Hawks Prairie Geocaching with Bev

I had originally planned to go help Willmarth move his stuff from Yakima to Spokane but that fell through literally at the last minute. I had five-day weekend from work, and it was glorious.  I asked Bev what she was doing and if she wanted to drive around Hawks Prairie grabbing caches we didn't have.  She said she would have to ask Bob and get back to me. Luckily, it didn't take her long to get back to me and said she could go with.  I told her I would be by the house around 11 a.m. after I left Rhonda's dogs, Murphy and Molly out.

That morning, I got up, noticed it was going to be a nice day, got ready, ate a quick breakfast and was out the door to head to Rhonda's house to let out her dogs.  Luckily, I was able to get them in and out without them getting too rambunctious. I locked up and headed into Rainier to pick up Bev.  I was a few minutes past 11 because I had to follow a slow truck on Rainier Road. 

She hopped in and asked if we could stop by the post office.  I said sure!  I could actually go in and grab my mail from my box.  Since they've changed the hours of the post office due to vandalism, I am never there in time to grab my mail. We run in and run out.  I decided to drive through Yelm to get to the Hawks Prairie side of town.  Our first stop was the RAC.  We didn't realize this place was going to be busy with an adult league softball tournament. We had a heck of a time finding a parking spot, but we eventually did.

We got out and decided to do Mushroom Corner (GCAP5RX) first.  I had a hard time locating this one.  I assumed it was going to look like a mushroom, which it was once I found it, but my coordinates took me everywhere except for where I needed to be.  I was in and out of that patch of woods like 63 times and had to dodge the ants swirling around everywhere.  When I did find it, it was by accident.  I did not want to DNF it and have to come back. We got our names on it, snapped a quick picture and put it back exactly how I found it...since it was hidden well.

Next, we worked on the five-point Adventure Lab, Regional Athletic Complex Tour.  We walked a short loop around the complex answering questions about the park, the stormwater system, the playgrounds, and the playfields.  We enjoyed the nice walk around the park in the sunshine.

It was approaching lunch time and Bev said she was hungry since she had breakfast really early that morning.  I asked her where she wanted to go and she said, since we are over this way, we could get hotdogs and sodas at Costco.  I told her, if that's what you wanna do, let's do it!  We walked back to the Escape and drove the short distance to the Costco.  We found a place to park and went inside.  It was busy, but it's always busy in the food court. This was the first time I ordered food on the kiosk...it was a weird experience, but our food showed up quickly.  We filled our cups and squirted ketchup and mustard on our hotdogs.  We spent a whopping $3!  There wasn't a table available, so we asked to share with a guy who looked like he was almost done and welcomed us to his table. We thanked him, had a few short words and ate our food.  

I looked over the app and saw the grouping of newish caches off of Willamette Drive.  We tossed our garbage in the bin and headed back out to the Escape.

Our next cache was called GeoTree2 (GCAWZRP).  We were able to park the car along the side of the street.  We got out and we found it immediately.  The cache container was a little weird, but a find is a find. We hopped back into the Escape and continued up the road to The Rock #2 (GCAWWWX).

This cache we had trouble finding a parking spot for.  It was showing out in the middle of a retention pond, luckily this time of the year the pond was dry.  I looked for the best way to approach the cache and it required a short walk down an incline.  Bev is not an off-road vehicle, so she stayed behind to cheer me on.  Let me tell ya, the terrain wasn't even, and I almost tipped over a few times.  I got to the large rock on the opposite side of the pond and found the cache hidden under one of the crevices.  I got our names on it, took a quick picture and walked back over to where Bev was waiting for me.

We hopped in the Escape and looked at the directions to The Rock!! (GCAWVY8).  It was located at another retention pond with a neighborhood surrounding it. The cache was a little less than a quarter of a mile away and I asked Bev if she wanted to walk there with me and she said she would sit in the car.  I told her I would jog out to it and jog back.  She said she was fine with that.  I hustled over to the retention pond, and it took me to another giant rock but this time the cache was larger.  Sadly, there was no cool stuff inside of it.  I wrote our names on it, took a picture, put it back and hustled back to the Escape. 

