Liberty Lake, WA

Spokane River Centennial State Park Trail

Run Time: 66:18 + 2:30 kick

Liberty Lake is a suburb of Spokane, on the east side. It is related to freedom, obviously. At least for the white settlers who cleared out the Native Americans like trees in an old-growth forest. My hotel was not far from the lake, but the river was closer, and I could see the trail on the map a quarter-mile away.

My intent is to take a journalistic approach to describing the routes I run. I want my vast readership to receive an objective description of the route, so that they can make their own assessments. I don’t want to recommend, or discourage. If I have been doing that, I no longer intend to do that. You can judge from my description and the photos if it looks like you might want to run there yourself the next time you are in that location.

It’s a strange thing, really, to recommend a restaurant or tourist attraction you have visited while traveling to a friend or family member or stranger you meet on a plane who is planning to visit the same city or region in the near future. Let’s say you really had a great experience somewhere, or had a great meal. You really do not know if another person would enjoy that experience or that meal the same way you did. Enjoyment is almost completely subjective.

Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that your tastes align with the person to whom you are giving a recommendation. The next potential pitfall is your personal ability to assess quality. What if your experience with restaurants and fine wine is limited? What if you have biases that alter your judgment negatively? Yes, you might have liked the lobster roll you got at the diner down by the bay, but if it was the first lobster roll you’ve ever eaten, how accurate is your assessment of its quality?

Let’s say that you’re an expert, or that you have extensive experience with the subject at hand. Even then, if you are only visiting or touristing, what percentage of restaurants or museums or plays or historical exhibits have you experienced in that city or region? Even if you have lived someone for many years, you likely have only eaten at a small percentage of restaurants. That’s one of the fun things about moving to a new city — exploring and discovering, looking for a that little-known culinary gem, or the used record store that is an underground gold mine.

When we have a good experience in a restaurant or at a public attraction, we often want to share it with others. I think it might be best to embrace the subjectivity and simply say, “I liked it because….” or “I didn’t like it because….” or what we both liked and didn’t like about it. That way we’re not saying that the other person will like it, or that they should go there, or that they “have to” go there. We are simply describing what we enjoyed about it. If we are accurately describing the experience, we are helping that person assess it for their own potential enjoyment. We are not asking them to take our word for it. There is nothing wrong with asking someone to take your word for it. It just should be something we can reasonably know we are right about. If I have visited two restaurants in a city of 500 restaurants, I can’t reasonably know that anybody should go to either of those restaurants over any other restaurant.

I don’t know much about influencers. I don’t follow any social media influencers. I subscribe to some e-newsletters, but other than ads that run in and around the content, I don’t think the content itself is tainted by the influencer business model. I could be wrong. We are all, to some extent, influencers. It’s kind of like the aphorism, “Everyone is in sales. Some people just don’t realize it.” We all spend at least some time and effort trying to convince, persuade, influence, and “sell” our message. In a way, I’m doing it right now.

I don’t even remember what prompted this subject for the blog. I was probably listening to a podcast, and someone on the podcast was waxing poetic about some place they visited, or some activity they engaged in, or some food they ate. It gave me the vibe of exaggeration. And I can understand it. You’re on a podcast, being interviewed by some famous person, and you’re telling a story that you want to share with the world, so it was the greatest dessert you ever ate, or the most beautiful thing you ever saw.

When we do this, it generally comes from a desire to help others, so it’s difficult to find fault with it. Well, not for me, but probably for others. I am skeptical. That’s not bad. It means I am going to reserve judgment for when I experience whatever it is that’s being sold to me as something I “have” to do. And I might never do it, because life is short, and I have other things that I want to do that I found out about organically, and I want to discover where the good running trail is on my own.

Also, I am wary about the inverse — negative reviews. I do look at hotel ratings when I’m booking hotels for a work trip. I use it as a secondary factor. A 3-star hotel with the same price as a 2-star hotel is a better option. Sometimes I will look at ratings for fast-food places that I map on Apple Maps. If 3 people give the place a death sentence, it might be worthwhile to try some place 0.4 miles further away. This is all pragmatic.

But negative movie and show reviews, or music reviews, from the general rabble make we want to check it out. When my older brother told me that he walked out of the first Lord of the Rings because it was the “worst movie I ever saw,” I had to question not only his taste in movies, but also his sanity, the purity of his tap water, and the potential presence of a brain tumor. Then I remembered that one of his favorite movies was “For the Love of Benji,” and I realized that rationality was not in play.

The view along this trail was scenic. The surface was asphalt, which I don’t like. The aroma from the pine trees reminded me of hunting deer in Eastern Oregon, which I really liked. Almost no one I passed on the trail made eye contact with me. None waved (I waved at a few, then gave up). I am more of a smiler/nodder. Two people (out of about twenty) smiled and nodded back.