photo story friday: The walk that never ends!

Hosted by Cecily and MamaGeek

Ok, so there is this huge building on a hill not far from my house. Of course I had to find out what it was. And wouldn't you know it, it's a real life monastery, made by the Jesuit Priests back in the late 1800's early 1900's. Well, when I heard that I just had to see it up close and personal.
My sis and I tried to walk up there last week, but we took the wrong road and ended up nowhere on a dead end road. When we got home I told my sweetest one what we tried to do and he said, "Oh, yeah, I knew that wasn't the right road. I drove the missionaries up there the other day to visit an investigator." I was kind of grumpy after that , I figured that was some vital recon information that should have been shared, beings that I have been saying I wanted to go up that road to see the monastery for MONTHS now, but hey. Just so you can understand the significance of this, it was a 4 mile walk round trip with a fairly large hill. Now I'm all for exercise, but only when it doesn't seem like that.
Well, Monday we decide to try it again. This time we had The Flave, The Bugs, The Mooky and their cousin with us (first trip we only had The Bugs). We more carefully planned out our route...ok so we just decided to try a new road. So we grabbed our water bottles and headed out the door, two strollers and a baby pack heading up the road. It could go with out saying that my camera was securely slung over my shoulder, but since I just had to add that. I was stopping randomly and taking pictures of this that and the other thing, but we were making good progress. Then we realized that the road we were heading north on didn't have any cross streets to get us heading east, with our destination laying east of us this was a bit of a problem. There were plenty heading west, but what good was that to us? You see, the rail road tracks were just on the other side of the businesses on the side of the street so I guess the city developers decided no one need to go east, or maybe they thought railroad crossing were too expensive or maybe they were just too lazy to finish the roads, who knows. After going north for probably a mile further than we should have needed to we finally came to a east bound road, Huzzah!

We were finally walking in the general direction of the monastery. We we united in our decision to try this road! Oh now this was a nice road, newly paved with huge side walks, very little traffic, it was heaven for walking on, and much to our joy it even curved in southwardly direction which we now needed to travel for a time. (By now we had been walking for a while and I realized I should have grabbed more H2O for everyone. My bottle was only half full and our walk wasn't nearly half done, and it was about 90 degrees out.)

We eventually came to the road we were looking for, the one up to St. Michael's, we were in business now. I was still snapping shots and we were all having fun talking about this and that, then the road started it rise to the top. Wow, this is much steeper than I thought, I kept thinking to myself, but I kept trudging along, everyone else seemed fine with it. At about a quarter of the way up there was a shady spot to stop in...to take a drink and maybe a picture of what we could see of the building.

By now my asthma was starting to be a bugger and, well, bug me a bit. "I don't think I wan make it up this hill guys, I'm too tired." They encouraged me to keep going cause, look, we are getting so close and we have gone so far we might as well go all the way. With that we headed onward and upward. Then we see this guy on a bicycle flying down the hill. I thought he must not be using his brakes at all to be going that fast. That was until he was closer and we heard a small engine, and realized he had "tricked" his ride and made it a motorized Specialized. He was flying down that hill because he had the aid of a small gas powered engine affixed to it. Oh, to have some thing like that to help me up this hill! We made it to the next shady spot and again I said I couldn't go further and they prodded me on. We again hear a tiny engine and the guy on the bike came back up the hill,yup, that was definitely what I needed. My face was red from exertion and my breathing was getting a bit more forced.


Finally another shady spot! We went through the whole song and dance, this time they both said, "We can't go back now we are three quarters of the way up." they were right but I was exhausted. I had been pushing the Flave and that means I had an extra 45 pound. Megan was pushing the Bugs so she had an extra 25 pounds. Hosanna had the best deal, carrying the Mooky, a mere 10 pound load. To sweeten the deal or help encourage me, Hosanna traded jobs. Wow, that really was the best trade I have ever made on a walk. After forcing that stroller up the mountain (that is what it became to me....the American Girl who went up a hill and came down a mountain, just doesn't have the same ring to it), the Mooky seemed like nothing at all! The last quarter of the trek up was a breeze.
It was definitely worth the trip.

This is a grand building. And much to our joy it was open to the public for tours....we just wanted to get cold water and be in the cool air conditioning for a while, so we took the tour. It was led by a real nun, in full habit. The Bugs was a bit freaked out by them, and Javin wasn't too sure either. We learned that it was now a private school and a convent. I guess the nuns are the teachers. She led us up to the chapel. It was beautiful, and out of respect for their house of worship I elected not to take pictures in it. The stained glass windows were divine, and the statues and carvings beautiful.
After our short respite in the school and a while in the playground we went back down the mountain. That of course took about a fourth of the time the up trip took, and that pesky guy on the motorized bike kept taunting us, up and down , up and down. At last we made our way back to the beautiful newly paved road, and to our great joy it continued south. Great we thought and said, "We can just take this down to Francis and we will be scott free, nearly home!" Alas, our joy was short lived, for we came to the end of the road, literally, the road was not finished, but wait the side walk was! We kept heading down the said walk, grateful our progression had not been hindered, but again our joy was premature. You see, a nice construction worker, concerned about our safety informed us that we couldn't go any further because after it was too dangerous for us.
I was thinking, "are you freaking kidding me? Doesn't he know how far we will now have to back track just to get to where were where before?" I know,I know, it was very kind of him to worry for our safety, but come on. By then we were all getting tired, and why not, our little walk had already taken over two and a half hours and was beginning to feel like that stupid song, you know the one, yup, the one Lamb Chops sang, but instead of being the song that never ends it was the walk. I had to force my brain to prohibit the words to rush from my mouth.

We trudged along, not talking nearly as much, again our water was empty and our feet were starting to feel as though someone had fitted us with cement shoes. Even with houses all around I felt like we were in a desolate place. Every shady spot became a resting point. It felt harder and harder to get started again. Why weren't we there yet? Is someone stretching the road on a rack? When all hope seemed lost (ok, so I am a bit on the dramatic side at times) at one of our resting spots (right in front of a park) a kind gentleman told us that there was a fountain in the park with ice cold water fresh from the well (what! water that had yet to be ruined by the treatment process? Oh I was so there!). He wasn't kidding, that was the best water ever! We were rejuvenated enough to make all the way back with out even dying! The trip, hike, trek, or journey(take your pick), was over and only took 4 and a half hours. Truly it was worth the effort, we got to see a bit of Spokane history and learn a bit about it, and heck, we got our exercise for the next century (heehee).