Saturday: Girl's Weekend - Leavenworth

I wanted to sleep in a little bit longer, but I just couldn't. I got up between 7-7:30 because I was too hot and sweaty. I made up my mind that I was going to take a quick shower. I could hear the others up and doing some stuff in the kitchen. I grabbed my stuff and jumped into the shower and then got ready for the day. I went downstairs and found out everyone else was getting ready to go get coffee at one of the shops in town. I am not a coffee drinker, but I went with them anyway. I decided to take a walk around town to do the other two Adventure Labs and then meet up with them when I was done.

I made quick work of both of them since they too, were mural ones. I made my loop back into downtown and saw them up ahead of me walking back to the house. I caught up to them, and they pretended like they didn't know me, lol. We got back to the house to help Megan prepare eggs benny for breakfast. 

We all hung out in the kitchen getting various pieces of breakfast together and carrying on. We talked about what kinds of things we wanted to do after breakfast and hoped that the weather held up for us. There was a chance of rain that afternoon. We sit down at the table and devour the breakfast Megan made for us. It was delicious.

After breakfast, we helped clean up and ran the dishwasher. We got ready and headed to the other end of town to the Leavenworth Adventure Park so we could ride the Alpine Coaster. Megan's 4 Runner didn't have enough spots for all of us, and we didn't want to take two cars, so I volunteered to ride in the back. We figured why not; we weren't driving that far...just from one side of the town to the other. If it was a super nice day, we could have walked to the adventure park.

I can't believe it's been that long since I've been to Leavenworth. The last time I was here, Ben and I had rented a chalet near the Icicle River so he could propose to me. This was in July 2022. Time really does fly. I guess three years is plenty of time to build an adventure park on a piece of land that was just dirt the last time I drove past this spot.

We found a place to park and goofed around a bit until getting in line to take a turn to ride the coaster. We all paid for a ticket except Celeste. She decided she didn't want to go on the coaster. Instead, she made her way to the viewing deck while the rest of us got in the coaster line. I bet this place is absolutely crazy in the summer time. 

We finally get to the front of the line, and we are loaded up into our coaster. I am getting excited. The adventure park crew make sure we are buckled in correctly and they tell us the basic rules. You know, keep your appendages inside the coaster, if you are feeling like you are going too fast or getting close to another person in front of you, you need to use the break. They told us to have fun and one at a time we moved along the track.

Nicole went first, then Erika, me, Fitzy and finally Megan. It started to sprinkle as I was ascending the track. Celeste took picture of us from the viewing platform. She said it was fun watching us fly around the track. 

Around one of the turns, you could purchase a professional picture of yourself if you wanted one. I decided to purchase one. I put my info into the kiosk, double checked it and pressed done. It told me it was going to be emailed to me within 10 minutes or so. We all used the restroom and walked back down to Megan's 4 Runner. It was still sprinkling. We decided we wanted to play a round of mini golf but needed our jackets.

We went back to the house to grab our rain jackets. Rain was not in the forecast. My picture had not arrived in my inbox yet and suspected there might have been an error. I asked the group if we could stop by the adventure park to check in with customer service and they said yes. I went into the building and walked up to the available associate. I told them that me and my group were just here and I haven't gotten my photo emailed to me. They asked me to hold on while they got their manager. The manager arrived and I explained the situation again. They told me that they would send it to me right away. I gave them my email information, and they said there should be an email within 15 minutes since it has to go through the system. They said if there is any other trouble to give them a call. I thanked them and met back up with my girls.

We made our way across the street, about a block, from the adventure park. There was a new resort complex with a mini golf course tucked in the middle of it. We parked and went into the lobby to pay for one round of golf and get our colored balls and clubs. We walked to the beginning of the 18-hole course and established an order. I haven't played mini golf in several years...this could get hilarious.

It rained a little at the beginning but soon tapered off. We gave everyone just one mulligan. At hole one, Erika immediately hit her ball off the course and into the pond. You could tell who was well versed in mini golf and who wasn't. Some of the holes Nicole and Megan were way over par, and I think Megan even had to grab the ball and put it in the cup just to end the misery. Celeste, Megan and Fitzy all had a hole in one. Celeste took scores as we made our way through the course. We had fun.

At the end, Celeste scored all 18 holes, and she was the clear winner. She said Wii golf helped her out a lot. Fitzy was second, I was third, Megan was fourth, Erika fifth and Nicole was sixth.  We had some memorable putts, outrageous shots and close calls. We will have to see if we can make this a yearly tradition. Obviously, it depends on if there are mini golf courses at the locations we pick in the future.

