New Chicken Pen

For several months we've been moving the chicken mobile home around the yard. Finally today, they moved into their new pen. We put the finishing touches on the pen today. We moved the mobile home over to where its (hopefully) permanent spot is. Dad attached a door onto it and now we just have to build a bigger ramp and they should be happy. The chickens had a hard time adjusting to each other but over time I think they will be fine. The rooster is another story, we haven't seen what happens with that yet...

A Close Call

We had just got home from fixing some of my geocaches on the CWT and placing a new one in Tenino. I was taking the stuff out of mom's car and putting it back in mine when I heard a bunch of commotion in the back yard with the chickens. Mom was already back there checking the chickens and ducks while talking on the phone with Erika. The whole time I thought she was talking to dad. I looked to my right and saw a black dog. We also saw a lot of feathers near the chicken pen. Mom counted all the chickens and they were all there. We did not see or hear any ducks (we let them roam the yard during the day). I ran after the dog to see if he had dragged the ducks out of the yard. I didn't see anything. The dog was back in its fenced yard. There must be a hole in it somewhere. So I went back to the yard and mom was still looking and calling for them. I went back to where the dogs were just in case I missed something. I didn't see anything which was a good thing and a bad thing. I went back to my yard and mom was taking to them. There just wasn't enough feathers to assume they had been killed. There were no drag marks and we didn't see any bodies. They had sensed danger when the dog came into the yard and they retreated to their pen and then huddled inside their house and were dead silent. When we initially went out there, we did not hear a single noise, and these are usually really loud ducks. They slowly came out of their house and did not want to come out of their pen. The chickens were really stirred up as well. I asked mom if the 2x4's were suppose to be on the ground. She said she did take one off this morning but the dog must have taken the second one off. Now we have to write the neighbors a note stating if we see that dog in our yard again it is subject to a gun shot wound.

Fife, #1600 and Halloween

Got up early did a few things at home and drove up to Doug's place in Shoreline to help him find a place to live in the U-District.  When I got there I had to wait for him to get off the bus. I drove to the Goodwill because I got there way too early...mostly because you never know how traffic up to Seattle would be like.  I saw there was a cache not too far from the Goodwill parking lot so I walked up there and a few seconds later I was holding the North Pole Bison (GC1JX8Z) in my hands.

I put the cache back and walked back to the Goodwill.  I still had some time to kill so I wasted about a half hour inside the Goodwill.  I then drove to the bus stop Doug told me to meet him at at the Fred Meyer down the road.  His bus arrived and we went to eat food near the Northgate Mall.  We ate lunch at Five Guys and then drove to the address Doug had written down.

We checked out the place on the east side of I-5 near the U-District.  It wasn't the best place but because he was in a hurry get out of the place he was currently in but this new place would have to do for now.  I didn't realize how bad it was going to be for him once he moved in.  He talked to the landlord and paid his deposit.

It was once a cool house that they turned into a multi room apartment so to say.  There was a community bathroom, laundry room (yes, they made you use quarters) and a really under par kitchen.  I wasn't sure about the other tenants but I was sure we would hear about them later. The room he was staying in was not worth $300 a month but that was my opinion.

Grandma and I would have to come back tomorrow with the suburban to help him move his stuff out of the Shoreline house.  We went to the post office and then dropped him off at his house so he could start packing with the boxes I brought up for him.  I left before the traffic in Seattle got really bad.  I stopped in Fife because I just couldn't help myself when it came to caches.  I was about 5 caches away from my 1600th milestone and I even made myself a sign.

The first one was called 6 of Hearts-DOC Series (GC2VKYV) and I found that one pretty fast but it was broken and mentioned that in my log when I got back home to log it.  Then I went to the next closest one, Change Your Range (GC1KFTB), then Point of View (GC1VAXN) which were both along a well maintained pathway and then Wapato JAM (GC29A64) which was in a guard rail above Wapato Creek.  Then my #1600th cache, Knowing Your ABC's (GC1DAKW) which was found at the Puget Sound Educational Service District (ESD) #121 is one of nine regional educational agencies serving school districts and state-approved private schools in Washington state.  I located the pill bottle and got out my sign for a milestone selfie.

I got back on the freeway with some time to eat a snack and to get my costume ready to go out for trick or treating with Derek.  I was candy corn for Halloween this year.

We went to Grandma's house, Bob and Bev's and then to Grammie's.  It was nice to catch up with them.  Happy Halloween!