GeoTree (GCAWX8G) was just up the road.  It was near the sidewalk on the south side of the Meridian Neighborhood Park.  This time we were able to park right next to it.  We got out and found it right away.  It was another one of those weird cups with straws containers.  We signed it and got a picture of Bev being silly with it.

We got back into the Escape and drove over to GeoTree4 (GCAWZZD) but it was in an area where there wasn't a place to park.  We drove past it a couple times trying to figure out where we needed to go.  I got into the neighborhood and found some streets that took us closer to the cache.  Bev said she would stay in the Escape while I figured out how to get to it from where we parked.  I walked through two of the apartments and up a small hill.  I found the tree that contained the cache.  I was surprised this one was still here.  It was awkwardly hidden and could go missing soon.  I signed our names, got a quick picture, put it back exactly how I found it and joined back up with Bev at the car.

Hang in There (GCAWZVZ) was on the other side of Meridian Neighborhood Park.  We parked the Escape inside of the park and walked across the street.  We found the right tree and I saw it immediately, but I let Bev find it.  She walked around the tree, grabbed it and wrote our names on the log. She hung it back up after we got our picture.  We walked back to the parking lot and got into the Escape.

We got back onto Willamette Drive to get the last cache in this area, GeoTree3 (GCAWYTT).  It was at the fire station.  We found a place to park (so we weren't in the way if they had to leave for a call), got out and started looking in the most obvious places...the trees.  This one was difficult to find because the coords were not exact.  I finally managed to find it; it was hidden very well.  I signed our names, got a picture, put it back and we hopped back into the Escape.  

We started our way back to Lacey.  We got onto Martin Way and saw one on our caching map we both didn't have yet.  It was at Tanglewild Park.  The park was super busy because of the swimming pool, and it was a nice day, so we had to find alternate parking on the other side of the park.  We walked across the field and figured out where we had to look since Green Ducky (GCAWKZT), cache's page and coordinates were wonky.  The only place it could have been was the large green shipping container in the middle of the park.  I spent about 10 minutes looking underneath all the corners where the holes were.  I did not find a container anywhere.  I believed it was missing.  I quickly walked back to the Escape and found an empty container I had in my glovebox.  I wrote our names on a scrap piece of paper and shoved it into the empty film cannister.  I walked back to the shipping container and placed it in the corner described in the cache description.  We called it good and walked back to the Escape.

We stopped by Woodland Creek for Pink Ducky (GCAZ1AP).  It wasn't too far away from the parking lot.  Bev and I followed the sidewalk around the lake, down towards the lake (at this point of the year, the lake was lower) and found the cache in a really obscure place.  This cache should have been stolen by now and if it doesn't get stolen, it will float away once it starts raining.  It was a really bad choice to hide it where we found it.  Anway, we wrote our names on it and put it back.  Maybe it will survive?

Bev's phone was having trouble in Hawks Prairie for some reason and Bob couldn't get a hold of us.  He drove all the way to home instead of meeting up with us, we had to call him after he was almost to Rainier.  He said he called when he was done with his stuff, but it wasn't registering with Bev's phone, so he went home.  We convinced him to drive back into town and meet us at El Sarape for their Thursday date night.

We grabbed one more cache at Rainier Vista Park, The Rock #3 (GCAX5WK) near my house.  I had tried to go get a FTF on it the other day but didn't realize they moved it to another location and didn't update the coordinates.  So, I gave up and walked home.  We were able to nab it without too many people watching us.  

Then we drove to the Dollar Tree to waste some time waiting for Bob to drive back into town.  We saw he was getting close on her app, and I dropped Bev off at the Mexican Restuarant. She thanked me for a nice day around town.  I told her that we would do it again hopefully soon.  I stopped at Hobby Lobby for a few minutes, went home, made rice yuck for dinner, logged my caches, watched some Breaking Bad and worked on my blog.

We found 11 caches and 5 Adventure Lab waypoints for a total of 16 caches on the day.

Next Adventure:  Labor Day Weekend

Tumwater Artesian Brewfest with Nicole and Del

I asked Nicole if she and Del were interested in going to the Brewfest a few weeks ago and she said that she would get back to me after asking Del about it.  I meant to check in with her when we went and saw Deadpool and ate at the whisky place but forgot to ask.  Then I went to the drive-in last weekend and forgot again to check in with her, so I ended up texting her and she said she would ask Del if he was interested in going.