We returned our clubs and got back into the 4 Runner. We drove back to the house, people used the restroom and we walked to Front Street to wander around. We went into various shops and some of us played Pokémon Go. 

We all decided we wanted some drinks, so we walked over to the Blewett Brewery on Commercial.

We all had a couple beers, seltzers or ciders and passed the time. We had dinner reservations at Andreas Keller, a local Bavarian favorite, and a place several of us have been to before. Ben and I ate dinner one night there while we were in town during the proposal weekend, back in July 2022. The food was amazing! When it was almost time for dinner, we made our way back over to Front Street and down into the restaurant. We were seated right away. We all ordered food and drinks. I got the sausage platter, and it was still delicious just like it was the last time I had it. We paid and headed back up to the street.

We wandered around town a little bit more and then decided it was time to get back to the house and settle in for the rest of the night. We all changed into more comfortable clothes, Nicole grabbed her bags of games, we set out some snacks, and we each decided on what kind of drinks we wanted to sip on.

We started off with Telestrations After Dark. We've been known to have some pretty amazing drawings and guesses while playing this game. Some of them will live in infamy and every once and a while we bring them up and laugh our asses off. This round of Telestrations did not disappoint either. There were times we literally were laughing so hard at the drawing or the guesses that we almost fell out of our chairs. There was one time during one of the rounds where Megan, and I were holding each other up from laughing uncontrollably. 

We lost track of what Erika was drinking and soon she became very touchy feely, boundaries did not exist, got a little rowdy and direct with her words. We've all been there a few times in our lives. Erika just got done having a baby not even a year ago, has been isolated, doesn't drink very much and was finally with a bunch of girlfriends with no responsibilities, having a fun, carefree weekend. She definitely went hard that night.  

She ended up spending some time with the porcelain throne and she was not a quiet puker. Fitzy ended up going in and spending some time with her and helped clean her up.  At one point, Erika ran up the stairs without any pants on, which coined the new term, "Donald Ducking it." It goes great with "Rubix Cube drunk" which showed up into our lives back in 2013 when Nicole went to a Halloween party dressed as a Rubix Cube. You can't make this stuff up!

Fitzy followed her upstairs to see if she needed any help. Celeste and I volunteered to go clean up the bathroom. At that point, the game playing was pretty much over. We helped Nicole put the games away and cleaned up the dining room table. We all, soon, got ready for bed. I was the lucky one that got to sleep with the wild drunk girl. 

That night was long. I had forgotten how difficult it was to convince drunk people to go to bed. She laid on the floor a few times, hogged the bed, snored in my face, made the bed all hot and sweaty. It was miserable. I'm glad she didn't puke on me. When I finally went to bed, it was late and super uncomfortable. I do not recommend!

Next Adventure: Sunday:  Girl's Weekend - Leavenworth

Friday: Girl's Weekend - Leavenworth

Many years ago, our friend group was interested in doing some sort of weekend getaway or girl's weekend. Due to schedules, money and time we were not able to do it back then. The bachelorette party trip to the Oregon coast was the shove we needed. We had such a great time and all agreed that we needed to do it every year.

We started the conversations early on when and where we wanted to go this year. We threw around several locations and ultimately settled on Leavenworth because it was about halfway between Olympia and Spokane. We looked at Airbnb's and Vrbo's and found a place to rent for the weekend. Our girl's weekend was shaping up to be awesome!

We came up with activities, our menu for the weekend and made time for wandering around town geocaching and playing Pokémon Go. We were all set for a fun weekend in Leavenworth the weekend after Mother's Day. As we got closer to that weekend, Lindsay decided not to go with us. 

I put in my leave for that Friday and Erika didn't want to drive so I told her we were leaving at a certain time to head on over. She was okay with whatever I had planned as long as she didn't have to drive. There was a possibility (depended on rain) that the Hwy 18/I-90 interchange would be backed up during that weekend due to construction. They were making a diamond intersection out of it to relieve the daily congestion. I was hoping it wouldn't be that bad. There was another way around through Hobart into Issaquah if it did get bad.

I packed up most of my stuff the night before just so I didn't have to do hardly anything the next morning. Ben got up and went to work and told me to have fun with my girls. I got up around the same time I get up to go to work to finish packing up my stuff into the Escape. I texted Erika that I was on my way, and she said she was ready to go.

