Summer starts at Stonehenge

Summer starts with the solstice.
Stonehenge in England has been a gathering spot for over a century, thanks to Druids and new agers. I’m still working hard to clear my calendar for summer, so a trip to England would be tough. Fortunately, there’s the scale replica in Washington State, along the Columbia River.

Wealthy utopian Sam Hill dedicated the alter stone for his Stonehenge at Maryhill, Washington on July 4, 1918. The stone's placement was based on calculations of where sunrise would be on the summer solstice.

(Here's and what happens when the druids celebrate on the solstice.)

Hill’s Maryhill Stonehenge was our first World War I memorial, for fallen soldiers from Klickitat County. The altar stone read "To the memory of the soldiers and sailors of Klickitat County who gave their lives in defense of their country ... in the hope that others inspired by the example of their valor and their heroism may share in that love of liberty and burn with that fire of patriotism which death alone can quench."

Why copy Stonehenge for the memorial?

Sam Hill had visited the original Stonehenge with Britain’s Secretary of War in 1915. Supposedly he told Sam Hill, "Here the ancients 4,000 years ago offered bloody sacrifices to their heathen gods of war"