The Trip and the Trade: Spokane, WA - Kiddos and Doggies and Pumpkins

About the 'Trip and the Trade'

This is a journey about connections, friendship, new experience, community service, and yoga. This idea quite appropriately came about during a yoga class. While I was supposed to be watching my thoughts pass like clouds through the sky of my mind, I was instead thinking hard…thinking about the road trip I was planning. I intended to drive through multiple cities visiting friends and family along the way. As I thought about this trip an idea began surfacing in stages. It went something like this: Oh no! How am I going to practice yoga while I’m gone??... Hmmm, I bet there are studios in most of these places …oooh, that’d be fun! Trying out new studios! ... and then I began to wonder about how I could integrate my yoga with community involvement. I love connecting with people and places. I kept thinking and by the end of the class decided that I would attempt to forge relationships with at least one studio in each location where I stayed, a relationship based on passion for yoga and interest in their community. That’s it! I would ask them if they would be willing to trade me one yoga class in exchange for a couple hours of my time giving back to their community, and THAT is exactly what I’m doing.

I will be blogging daily along the trip, mostly about my time with each studio and community. After my class with each studio I will dedicate a post to my experience there with photos and a direct link to their website. Although I am open to all that this trip will bring, I do have a few objectives. These objectives fall under two things: ‘Trip’ and ‘Blog’ and one crosses over into both:

Trip Objectives:

1. To connect with each location through community service

2. To experience a yoga studio in each community

3. To inspire people to incorporate yoga in their lives and get

involved in their communities as well as others

Blog Objectives:

1. To have a forum for writing and sharing my experiences

with others

2. To track/document my trip

3. To inspire people to incorporate yoga in their lives and get

involved in their communities as well as others

I have sent hard copy letters to a few studios in each of the places where I plan to stay. Getting to this point has been an interesting process. I vacillate regularly between excitement and fear. Excitement about meeting new people and doing good things in their community and fear of well…fear of failure. Will anyone be open to my idea? What if no one responds? Each time I feel nervous I remind myself to move forward with a heart and mind open to possibilities and yes, one of those possibilities is failure and that is okay. So here it goes, cheers to trying something new and being satisfied with unknown outcomes. I invite any of you that will be in the same locations as me to join me for a yoga class. The map with destinations, dates, and yoga studios is below. If you are interested in joining me for a class in your town during the dates I will be there please e-mail me at berghk@gmail.com and I will let you know what class(es) I will be attending and when. Cheers to The Trip and the Trade!

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Spokane, WA - Kiddos and Doggies and Pumpkins - Oh MY!

Upon arriving at Amber and Steve's house I was greeted by three little munchkins (well four, but he'll show up in a later photo) - what a welcome sight they were! I was sooo tired on my drive between Walla Walla and Spokane that I had to pull over in Colfax and sleep for 30 minutes!

I was a little worried that Arthur might not do so well around the kidlets but the twins had an entirely different take on things - they almost instantly were hugging and making Arthur feel right at home. I'm pretty sure that he weighs almost as much as all four kids put together but that didn't stop them!

Ahhhh...what a good boy :)

Tyler took charge of "training" and had Arthur marching all over the back yard, fetching tennis balls, sitting, and lying down. He really ran him through the ringer and you know what?...Arthur loved it! He hasn't been more relaxed at any of our stops than he was with all the kiddos.

Amber took me out to a nice lunch and then we went for a walk through Manito Park - the fall color was sooo pretty!

After Manito Park we made our way downtown to Riverfront Park and made a beeline for the carousel. It's one of my favorite things pretty much EVER. I bought us each a ticket and we made our way to line up for our turn. I don't know how much any of you know about carousels but this one is one of the best that I've every been on. It has beautifully carved horses, giraffes, and tigers that you can ride on. Of course, professional carousel riders like myself know that you ONLY want to ride a horse and ONLY a horse on the outside because that is the ONLY way that you will be able to grab the rings that they feed through the wooden 'arm' that swings out. Three things are cool about the rings:

#1 You get to lean way out off your horse to grab one

#2 Once you catch one you get to throw it at the hole in the canvas thingamajig to see if you can make it buzz

#3 You have a chance to get the golden ring and get a free ride

Now...I've been riding this carousel for over 30 years and have never gotten the golden ring. On our way down to Riverfront Park I called out that I was going to get it this time and guess what...

I DID!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I told Amber before the ride had stopped that we would have to beat feet out of there if I was going to be able to keep my ring. Apparently she didn't believe me because she refused to run and...lo and behold...'Koby' a.k.a. 15 year old highschooler working the ring arm caught me and made me give back the ring. Booooo!

I tried and tried to talk him into letting me keep it - I told him that it filled a hole in my soul, that I was a tourist and didn't he want me to leave with a good impression of Spokane residents?, C'mon Koby, I finally pleaded ... I'll give you 20 bucks!!!

Boy that Koby is cut out for some highly trained branch of the secret service because he wouldn't budge - apparently his loyalty to the Spokane Riverfront Park Carousel runs deep. I finally admitted defeat and with head lowered and a little bit of the pizazz stolen from my step, I walked away with my (stupid ol') free carousel pass.

But still...I GOT THE GOLD RING - I HELD IT - and FOR A MOMENT... it was mine :)

Amber and I strolled around Riverfront Park and finally made our way back to our car and back home.

The next day Amber (being the brave woman she is), Steve, and I took the kiddos - four of em' the oldest is 5 - to the pumpkin patch up in Greenbluff.

As we stepped out of the car a bee almost instantly landed on one of the twins and stung her - after we mitigated the ensuing flood of tears all seemed well...