We left her house around 8 and stopped at Fred Meyers to get a few things including coffee from Starbucks and we needed ice for our cooler. On the way to the freeway, I stopped at the Arco on Martin Way to get gas and Erika had forgotten some snacks at the Fred Meyer, so she went inside to get a couple snacks at the gas station. We got onto I-5 and drove towards Highway 18 off of I-5 because I wasn't paying attention and missed the 510 exit.

Traffic wasn't bad at all and was pretty smooth all the way up to Tiger Summit and then as we started to descend, that's when the traffic came to a halt. I was super annoyed and Erika played her game until her batteries died. We suffered through but finally made it to the on ramp of I-90 east after about a half hour delay. I haven't been through this part of Hwy 18 in months. They've gotten pretty far and I hope the next time we drive through it will almost be done.

I texted our group thread letting them know where we were. Nicole, Celeste and Megan were on I-5 deciding to drive through Seattle to get onto Hwy 2. I told them good luck with that. and Fitzy was going to work for a bit and then leave just before noon from Spokane to drive west on Hwy 2. Fitzy had a less of a trafficky drive. Erika and I made it to the top of the pass and was sad to see there was absolutely no snowpack on or near the summit. We were probably going to have a summer with a lot of fires. We also got to witness some stupid driving as well.

We got to Cle Elum, and I took Erika to get lunch at the Cottage Cafe and to get out of the Escape for a bit.  We checked in with everyone again. The girls were in Gold Bar and Fitzy was finishing up laundry and packing up. Erika and I sat in a booth and ordered a couple burgers and fries - they were delicious. Our waitress was nice, so we tipped her well. We paid, used the restroom and got on the road again. We took the US 97 spur and got stuck behind some slow people.

We made the turn onto US 97, and it didn't take us long to get up Blewett Pass and over to Hwy 2. We checked in with everyone again. The girls were going over Steven's Pass and had spotty service, and Fitzy hadn't left her house yet but was going to soon. Since we got onto Hwy 2 so early, I asked Erika if we wanted to go to the Walmart in Wenatchee because there will be more choices rather than shopping in Leavenworth, she said sure. It did not take us very long to get to Wenatchee.

We got to the Walmart and wandered inside for a little bit. We texted the girls to find out if they needed anything extra that they didn't pack. We got a couple of breakfast items, more drinks and for the life of us tried to find Starry for Celeste. Apparently stores in Central and Eastern Washington did not carry Starry. We paid for our stuff and then headed west towards Leavenworth. The girls had just arrived and were wondering around downtown doing Pokémon Go. Erika and I arrived in town and found the house we were going to stay in (but we were too early to check in) and parked on the street nearby...of course it cost money to park on the street. Lame. We grabbed what we needed and met up with the girls at the clock tower. We walked around with them while they caught critters they needed. I did an Adventure Lab with murals.

When we got to the other side of town, we made our way down to the Wenatchee River along the road, I told the group I needed to grab a geocache that was down there. The past two times I've been in Leavenworth I've had to DNF it because it was missing. This time, Blackbird Boulevard (GC76WM1) was there! I made my way down to the rock retaining wall and it was a fake rock. My friends that that was pretty cool. I got my name on it, took a photo and put it back. We continued on back up to the main road.

We all decided we needed a drink at Icicle Brewing while we waited for Fitzy to arrive to town and for 4 o'clock to arrive so we could go check in to our dwelling for the weekend. I had the Amber ale and Nicole, and I sat on the ski swing. Megan ordered a fancy charcuterie platter for us to share because she needed a snack. We finished our drinks and food and then walked the couple blocks to the house. It was now 4 and we could start bringing stuff into the house and get settled in. On one of my trips out to the car, I saw Fitzy drive by in her red car. She turned around and found a spot to park in the driveway. She said she wasn't sure if we were meeting at the house or somewhere else in town. I suppose we probably should have checked in with her when we were walking to the house.

Everyone finished up unloading our stuff and setting up the kitchen. We spent some time putting stuff in the fridge and Celeste made some deviled eggs while we hung out and chatted. The last time we were all together was at Megan's house last fall, so we had a lot to catch up on. We ate some of the eggs and Nicole said, it's Goosechase time!" We all squealed with joy!

We had a great time the last time we played. Nicole had made 100 questions, and we were split up into two teams. Since it was an odd amount, with Nicole being at the computer running the game, Erika and I were on a team and Megan, Fitzy and Celeste were on the other - just like at the bachelorette party. Our team names were the Butt Hoagies and the Bratwurst Bitches, I know, we're pretty classy.

