion.

And so, in my nightmare, the proposed 2034 Fort Worth World's Fair became yet one more Trinity River Vision Boondoggle Product.

Likely destined to fail.

However, we must admit to being impressed with the propaganda slogan J.D., or someone came up with in my nightmare, a 21st century adjustment to Fort Worth's "Where The West Begins" claim, changed to "Where The Best Begins".

After over 30 years one would think J.D. Granger would have figured out that making bogus claims based on nonsense was not a good idea, but apparently not, hence "Where The Best Begins", with zero awareness of the irony.....