A few days ago, Bev and I decided that Monday would be the best day. The weather was going to be dry and to get the coin, the city hall would have to be open. And Monday it shall be!
The night before I printed out a few things to help us with our efficiency of grabbing the caches. Essentially it was a large circle. If we stuck to the circle, we should be able to do it in less than 3 hours and no back tracking. I got my food together and stuck it in my lunch box and put it in the fridge for safe keeping.
For some reason I slept like garbage. I tossed and turned all night long. I might have gotten a few hours of sleep but it wasn't good sleep. My alarm went off and I zombied myself out of my bed, washed up, put my warm clothes on and gathered the rest of my stuff. I got everything done before 6:30 and waited. And waited...
It was about 6:40 so I texted Bev. They are never late. She got back to me quickly. She said they were on Runyon Rd and that the chickens they were watching for their neighbor took some extra time and she left the coffee pot on and had to go back and turn it off.
I grabbed my stuff and out the door I went. It was so dark outside. We had some conversations as we drove the 100 miles plus to Sequim. I showed her the map I made and we sung Christmas songs there and back. "It's the most wonderful time of the year!..."
We stopped in Quilcene to grab a cache that Bob and Bev have been to three times now. We figured since we had the time why not stop? I found it within a minute of arriving on the scene. They used the facility and we were on our way to our free geocoin!
We knew about two other groups of cachers who were also going up to Sequim today. Two guys from Seattle and a couple from the Marysville area, I actually knew them. We drove right by the red Prius, that the guys were driving near a cache we already had from a previous trip. Maybe we will meet up with them later? We went to our first cache of the challenge. It was in the small town before Sequim, Blyn. It was at a family cemetery. It was a quick grab. We were to stamp our passport and gather a letter and number for the final cache.
Sequim Centennial History and Geocoin Challenge: http://coord.info/GC41686
As we left and got back onto 101, we drove past the red Prius again, I waved but they didn't see me. They followed our route the rest of the day. They contacted me later saying every cache they signed that day had our names on it. We continued on our circle around Sequim. Some of the caches took us near the ocean, some to historical buildings, canneries, sites and one even took us to a place where they dug up a mastodon in the late 70s early 80s.
Two caches didn't have stamps in them and that got us worrying that we might not get a coin. We met up with the two other cachers in their white Toyota Echo. We exchanged greetings and asked if they found two caches without stamps, they did as well.
We finished the last few we had to do, which took us south over 101 towards the Olympics and the final one of the series at the park in town. The same park we had lunch at a few months back. We put together the letters and numbers we gathered and found the solution to the final but went the wrong way to it. We read the hint and figured it out. It took us to the building who were sponsoring the caches (besides City Hall) and the final was underneath one of the old historic buildings. I climbed underneath to take a look, got a sliver and set my knee on top of a small rock trying to get out from beneath the building. We took pictures and reflected on our caches we got.
We drove to City Hall a little bit worried that we might not get out coins because two of the stamps were missing. The lady was understanding and let us have them. She apologized to us for them being gone and she hopes that they will be replaced soon. We also mentioned that 4 other cachers were right behind us will have the same issue. Bob and Bev bought the silver version of the coin for Kenny and Mike. We did the only challenge in town before we headed out for more caches around town.
We started off with one I've had a hard time with for almost a year. I can't believe we didn't look there but both times we didn't find it, it was hurricane-ing and the second time too many muggles watching us. Check that one off the list! We drove around town a little more grabbing ones we didn't get to on previous trips and had two DNF's. We even finished a couple of multis in town. They were kinda fun. One multi took us to a park we've been to before. We got out of the car and was molested by about 50 ducks. I fed them the rest of my crust from my sandwich.
We hit up a a few more and it started to get dark and we could not end on a DNF. We grabbed one of the lavender series and then back on to Hwy 101 towards home. We told stories and enjoyed the ride. I almost fell asleep but caught myself. We got into Shelton and decided we needed gas and something for dinner so we went to Denny's nearby. They had a turkey dinner and I had a burger. We headed home, they dropped me off and I took a shower and logged my caches while I caught up on some shows.
Next adventure: Yakima, Wash.
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