On Monday, she did let me know that she and in Del were in.  I asked Ben if this is something he wanted to do and he said he wanted to, but he was being forced to do the racetrack on Saturday.  Ughh.  I guess it's a good thing we waited to purchase tickets.  I bought mine on Thursday night and let Nicole know.  We decided to go after 3.

Saturday, I got up around 8:30, got ready and went to a geocaching event over by Briggs. I arrived just before 9 a.m.  I am not sure why they have them so early.  I stayed for a little over an hour talking to various cachers and sharing stories. 

I decided that I needed to go to Costco to get a few things and stopped by Winco for the rest.  I got home just before 12:30. Ben was still at home using the restroom.  He had to go pretty soon if he had to be at the racetrack by 1. I brought in the groceries and put them away.  I ate some lunch, watched the Little League World Series and waited until it was time to go to Nicole and Del's house.  I threw on my new WAZZU sweatshirt and drove over to Tumwater.

I got to their house, knocked on the door and went inside.  They said I was a little early, but I could just hang out while they finished getting ready.  I petted their cats, Darcy and Rhett. We hopped into Del's car and drove over to the festival by the golf course.  We followed the instructions by the car parking officials, found a place, grabbed what we needed, I left my sweatshirt behind because it was a warm day and walked over to the entrance.  We made sure to have our ID out.  They checked them, gave us a wrist band and we grabbed our glass tasters, tokens and map.

We went inside and wandered around the area looking at all the activities, food trucks and free giveaways.  We got there so late; all the free pretzel necklaces were already given away.  Sad day. Anyway, we studied the map to figure out which samples we wanted to try.  We wandered around the three tents a couple times, and I found one I wanted to try first at the ACU Tent.

My first sample was Percival Creek Brewing Blueberry Lemon Cider, and it was fruity, crisp and a perfect starter for a nice summery day.  I sipped on that one for a while as I decided on my next one. Del and Nicole did the same.

I went over to the Artesian Tent and found the Hoh River Brewing sign.  I was excited to try their Pineapple Hefeweizen.  I am not much of a pineapple fan, but I like my fruit beers. It was different from all the fruit beers I've had in the past, but I was glad I tried it. I made the rounds of the tents again and looked at our list.

I circled around the TVGC Tent and looked for Triceratops Brewing.  I got in line and handed them my taster glass.  I wanted to try the Pennsyltucky Lager.  They filled it up, handed it back to me and told me to have a great time.  I thanked them. I wandered around to see if I could spot Del and Nicole.  We stood out in the field and sipped our tasters.  We talked about various things including their upcoming wedding in September. 

It was a warm, dry day but you could tell the weather was changing slowly...like we were going to have a thunderstorm. I wonder if it will hold up until we leave.

I went back to the ACU Tent and got myself a Mount Olympus Brewing Midsummer's Dream Peaches and Cream taster.  Their Orange Creamsicle from last year was amazing!  It was my favorite one and I voted for it to win that year.  I am not sure if it did or not. Their Peaches and Cream was also delightful.  It was my favorite of the day, and I voted for this one to win.

I went back to the ACU tent to the Slippery Pig Brewing.  I decided to try the Hogsbreak Honey Wheat.  I was sad that they didn't add in the notes that it was a honey wheat wine.  I wasn't a fan, but I ended up drinking the taster anyway.  I didn't want to waste alcohol.  That one went down as my least favorite choice. I wanted to try some of the other samples, but they were already out of some by the time we got in line.  I guess that's what happens when you arrive later on like we did this time. 

I also wasn't used to drinking one right after the other like we did today.  I usually have some time in between tastes.  I drank my beers and ciders in a very short amount of time, and I was pretty blitzed by the time I got to my last one.  I'm glad I wasn't driving. 

I finished off my Brewfest with one from Snowbird Farm and Cidery, Granny Ranny's Apple Pie.  That was also at the ACU Tent.  That one tasted like the innards out of the inside of an apple pie.  It was a great one to end the day with.  