For the next 45 minutes or so, we were all in and out the house, using random items as props for our tasks, taking funny pictures and goofy videos. There was a lot of laughing and Nicole was giggling at the table monitoring our hilarious antics. Erika and I got a 2-minute head start since we were down a person. We ended up winning it again in the end! Muhahaha! So far, Erika and I are 2-0 with Goosechase.

We settled down and Nicole started getting the burrito bowls ready to go. We all helped out in the kitchen, getting the burrito innards made, rice reheated or the veggies cut up. We made quick work of dinner and ate together in the dining room. These are the times I wished some of our other friends lived closer, so we could hang out with them as well. Nicole's burrito bowls are amazing! I ended up having seconds after everything was said and done. We all pitched in to help clean up.

Then we started games. We played Besserwizzer, Poetry for Neanderthals and Just One. We laughed a lot and made so many fun game memories. It started getting late and a few of us went to bed before we started Just One. We finished up games just before midnight and then we all got ready for bed.

I shared a room and a bed with Erika. I don't think the house had AC - at least I don't remember learning it did, our room didn't have a fan, and we forgot to open the window - if it did have an opening window, for some cool air to circulate through. The bed was queen sized and both Erika and I got super-hot and sweaty. We both did not sleep very well because it was so warm. That, I am used to a king-sized bed with more room.

Next Adventure: Saturday: Girl's Weekend - Leavenworth

A Squaxin Park Geocaching Event and Adventure

I was nominated early February to be the WSGA Southwest Washington Chapter Rep and was actually voted in at the beginning of March. My candidacy would last a year starting on April 1st. I was going to do my best to host as many events as I possibly can and be present at other cacher's events. Between my new job, working at the rental and our daily lives, I probably shouldn't have accepted the nomination. There was just too much going on, but I did it anyway.

There was a Blue Switch event at Squaxin Park (formerly Priest Point), and I wanted to go because I heard there was a group of people assembling to go grab Payback 10: It's All About the Journey (GCQYBW). I have put this one off for years. I was excited to find it with a bunch of people. I made sure to bring some clothes I didn't care if they got ruined with me.

This was my third caching event in four days. After work, I hustled over to Squaxin Park in Olympia, hitting every red light possible. I actually got there just before 5, with some time to spare and got a great parking spot! I grabbed what I needed and made my way over to the covered area and saw some familiar faces. 

While we hung out in the covered area, we chatted, caught up, shared stories, discovered trackables and even won a raffle item! Some people brought some cookies and chips to share and snack on. I had an M&M cookie and a bag of chips to tie me over until I went home for dinner. Ohjoy got our attention and talked about some of the caches in the area, specifically the one a handful of us came for. The Dips also had some advice since they the trek down and up recently. We all appreciated whatever tips they could give us. I knew we were going to get muddy.

Around 6:30, nine of us drove to the parking coords just north from where the event was. The coords took us two one of the two pullouts...just enough room for six cars if you did it right. I had already changed my crappy sweatshirt and pants; I just needed to change out my shoes. I grabbed some gloves because I heard we might need them because of the Devil's Club that lurks along the creek bed. You do not want to grab these. I grabbed my hiking pole and met up with the rest of the group near the "starting coords" and began our way down into the abyss.

In any crazy geocaching adventure through the woods there are always 59 hard ways in and one good way out. Of course, we took one of the 59 hard ways in (it actually wasn't that bad) and had to do some bush whacking. There were muddy spots and I definitely slipped a time or two, but we did all make it down to the creek. We were among the Devil' Club, errant branches, broken logs, nettles, soggy ground skunk cabbage and mosquitos. 

We spotted the natural bridge at the creek and took our time crossing it. We helped the people with balance issues make it safely across. We all made our way over to the other side of the creek and had a view of a huge maple tree with large holes. The tree was amazing. We found the cache without any difficulty, took turns signing our names, got a group picture, put it back exactly where we found it and walked back over to the log. 

Again, we helped those who weren't as steady cross the log safely and guess what? We found the correct way back up the side of the hill! 

We saw where the previous cachers from earlier that week came down and up. We followed it. There were a couple of muddy spots and broken trees, but we all eventually made it back up the hill and onto the road. 

We saw where we made our mistake and should have departed from the other pullout near where most of us parked. We thanked each other for the company, the fun adventure and everyone went home. It is always fun geocaching with other people.

You gotta be a little bit crazy to be a geocacher, however, this cache was not the hardest cache I have ever found or hiked to. I was challenged a bit, but it wasn't hard. Until the next one!

Next Adventure: Friday: Girl's Weekend - Leavenworth