Pedroza's Place

(HINT: Click on the pictures to enlarge them)

As the southern bookend to the National Mall, the Jefferson Memorial shows me the southern nature of Washington DC. The original plan for the Capitol was to include parts of Virginia, but that was not to be. If Virginia had been included I think that the Jefferson Memorial would of made for an appropriate gateway. Due to our travel plans we got to see this monument both early in the morning and right before dusk:

The view at dusk is remarkably more dramatic, but as you can see there were a lot more people there at dusk than dawn.
Almost like all US Capitol monuments you will be immediately struck by the size.

Cast in bronze the Jefferson Memorial towers above you. Construction began in 1939, but because of the shortages of World War II, there wasn’t a bronze statue built until 1947 (in the interim they used a plaster statue).
Besides it’s enormity, I really enjoyed looking at the columns.

One thing you may or may not notice is that Jefferson is pointed to the White House:

I asked the Tour Guide about that and he said it was done that way by the designer so that the current President would always know someone was looking over his shoulder. Don’t know if it is true, but it sounded cool.
I don’t think we think of Jefferson so much as a architect, but his design influence is definately felt within every Federal building in existance.
The last thing I think about when I think about Jefferson is his words. Inside you will find excerpts from the Declaration of Independence and from A Bill for Establishing Religious Freedom, 1777.

Admission to the Jefferson Memorial is free and there is no screening, but there are plenty of armed park rangers standing by so I wouldn’t act too crazy if I were you!

Our last day in camp was a rainy day. We had scheduled to stay longer and maybe do some more fishing, but with the rain everyone just wanted to pack up and go. So after a quick breakfast that is exactly what we did. The only thing that was interesting was the night before one of the leader’s tents was attacked by an army of red ants. We tried everything we could to keep them away from the tent. In the end the only thing that worked was drenching the area around the tent with lots of water.
On the morning of our last day it was interesting to see the pollen pool. It was kind of like a river of yellow fuzzy things:

Day 3 found us back at camp, which was good because I was tired from the day before. Although our feet got a little bit of rest it was still a busy day. On this day we finished the Fishing Merit Badge which basically meant a bunch of knot tying and talking about fishing emergencies. What is a fishing emergency you ask? Well basically just think hooks. Anyhow, it was also Wilderness Survival day. To start Wilderness Survival Day we had to first find a wilderness.

Not too far away from our camp we found this really cool grove of Aspen trees:

It kind of reminded me of the sacred grove. First thing the boys did was start building shelters. We told them they could use anything they had on them and anything they found. Here is a picture of one of the shelters:

In this particular case the scouts found an old palette and what looked to be an abandon burlap sack, kind of wierd finding that in the middle of the forest, but it is what they found so it was valid. To complete their requirements they had to sleep in the shelter one night, and it rained a little bit. I have to say they did a better job than I did when I got this merit badge. When I did the Wilderness Merit Badge I did it in the winter and built an Igloo, building an Igloo is a lot easier than building a leantoo. Anyhow, since it was taking a lot of time for the scouts to build their shelters I went with another Coach (in Varsity Scouts the leaders are called Coaches not Scoutmasters) and did some of my own reconanse. After some time we soon found a town called Aspendale. It was a very small town, but there was a resort there:

In this town we found a pay phone and overpriced ice cream sandwiches. We decided the scouts didn’t need to know about that so we went back to camp and didn’t say anything about it.
Back at camp we found the scouts demonstrating fire starting:

The bow method is really one of the harder methods. My favorite method involves a 9 volt battery and steel wool. Try it one day, but watch your hands, wouldn’t want you to burn yourself.
Fire was started and it was one to preparing food. For food we made what is called a Hobo Pack:

Basically all you do is cut up a potato, some meat, vegetables, and wrap it up in aluminum. This is then cooked right on the coals of your fire. It is very simple. Also simple was our refridgerator. Yes, we had a refridgerator out there and we had nice cold milk everyday:

It was a fun day, I didn’t make a shelter. I just “cowboy” camped by showing the scouts how a shelter and hiking pole make a great shelter:

It worked well, but there was a lot of mosquitoes out there and I got bit pretty good.

It was 5:15 AM and I heard the alarm clock go off. Thinking it was Saturday I ignored it. At 5:30 AM I remembered that AJ and I (John) had a race to go to and so I had better get up. Two bowls of oatmeal later (one for each of us) we were on our way to Riverside. The course was described in the literature as a beautiful run with easy lifts. It was beautiful, but there were two hills that I wouldn’t call “easy lifts.” I suppose it would have been easier had I remembered to check the inflation levels on the stroller tires. Oh well, that will be next time. For our $20 entry fee we got a bib with a number on it and a long sleeved t-shirt. The weather was good, it had rained the night before, but this was good because it made it nice and cool for the race. Along the way we got to see many sights. My favorite sights were the houses that surrounded the parks.

After the race we meandered about the little fair they had setup. AJ was happy because they gave him a granola bar. Anyhow, if you are thinking of doing this race I would tell you it is a very fun course to run through. It isn’t the fastest course out there (no PB’s on this course), but it has really good scenery.