The Sunday Blast from the Past

On August 31, 2006, I arrived at Lewis and Clark State Park in Washington state to begin a seven week stint as a campground host.

I had been told this would be a more physical than social job, and that description was correct. Besides selling fire wood and answering camper's questions, I had plenty of physical chores to do which include scraping, priming, and painting the Environmental Learning Center building.




I also had to dig up all the boulders surrounding three flower and plant areas. Over the years, the boulders had sunk in the ground and it was my mission to unearth them all, put in new soil, and reposition them. Manual labor, to be sure...





This park is located in the old growth Douglas fir forest with huge fir trees that are around 600 years old. And underneath those fir trees are numerous kinds of mushrooms.


Most of the stuctures in Lewis and Clark State Park were constructed in the 1930's by the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). They are beautiful stuctures and must be maintained as they were constructed because they are now on the historic building registry. That includes the cedar shake roofs. Those roofs require a great deal of upkeep. There are two picnic shelters like this one, and while I was there, the larger shelter was rented out twice; once for a wedding, and once for a native American Pow-wow.



I was provided with a full hookup site in amongst the Douglas fir trees. It was a beautiful site. I spent one memorable evening sitting at my campfire while listening to the eerie sounds of the drums floating through the forest from the pow-wow. I'll never forget that. It brought all kinds of images to my mind of what it must have been like a couple of hundred years ago. That was truly a blast from the distant past!
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Thanks for stopping by....talk to you later, Judy