Tom Lutey

Darrin Coldiron is no stranger to taking the long way home. In 2005, he left a good paying job with the Spokane Valley Fire District and set off for tsunami-ravaged Sri Lanka to search for a college friend he feared was lost among thousands killed when a massive wall of water hit the day after Christmas 2004.

Loaves of artisan bread were flying from Tom Tuffin's folding table at Millwood's first farmers' market Wednesday. He bagged a gooey cinnamon roll for a woman, who insisted hers be cut from a corner of the pan where the white icing had pooled, then paused to consider what makes a market successful – not just this market pitched in the parking lot of Millwood Presbyterian Church – but any.

It's Wednesday night in the parking lot of a shuttered Kmart in east Spokane Valley, and at the gates of what was once the garden center, young people are gathering with carnival-like excitement. Not one or two, but hundreds of iPod- listening, text-messaging, flip-flop-wearing kids, ages 12 to 18, jockey for position so that when the doors open, they won't be last inside.

Rick Scott was breathless. He'd started his day Monday talking about crime prevention with concerned citizens in Cheney, checked in with the regional Neighborhood Watch coordinator in Spokane and chatted with military folks about a new community policing program at Fairchild Air Force Base.

There was a strange quiet on the streets of Otis Orchards the Saturday morning before Mother's Day. One could hear lawnmowers being force-fed tall grass from blocks away and the fan belt squealing on a rusty Dodge pickup as it pulled a horse trailer through the intersection of Harvard Road and Wellesley Avenue. What was missing at 9 a.m. on Saturday was the muted beat of hundreds of sneakers pounding south on the crusted asphalt of Arden Road, over to Euclid Avenue and north onto Garry for a return trip to the starting line of the Weiler Memorial Fun Run.

As a steady stream of cars poured out of the Spokane Valley Wal-Mart parking lot last Tuesday, Boyce Cope stood at the exit with his "life's story" printed in brief on cardboard sign. "Disabled vet, wife has M.S., Need food" – a message so short and to the point, a motorist stuck at a traffic light could commit it to memory.

Consider the cowboy boots hanging from a tired, barbed wire fence as your car shoots the ever-closing gap between top-dollar subdivisions described as "highly desirable" and "nicely landscaped." As you pull onto the chewed gravel shoulder of this narrow rural road to accommodate a truck delivering custom cabinets and another churning concrete, consider those worn-out Tony Lamas stained dark red by the spring rain and dripping. There's a hole in the sole of one boot where the ball of a man's left foot broke through years ago and kissed the pebbly Saltese soil. Stories are worn into the soles of these boots, stories of colts broken and calves raised and slaughtered at this crossroad of East 32nd Avenue and Linke Road.

The war against pollution became a house-to-house battle in April, with volunteers like Tom Brattebo pressing neighbors to do more. He didn't know what to expect. It's a tough task standing on a stranger's doorstep, arguing that your corner of the world is in danger even as trees bud and the spring grass turns green.

On the docks at United Parcel Service, they called him "Roller Ball." Shin guards popping, kneepads crashing with thuds of no consequence, Greg Wilkinson hefted box after box from the back of a drab gray freight trailer. One cardboard box plopped onto the chattering steel rollers of a conveyor every three seconds, 1,200 boxes an hour for four hours with no time to count them before the arrival of another truck and more boxes.

The worst traffic troubles along Interstate 90 between Spokane Valley and Post Falls can be summed up in six words: "You can't get there from here." "I-90 splits the town in half," said Bill Melvin, city engineer for Post Falls. He said he sees a need for two additional freeway interchanges for his small city that was once considered a quiet bedroom community of Coeur d'Alene but now has real urban traffic problems.

The worst traffic troubles along Interstate 90 between Spokane Valley and Post Falls can be summed up in six words: "You can't get there from here." "I-90 splits the town in half," said Bill Melvin, city engineer for Post Falls. He sees a need for two additional freeway interchanges for his small city, which was once considered a quiet bedroom community but now has real, urban traffic problems.

If you bought a cat in 1988 and managed to keep it alive through the Clinton presidency, you did better than HomeBase, which opened a 50,000-square foot home improvement store in Spokane Valley only to fold in early 2001. The mega-retailer's mega-carcass, which has been sitting empty at the corner of Sprague Avenue and Farr Road ever since, goes up for auction May 11 to satisfy a $5.8 million debt.

An odd question surfaced last week as Spokane Valley prepared to crown a new teenage "Miss." As she travels from town to town rubbing elbows with other pageant royalty and representing her city in various parades, will Spokane Valley's new princess have to hitch a ride?

It was the deal that changed Cecil and Lynn Boyds' lives forever. Twenty-three years ago, living in rural North Idaho, the husband and wife were looking for a change when opportunity knocked. A couple in the tiny brick town of Mica, roughly 10 minutes south of Spokane Valley, offered to trade them straight up, their lives for the Boyds'.

With the burden of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge project behind it, Big Boat Movers wasted no time putting the state of Washington in its rearview mirror Tuesday. "This job's just about cost me my marriage," trucker Ed Carothers said. "I've been away from home for the last 2 1/2months."