Rain Throws Wet Blanket On Holiday Weekend Shopping, Movies Substitute For Camping, Fishing

On a day when the weather doused the camping spirit, Matty Paulson was faking it.

Her plans for canoeing on Lake Pend Oreille were flooded early in the week. The Little Spokane River was too wild for fun. And a soggy hike in Colville? Forget about it.

So she spent Sunday shopping for camping goods, preparing for the weather to turn. She climbed into a tent in the REI showroom and fiddled with camping stoves at the General Store. She checked out trail maps, for the next sunny weekend.

“You can’t do it today, so thinking about it is close enough,” said Paulson, zipping her fleece as she headed into the rain.

Like many, Paulson punted traditional Memorial Day weekend plans when the weather turned mean. The day that is supposed to be the harbinger of summer fun turned into a day for indoor recreation.

David Murley had his weekend all planned out.

The sun would hang in the sky like a yellow basketball, clouds would be a whispy memory, the fish would be thick as locusts. And they’d all wind up in his freezer.

But on Sunday it was as much a fantasy as the flicks he browsed through at Video Theater in Coeur d’Alene.

“I’ll clean house and rent movies,” Murley said. “The water’s too high - you can’t boat, you can’t fish … the water is so muddy, you can’t see anything anyway.”

Instead, Murley and his son Michael, 11, were trying to convince Mom to watch something that goes “boom.”

“She likes romantic stuff,” Murley said.

At Payless Drug in Coeur d’Alene, the rain bogged down business. But some customers, apparently, hadn’t given up.

“They’re still buying things like lawn chairs, patio umbrellas. It seems to me like they’re going camping,” store supervisor Marilyn Kochner said.

Still, the weather was too wet for most.

“A few ladies have been in the plant department, the die-hard gardeners. But not the fair-weather gardeners.”

At the Newport Cinemas on Spokane’s North Side, all seats were full for three screens showing the Jurassic Park sequel, “The Lost World.” Ticket lines curled around the building and the theater’s enormous parking lot was full.

“We’re going to see dinos!” said Chasen Hansen, a cherubic 3-year-old in a faded Metallica T-shirt. He threw a handful of popcorn in the air to show his excitement. His mother sighed.

Gloria Jordan and a friend visiting from Illinois stood in line for the movie. They drove from Colville to see the show, shop at the mall and, perhaps after a drink, get their ears pierced.

They, like Paulson, had outdoor plans, an overnighter in the Kaniksu National Forest. “We got as far as a barbecue in the carport,” said Jordan.

In the crowded nursery department of the North Division Eagle hardware store, Perry Smith had more sober things on his mind.

His father was a casualty of the Vietnam War, killed in 1970 in a cargo plane crash. Smith never met him.

But he remembers him each Memorial Day. A pair of rhododendron bushes in his arms, Smith, a 29-year-old accountant, was headed home to plant a small monument to his father’s sacrifice.

“This weekend is for dad, not camping,” he said, pulling on his hood and heading to his car.

, DataTimes