Del, Nicole and I spent some time wandering around the event one more time.  We all decided we were done for the evening when the temperature dropped even more.  It was going to start raining soon.  We walked back to the car and made the choice to stop by the Tumwater Craft District.  Del asked if I've ever been there before and as of that day, I hadn't.  He said we were going to grab some ice cream before heading back to the house.  He and Nicole occasionally go in for food, drinks and desserts. 

Sweetlee's Ice Cream was one of the businesses that occupied the building. They had an array of flavors including gluten free, vegan and dairy free.  I had a waffle cone with mint chocolate chip. It was delicious.  I ate most of mine before we arrived back at the house.  Nicole wanted to know if I wanted to partake in sausage and fries out of the air fryer and I said hell yes!  I was starving. 

It started raining hard, the wind blew, and thunder and lightning scattered all over the sky.  It had arrived and we had perfect timing getting back to the house when we did.  We listened to it howl as the food was cooking.  Ben texted me to let me know that the raced ended early because of the thunderstorm.  He asked me if I was still with Del and Nicole, and I said I was.  We were getting ready to eat food and watch some of the Alien movies. He asked if he could come, and we all said yes.

He arrived, we ate food (I got grease on my new WAZZU sweatshirt) and we watched two of the Alien movies while we chatted about random things.  It was fun to hang out with Del and Nicole without it being a game night or something with more people.  We got home around midnight, got cleaned up and went to bed.

Next Adventure:  Hawks Prairie Geocaching with Bev 

Seattle Mariners vs NY Mets

While we celebrated Amy's birthday at Applebee's in June, we talked about the possibility of taking David to his first Mariner's game.  He doesn't get out very often. Ben asked him which teams he would like to see, and we managed to find a date in August (after the wedding chaos) that corresponded with the New York Mets.  We looked into tickets and decided to go with the ones at Costco.  They had no hidden fees like Ticketmaster does.

Ben and I talked about how we wanted the day to go and planned it with Trish, Amy and David.  It was going to be a busy day in Seattle.  

The entire weekend has been busy for me, but I was looking forward to going to a Mariner game since I haven't been to one since last season with Alicia.  I always have fun at the ballpark.  Ben was also looking forward for some fun up in Seattle as well.

Ben and I got up around 8:30, got ready and left our house by 9:15.  It was Ben's turn to drive up to Bonney Lake and it roughly took us about an hour.  We pulled up to the house around 10-10:15ish.  Both Amy and David were ready to go when we arrived which was nice. Everyone used the restroom one more time and piled into Ben's Edge. We left around 10:45. We decided to park at the Angle Lake station and ride the train up to the Westlake Center before the game. We wanted to take them to Pike's Place Pub for some food.  Luckily, we didn't hit any traffic, so getting to the station was pretty smooth and uneventful. 

We found a place to park, and we walked over to the kiosk to purchase a round-trip ticket to Westlake Center.  We had to help Amy and David get their tickets, so it took a few minutes.  I like that we can ride the train for $6 and not have to worry about traffic or where to park your car for a lot of money.  I am so glad Doug told me about this option a few years ago.  It has saved me a bunch of money and times that I was not stuck in traffic. 

We went up to the platform and waited for the next train northbound. I was glad we didn't have to wait that long.  We found a place to sit comfortably and endured the 40-minute ride to Seattle with the 13 stops along the way.  I checked my phone a couple times to see if there were any caches or Adventure Labs, I didn't have yet in the area we were going to.

We got to Westlake Center and walked up to the street level.  I got turned around trying to head down to Pike's Place Market so we could have lunch.  We had to rest a few times because David was not used to walking that much with the hills.  We wandered around the front of the market and took some pictures.  I asked everyone if they were hungry, and they said yes.  We went into Pike's Place Pub, and we were seated right away.  We apparently picked a good time to eat.   

The waiter came around and told us that we order food and drink from their app.  Oh man, this was going to be confusing for Amy and David.  Ben had excused himself to the restroom.  I got the app downloaded and ordered my drink and my food since I had no idea how long it was going to take, and we were on a somewhat strict schedule.  Ben came back, ordered his food and drink and then helped Amy and David order their food.  This was our first experience ordering food at a restaurant where we had to do it on our phones.

