Walk the Dam; Building a School

Hey!  Are you awake, Dill?

I'm up early playing in Gramma's new Lemon Thyme, one of the gifts she received for being an excellent teacher. I love the pinwheel!


Today is a big day.  The community is showing up to help build a school. Our local Rotary club sponsored the walk. When you pay at registration, those funds go right to the school fund. Everything is volunteer help. The race is called Walk the Dam; Building a School.

The schools here are very old with old boilers for heating and leaky roofs.

They don't have anyway to raise money because most of the land is owned by the US Bureau of Reclamation -- the government in charge of the Grand Coulee Dam.  That means the school district can't ask for local taxes, because the land is owned by the government already.

Schools are built with the help of local taxes. Your parents pay taxes on their home so you have a school to attend. But here, there isn't enough "taxable land" so this community doesn't have the funds to build a new school.

So we have been helped by State Senator Linda Evans-Parlette. She recognized the need for help because the government itself owns most of the land, and so they can't be taxed. It seems if the Bureau of Reclamation needs the people who work there to live here, and they need the parts of a town (like grocery stores, police, fire department), then perhaps they should help out by helping with the school.

And the community keeps working to raise as much money as they can. It's an amazing story to help kids!  In 2014, the kids will have a new school here!

And guess what! I got to walk across the dam, which is usually not allowed except in official tours because of the 9-11 attacks. Whoa! This is fun! Do you see Gramma's house across the river? And look at the tiny trucks by the building!  This place is huge, as I've said in my other posts.


Look how far down it is!  Gramma laughed because I did exactly what your Uncle Greg and Uncle Jake did when they used to walk over the dam when they were in junior high. We spit over the dam to watch it fall!  One time Uncle Jake spit over the edge but it was so windy the spit blew back and hit Uncle Greg!   Ha. It was a perfect day though, so I didn't get whacked by my own spit!

And here's a panarama view. On the right is where we started, and on the left is where we are headed, to the other side of the mile wide Grand Coulee Dam.

Do you see the silver part? That is the railing, and it is filled with people's etchings, a history of all the travelers who have visited this wonder of the world.

Here is the huge crane that is used to work on the dam. 

At the end of the race, a bus takes us back to the parking area. On the bus were two teachers from Gramma's school. They brought the Run-Walk Club to the race to support the high school they will attend when they are older. One of the kids found an owl pellet. That's what an owl ate and regurgitated. He is going to dissect it to see what the owl ate, probably a mouse.

How about that!  Next post: Parade and Dance.