Thirsty Point Lookout near Cervantes Western Australia, April 2015.
“Are you okay with stairs?” asks the server, no spring chicken herself, as she shows my friend and me to a table in the restaurant.
“There’s an elevator,” adds the man doing the renos on the public facilities as he directs us to alternate loos on the second level of the community centre. In this case the friend with me is someone who, despite being a decade ahead of me in maturity and wisdom, regularly hikes 7 kilometres a couple of times a week up and down a mountain trail.
In both cases I had to laugh with my friends. While nowhere near as fit as I would like to be, wherever feasible I look for stairs instead of elevators. My local library provides a good opportunity for stair climbing from the basement parkade to the ground level and then up one more level.
Stairs to upper level at the library.
Stairs from parkade to ground level at local library.
Recently when staying with someone at least a couple of decades younger than me, I was able to tell her the purpose of the third key on the key ring she gave me. I found it opened the doors to the stairwell in her condo building - she lives on the second floor.
It must be the gray hair or the character lines that lead those even marginally younger to make assumptions of physical frailty. Ah well, their day too will come, if they are fortunate.
In Victoria BC stairs from Dallas Road to the beach, March 2016.
Many interesting sites a traveler encounters are reached by stairs and often there is no elevator.
Wallace Monument, Stirling, Scotland, July 2003.
The Boves, caves under Arras France, and Canada’s WWI Vimy Monument in France, Summer 2014.
I am glad when elevators are there for those who need them and grateful I am still capable of using the stairs. Now as I travel I will watch for some of those imaginatively painted public stairways I have seen pictured online.
Rosenkrantz Tower, Bergen Norway, May 2012.
Some stairs are natural. Fortescue Falls, Karijini National Park, Pilbara Region, Western Australia, April 2015.