The food and drinks actually came at a decent time.  I ordered the Ol' Crimson Lager - straight from the source - and a burger and fries because I like to keep it simple and classy.  

Ben had the bacon burger and Amy and David had salads.  We spent maybe about an hour hanging out.  We all used the restrooms one more time, walked back up the hill to Westlake Center. We had to take a couple breaks on the way up.  

We got to the train platform and waited for the next train heading south.  It arrived pretty quickly and a bunch of Mariner fans, including us, boarded.  When we got on, it was standing room only.  I found a place to hold on to.  We endured the four stops to the Stadium picking up more Mariner fans along the way.  When we reached the stadium the entire train car, we were in emptied out.  We made the short trek over to T-Mobile Park.  We didn't rush because I wanted David to experience the ambiance of being there for the first time.

We walked around the stadium to the front where the statues of Ken Griffey Jr. and Edgar Martinez were placed.  This was my first time seeing Edgar's statue.  Mom and I had gone to Cooperstown, in 2019, the year he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.  It was an awesome experience.  Ben, Amy, David and I took several pictures before going through security and scanning our tickets. We went inside and made our way to our seats, in the upper deck. The hike up there took a little bit because we had to rest for David.

We got up to our seats and the view was actually pretty good.  We were on the third base side and was hoping to snag a foul ball.  Amy and David wandered around before the game started.  Ben and I sat in the seats and enjoyed the nice afternoon.  I heard that this was the first aired Sunday night game by ESPN since 2004 in Seattle.  That was 20 years ago! This was a crazy game stat!  I don't think I've been to a NY Met's game either, so it was nice to see a different team, plus they are from the NL which made this an interleague team.  The Mets would have to use a designated hitter in their lineup instead of their pitcher.

We stood for the National Anthem and then the first pitch was underway.  I sure hoped for a good game full of homeruns and winning! This was Julio's first game back after missing three weeks with a sprained ankle and he did nothing at the plate for us that afternoon.  

The first inning was a little slow and both teams ended up with goose eggs.  The second inning got a little exciting when Jorge Polanco hit a solo homerun in the bottom of the inning.  I was happy to see us break open the game with the first run scored.  Not much happened in the 3rd or 4th innings.  The fifth inning was exciting for us, Raleigh put us up 4-0 with a two-run homer.  That crush got everyone to their feet.  

We got to see the famous hotdogs from heaven that first launched back in April.  The marketing team took a gamble by dropping free hotdogs with parachutes from heaven the crowd absolutely went bonkers.  During those 90 seconds, Heaven is a Place on Earth by Belinda Carlisle booms from the sound system, you can feel the energy of the crowd, especially when the Mariners are playing well.

At the top of the 6th, our pitcher gave up a solo homerun to Jeff McNeil, which was their only run in the entire three game series with the Mariners.  Raleigh broke it open even more with a three-run bomb in the bottom of the inning to make it 10-1.  T-Mobile Park was lit!  It was so exciting to see homeruns!  We sang Take Me Out to the Ball game with roughly 35,460 fans.

In the bottom of the 7th, Raleigh had a chance to hit a grand slam but popped out to left field.  We did manage to add on 2 more runs before we retired the side. The Mets could not come back from that deficit and struggled all series long.  We destroyed them 12-1 and I enjoyed being part of a sweep.  Our starting pitcher struck out 9 batters and we left 7 runners on base.  We need more games like this to propel us into the playoffs.  We always seem to be one game short.

We gathered up all of our belongings and inched our way out of the stadium.  We made the short walk back to the train and managed to get on the first one heading south back towards Angle Lake.  It took us about 40 minutes to get back to the parking garage.  

We asked Amy and David if they had fun, and they did!  It's always nice to go to a winning game especially if this was your first Mariner's game.  Ben got us out of the parking garage and onto the freeway.

The traffic wasn't that bad which surprised me after a baseball game.  We got to Bonney Lake just before 9ish.  We visited for a little bit while Amy took David home and then Ben and I made our way towards home.  It was a long day, and I was ready to relax before the new work week.

Next Adventure:  Tumwater Artesian Brewfest with Nicole and Del