Hi, Oi, Hola, Здравствуй, salut, こんにちは again, and welcome to the second segment of my vacation blog! As you may have just recently read, my vacation began with my annual pilgrimage to the H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival and CthulhuCon in Portland, OR. Prior to this year’s trip, I had the pleasure of conversing in a thread with one of my favorite members here on SG, @ferkixlll (he doesn’t post nude photos, but his posts in the Silliness Group will make you both think and laugh 😉), and he informed me that there was a replica of Stonehenge a mere 251 miles from my home in Spokane, WA! So, I made sure to allocate time to see it on the way home from Portland. Unfortunately, the date of my return journey fell on Indigenous People’s Day (a.k.a. Columbus Day - but not in my neck of the woods, and I’m glad ✊🏽), so the visitor’s center and museum were closed. However, that didn’t stop me from seeing the Memorial itself.
So...are you ready to see what’s hiding behind my umbrella? Alright then! Let’s go to Maryhill, WA, the location of a little known American treasure, the Stonehenge WWI Memorial!
As I arrived, I saw an impressive, almost ominous sight: a stone circle high upon a hilltop near a small town. I was a bit unnerved for a moment, because it felt just like how H.P. Lovecraft would have described it; partially visible from a distance, set up and away from the eyes of the town, free of city lights, but clearly visible to all that might be viewing down from above when the clouds should part to reveal the billions of stars and unseen forces otherwise hidden by the day.
Once I reached the top of the hill and stepped out of my car, I was even more impressed. Although certainly not on the scale of Mt. Rushmore or the Lincoln Memorial, the Stonehenge Memorial was quite LARGE, and the very arrangement of the stones gave the impression of a gateway into a place of powerful energy that was present, but simply not visible in daylight.
Now that you’re here in the middle of the stones, I’ll give a bit of history: this version of Stonehenge was originally dedicated on Independence Day, 1918, and is constructed entirely from concrete, unlike the original and other Stonehenge replicas. It did not escape my notice that my visit occurred just slightly more than 100 years since the memorial’s dedication. The Maryhill Stonehenge was commissioned by a wealthy entrepreneur named Sam Hill as a memorial to fallen soldiers and sailors from the local area. This memorial is significant as the first American WWI memorial, and its history has some fascinating relevance as well. Mr. Hill believed, as did many during his time, that the original Stonehenge was used as a site of pagan human sacrifices, and he selected Stonehenge as the form of the memorial because he wanted it to stand as a reminder that “humanity is still being sacrificed to the god of war.”
However, we have learned much since Mr. Hill’s time, and we now know that the original Stonehenge was not a place of sacrifice, but rather a place of gathering relevant to harvests and life events. Based on the number of human remains discovered near England’s Stonehenge, it is now often referred to as a burial site. Although the remains of the Klickitat County servicemen are not interred at the Maryhill Stonehenge, their names are cast into brass plates on the stones themselves, and it is no small irony that Sam Hill’s grave is in fact within walking distance of the memorial he commissioned - and the town of Maryhill burned to the ground, leaving only the memorial. It was known in Mr. Hill’s time that Stonehenge was astronomically aligned, and the Maryhill Stonehenge altar stone is as well: to the sunrise of the Summer Solstice.
In spite of the somber nature of the place, I could not resist embracing the energy I could feel emanating from the site itself.
Now, there is no sense being morbid just because this site is a war memorial. For those of you that are fans of Heavy Metal as I am, you may recall a humorous scene from the mockumentary, This Is Spinal Tap, in which a Stonehenge replica 18” high (18 inches versus 18 feet) high is lowered onto the stage which creates quite an argument between the band members and their manager. It was that very scene that was in my mind when I was in the presence of these particular stones. I wished I had my guitar with me so I could have played Spinal Tap’s song, “Stonehenge.”
“Where the dew drops cry
And the cats meow
I will take you there
I will show you how...” 🤣
On the outside edge of the stones, you can see all the way down to the Columbia River. It was breathtaking, to say the least.
This has definitely been the best vacation I’ve ever had; so many things that I enjoy have been part of the journey! The last installment of my vacation blog will be a 30 second video. The universe had one more gift to give me during my journey - stay tuned!
💗
- Dhyani
