Service at parking business provides breath of fresh air

My wife, Garnet, and I believe in follow and observe the "Shop Locally" slogan. However, there are times when conducting business 100 miles away from home is necessary, such as needing to leave our vehicle in Spokane during an out-of-town trip.

We recently returned from a week in Las Vegas attending the Shooting, Hunting and Outdoor Trade Show, known as the SHOT Show. In years past, we would travel to Spokane the afternoon before our flight and spend the night at a local hotel. The hotel allowed us to leave the vehicle in their parking lot, plus take us to and from the airport. This, we considered, was a sweet deal and convenient as well.

This year I checked with various online hotel prices and found a room at the same hotel room was much less inexpensive when purchased online. A call to the hotel revealed the room cost was a flat rate, much more expensive, if a vehicle was left in the parking lot.

In other words, the hotel was charging a certain amount as a parking fee. The urge to investigate further was enormous. I looked up parking close to the airport and the first to come up was Parking Express on Spotted Road.

Their website stated, "At Parking Express we aim to provide our clients a safe, secure and pleasant parking facility. Our goal is to get our customers to their flight as quickly and safely as possible. Nobody is closer than Parking Express and we get our clients there faster. Under normal circumstances we get our customer to and from the airport in less than 10 minutes time. We maintain 24 Hour staff and are open for business 24/7, 365 days a year. Please come by and visit our new facility, we would welcome the opportunity to serve you."

The offer sounded good to me, so I called and talked to the manager, Juan Contreras. The cost, after taxes, was $5 a day, plus the business was offering a promotion of one free day when the vehicle was left for seven days. I booked a reservation.

The savings of reserving the room online at the lower rate and using Parking Express enabled me to take Garnet to a delicious birthday dinner during our night in Spokane. But saving money was only part of the benefit of leaving the vehicle with Juan.

We set the address of 1610 S. Spotted Road into the GPS and found the parking lot with ease. A note asked us to settle into a parking space and call a telephone number. The phone was ringing when Juan pulled into the lot after taking another party to the airport.

He helped us load our luggage into the shuttle and drove us to our hotel, where he helped unload our luggage. Juan said if snow fell, he would clear it off the vehicle and he would warm the vehicle as he was going to pick us up, if we wanted this service.

I called him as soon as we were back in Spokane and off the plane. He was waiting as we walked out of the terminal and again helped with the luggage. Another couple was on the shuttle and traveled with us to the parking lot.

They had also been to the SHOT Show and on our plane. They also commented about Juan and the convenience of using Parking Express and the service the business provided as they have used this business several times during the 18 months it has been in operation. 

Parking Express is family owned and operated with a couple of other employees, which allows the 24/7, 365-day operation.

Juan is a people person, making instant friends with each client. I predict this business will thrive as word spreads throughout Eastern Washington.

Next time you need to fly out of Spokane and leaving your vehicle is necessary, give Juan a call at: 509-747-6955, or e-mail him at: manager@spottedroadparking.com. Juan is most responsive to both telephone calls and emails.

The Grant County Historical Society has compiled several volumes of Grant County history. The books are available for purchase at the Historical Society Museum gift shop in Ephrata.

I bought the series in 2009 and secured permission to relay some of the history through this column.

Memories of Grant County, compiled from taped interviews by the Grant County Historical Society.

Today we continue the story of Ephrata, by Ed Harvill, recorded on Oct. 11, 1977:

As I say, my mother did most of the work around the milk house. We milked, my Dad, my brothers and I, plus a hired hand if we had one, then we'd take the milk and put it in the cooler in the morning, then eat breakfast. Next we would come back to the milk house and my mother would come over and we'd bottle it and get it ready to deliver. We'd deliver the milk and then in the summer we'd have the ice delivery.

We had a couple of old Model T touring cars that were cut off with a box on behind. That's how we delivered the milk. Carl and I got pretty clever driving those ears. We could almost throw a bottle of milk out of a crate by turning a corner. Those of you who have driven a Model T know they are quite bad to jackknife when going around corners. We did our share of that.

