The Long Road to Camp Sealth
Twenty-five girls and their chaperone endure a harrowing, breakdown-filled road trip from the Hanford-White Bluffs area to the Puget Sound for a summer camp adventure.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The Camp Fire Girls returned from their memorable trip about 10 o'clock Thursday evening, July 24. It was an eventful two weeks for them. Leaving Hanford Tuesday morning, July 11, and stopping at White Bluffs for three more girls, the Zip school bus had a capacity load with 25 passengers and their baggage. We reached Beverly at noon and stopped to eat lunch in the park at the depot. All aboard again, we reached Ellensburg in good time, spent the night as planned at T. D. Kelley’s home. Next morning we were on our way at 7, hoping to reach Seattle by night. But no such luck, for we soon began having engine trouble and only reached Cle Elum by noon. The truck was in the garage for repairs and the auto park a mile away, so we sat on the floor of the garage and ate a cold dinner. On our way once more, we went over Snoqualmie Pass and viewed wonderful mountain streams and beautiful Lake Keechelus and down, down, down—but we could not make it, so at 8 o’clock we camped at Redmond. Up in the morning we cooked breakfast and off again at 7, we reached the Camp Fire Girls headquarters on their ship Cameraderie about 9:30. We left at 6 o’clock for the boat for Vashon Island. When we arrived at the dock, all of the girls already at Camp Sealth were singing around a bonfire.
“The truck was in the garage for repairs and the auto park a mile away, so we sat on the floor of the garage and ate a cold dinner.”
This account highlights the sheer difficulty of travel across the Cascades in the mid-1920s, a time when 'engine trouble' was a standard part of any cross-state journey. It documents a formative youth experience that connected families in the arid interior of the Columbia Basin to the vibrant summer programs of the Puget Sound.
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