On Tuesday, I ran my normal errands around Spokane and on a whim decided to indulge myself in a little road trip. Spokane in and of itself is a maze of north and south streets that intersect with east to west boulevards. But the further north you travel the more unique these roads become in their directions and destinations.
My destination eventually was the Wal Mart in Airway Heights. I was at the Best Buy store in North Spokane off the Newport highway, US 2. I took Hawthorn to Waikiki, through the campus of Whitworth University, a Christian college. For an August summer day, it felt more autumn-like with light rain falling, breezy and overcast.
Waikiki is a four-lane street that meandered northerly, then I saw the road I needed to take that was converted into a round-about. Fortunately, though it has been several years, I distinctly remembered how that street was, and I continued in a westwardly path. This street for reasons I’m sure the present homeowners never predicted that their homes would be assessed at over a million dollars, though they may have mortgages of perhaps over a hundred thousand dollars when those households were built.
There’s also a golf course along the way that the tribe that I work for bought a few years ago when Spokane Country Club sold it. Lush green fairways bordered by evergreens standing majestically about the course as I drove by admiring those hackers brave enough to endure the forces that nature wrought.
I then saw St. Georges School, a private academy situated just south of the Little Spokane River. I continued northward to Rutter Parkway. Here is where this road is ideal for someone riding a Ninja motorcycle. It is a twisting and perilous adventure that isn’t for the untalented or the faint of heart. I kept my Charger going at a safe and sane 35 miles per hour, though I do recall times in my past when I pushed the envelope and drove up to fifteen miles faster. Now was not the time.
Rutter Parkway eventually straightened itself out after climbing up a small drawl and coming on top of a plateau where Indian Trail Road intersect with Rutter Parkway. I stayed on Rutter, and it took me to Nine Mile Falls where Nine Mile Road—aka SR 291 meet. I took a left and to my utter surprise realized that Rutter was redone some time ago and it now had emptied south of the actual town of Nine Mile Falls.
I headed south, passed the now closed and vacant Sundance golf course that I used to play over twenty years ago before my stroke. Houses were built in its place except where the ninth and tenth fairways used to be, now just dried up grass, like a burn scar.
A few miles south of that was where I needed to make a right turn on Seven Mile Road. It hadn’t changed at all. I took it to the Old Trails Road which went through Riverside State Park ORV site, and I continued going south to Trails Road that I turned right on which then intersected with Hayford Road. I drove passed my casino I worked at and eventually found myself turning left into the Wal Mart parking lot.
Jerry Schellhammer 