The kids around the town were familiar with our milk route, so if we weren't there they could deliver the milk knowing the route almost as well as we did. Often times we would hurry up and deliver the milk if we had someplace to go and we'd bring the crates back up in the lane and set the crates under the mulberry tree, then take off and maybe go to Soap Lake or wherever, and pick up the crates and start out the next day.

Another thing I remember, the first gear shift car we had, no, it was the first town car we had. We had always had pickups, but he bought an old Whippet that had been used by the county. Mrs. Washington, Nat's mother, was at that time County Superintendent of Schools and had used this car. It was in about 1933 or 1934 that he bought this old secondhand Whippet. That was our town car and we had great times in that.

Also, seeing Mrs. Wilson over here, Norm Wilson and I started to Washington State College in the fall of 1932. It was either that time or one of the times when we went back, my Dad took us back. One of the trunks was in back. We went through Washtucna and went through a dust storm. When we got to Pullman we opened the trunk and the dust had just silted all the way through. The old cars weren't built that strong.

Now after he sold the dairy they continued living on the old place and the town began to grow a little bit. Since that field was adjacent to the town it was natural to subdivide it. So he had about five or six additions added to the town at different times. He started with a small one and some were quite large. The lots, he subdivided into lots, but didn't build houses on them, were just sold for building lots. They started selling in the first subdivision for about $200 a lot. The last ones sold for about $1,500 a lot. This work occupied most of Dad's time.

Another thing I should tell you is about the old barn on the place, it was built by L. Pruit, who we affectionately knew as "Old Man Pruit," but it is said of him that when the people built the barn they weren't to have a level or a square on the job that, "my eye is as good as any level or square there is." So consequently the barn was 120 feet long and 50 feet wide on one side and 55 feet wide on the other. But it served the purpose.

We used it for many, many years. After he sold the dairy he tore down the large barn and built a small one and there was a level and square used on that one. In later years, after he sold the dairy, you can't just stop keeping cows all at once, you have to sort of taper off, he still kept two or three cows and milked them for years and finally weaned himself completely.

That was about the time the war began to rumble and they had the Air Base here. So he set up a riding academy in this old barn and there were many horses there. He spent a lot of his time up there.

Of course, my mother, with the kids being gone, had more time to devote to her antiques. She was quite an avid collector of glass and set aside one room to display her glass in. During World War II he brought in some little cabins and set them in the area and rented them out to service people. Plus half of the house was rented out to people. Many lasting friendships were made from these contacts during the War.

Mother was intensely interested in glass and spent all her waking time, reading and studying and collecting glass. So after the War she wanted a place down town where she was right on the main drag. The house on B Street, known as the old Greenlee place, become for sale, so that was just what she wanted. They bought it and moved there.

Well, at that time, all the subdivisions had crowded in around the old place and people were clamoring to get that old, smelly barn out of there. Of course, Dad was a little bit stubborn, not too bad, but said, "That barn was there before your houses were. What are you worrying about?" But eventually, he succumbed and the barn went, and it was all subdivided lots. The front bedroom of their house was an antique shop and she delighted in showing people around.

In the winter of 1958 Mother and Dad went to Arizona and spent the winter with her brother and sister, one of the few times that I know of, when she and Dad went together. She loved to travel and he loved to go to rodeos, but he didn't love to travel too much. Consequently they didn't run around too much to?gether. In that time, when my family was growing up, in the summer I'd come up to the house and my mother would tell me that she "had been studying and I know where I'd like to go and if you'll drive me I'll pay the gas bill," so away we'd go. We visited Yellowstone and Glacier and Waterston parks and over to the Coast. The only stipulation was that if there was an antique shop or sign I had to stop and I couldn't go very far by it. I had to stop.

After their trip to Arizona it was January. Their 50 th Anniversary was in December of 1958, so we celebrated their anniversary in January, 1959. Shortly after that she was buried. My Dad continued to live in the house there on B Street until 1974 when he had an accident and broke his hip and never recovered. But they both lived full lives and I am sure a part of them continues to live in all of us.

My father's name was Ben Harvill. My mother's maiden name was Vesta Adams and of course, later Vesta Harvill.