Last day in camp and the drive home

Tuesday rolled around sunny and warm, much like Monday had been. On the menu this morning: Eggs and sausage! We'd picked up some cast-iron griddles to use on the 2-burner stoves, so the eggs and sausages cooked much better than the previous day's pancakes. In fact, Logan took a turn flipping the ol' sausage patties around. Quite tasty, I must say.

Logan cooking sausage for breakfast

After breakfast and the adult leader meeting I packed up my pack and headed for the car. I was expecting a nice mile-ish walk through the heat and the dust, but was saved by the arrival of the camp's maintenance guy who gave me a ride in his truck. Exercise successfully avoided!

My next goal for the morning was to take some photos of the guys in action. Two of them were taking the "BSA Lifeguard" class down by the lake and I figured I'd get some good shots of them throwing a life ring or doing a water rescue or something. No such luck...that morning was apparently "sit on the dock fully clothed and talk about diabetes" day. Sigh. Couldn't find anyone doing anything exciting at the Camping Merit Badge class either, so I instead spent some time at the Trading Post catching up on the news via the mighty Oregonian before heading back to camp for lunch.

Lunch, like breakfast, involved some fine fry work. And flames. Yes, hamburgers were on the menu, and hamburgers plus gas grill equal fire, and everyone loves fire! And burgers. They were actually pretty tasty, I must say.

Mmmm...flame broiled...

After lunch it was time to hit the road. First stop: The post office in Dufur, OR to mail post cards the boys had written to their parents (ours arrived on Friday, I believe). Second stop: the mighty Maryhill Stonehenge War Memorial on the Washington side of the Columbia. The story behind this is that Sam Hill, a Quaker pacifist from the Maryhill Quaker community in southern Washington, was in England during WWI where he saw the real Stonehenge, and decided to duplicate it in concrete to memorialize 13 local soldiers who died in the war and to serve as a reminder that "humanity is still being sacrificed to the god of war" (Sam thought that Stonehenge was used for human sacrifice...) The memorial is both hokey and kind of cool, has held up well over the last 90-odd years, and this picture really doesn't do it justice.

Sam Hill's Maryhill Stonehenge
War Memorial

From there I pretty much drove straight home. Headed up highway 97 through the Yakima Nation, pausing only to get some gas and a Mud Pie blizzard in Goldendale, to get some Chicken Fries and some fresh fruit in Ellensburg, and to take this picture of Mt. Adams somewhere between Goldendale and Ellensburg:

Mt. Adams

Logan got home yesterday with the rest of the camp story: He had a great time, his Astronomy overnight trip was postponed a day or two and they couldn't wake him up for the 1:30 viewing, and more importantly he washed his arms and legs at the Subway on the way home. I'm sure the Subway people were thrilled. Well, at least he didn't ask to take a bath in their utility sink...