Next Adventure: TBA

Ducks

Along with our 6 chickens (who live outside), 11 new chickens and an accidental rooster we got 4 ducks as well. Since we didn't really have a place to keep them and the have to stay warm, they lived in our bathroom for two months. So we had bathroom chickens and ducks for a while. The new chickens and rooster moved into their "chicken mobile home" in June along with the ducks, who moved into their mobile pen.









The new chickens laid their first egg on August 12th and the ducks on September 8th.





Now we are in the process of building them a permanent pen.

Fastpitch 2011

We went to districts last spring and this year we won only one game. I really wonder what happened. I know it's not the coaching because we've been doing the same thing for 13 seasons and some years it's great and others it's not so great. I really truly believe it's the combination of girls and attitudes. That's my opinion but I think others share in that opinion. I sure hope this year things change and we win more than one game. Here's to hoping.

Electric City, Dry Falls and Soap Lake

We got up, used the facilities and started taking the tent down.  The couple beside us were coming back from a road trip from Chicago.  They were from Oregon and had a custom made travel trailer made for them.  They were pretty proud of it.  They even let us look at the inside.  It was pretty roomy for how small it actually was.  Pretty impressive.

We packed our stuff in the car and headed out to get the one we didn't get yet.  It was at Crown Point State Park.  A place you could park your car and watch and listen to the laser show from your radio.  It was a great view of the town.  We grabbed the cache and took pictures.

We drove east to grab one kinda off of our path for a DeLorme square, page 38.  The view of Roosevelt Lake was pretty spectacular from this spot.  We picked up a bunch of aluminum cans.

We got back into the car and headed towards Electric City.  We were on our own today because Steve and Tammy were going to head east to visit with friends for another few days.  We assumed we would see them at another event soon.

We were told to see this virtual from some other cachers.  I love weird stuff like this off the road.

From here we headed to Banks Lake along the Coulee Corridor Scenic Byway/Hwy 155.  Due to the fact that it was so dry this summer, there hardly was any water in the lake.  When we were looking for places to camp, they told us to stay away from Banks Lake because it smelled like dead.   We did stop along the way to pick up a few caches here and there, one was an earthcache called Devil's Punchbowl, near Steamboat Rock.

We drove further along the highway stopping at most of the caches along the highway because there really wasn't that many.  I remember two of them giving us a really hard time.  We started getting higher and higher up on the coulees.  I knew we were getting closer to Dry Falls.  We picked  up a few more before going to Dry Falls.

Once we got to Dry Falls I was stoked.  I have not been here since I was in middle school and I loved it the first time.  During my geology classes, we learned a lot about this area and the glacial :ake Missoula floods from a long time ago.  This scar, is a result of that flood.

Some more info on Glacial Lake Missoula and the Flood:

Dry Falls is a 3.5 mile long scalloped precipice in central Washington, on the opposite side of the Upper Grand Coulee from the Columbia River, and at the head of the Lower Grand Coulee. Ten times the size of Niagara, Dry Falls is thought to be the greatest known waterfall that ever existed. According to the current geological model, catastrophic flooding channeled water at 65 miles per hour through the Upper Grand Coulee and over this 400-foot (120 m) rock face at the end of the last ice age. At this time, it is estimated that the flow of the falls was ten times the current flow of all the rivers in the world combined.

Nearly twenty thousand years ago, as glaciers moved south, an ice sheet dammed the Clark Fork River near Sandpoint, Idaho. Consequently, a significant portion of western Montana flooded, forming the gigantic Lake Missoula. About the same time, Glacial Lake Columbia was formed on the ice-dammed Columbia River behind the Okanogan lobe of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet. Lake Columbia's overflow – the diverted Columbia River – drained first through Moses Coulee and as the ice dam grew, later through the Grand Coulee.

Eventually, water in lake Missoula rose high enough to float the ice dam until it gave way, and a portion of this cataclysmic flood spilled into Glacial Lake Columbia, and then down the Grand Coulee. It is generally accepted that this process of ice-damming of the Clark Fork, refilling of Lake Missoula and subsequent cataclysmic flooding happened dozens of times over the years of the last Ice Age.


This sudden flood put parts of Idaho, Washington, and Oregon under hundreds of feet of water in just a few days. These extraordinary floods greatly enlarged the Grand Coulee and Dry Falls in a short period. The large plunge pools at the base of Dry Falls were created by these floods.

Once the ice sheet that obstructed the Columbia melted, the river returned to its normal course, leaving the Grand Coulee and the falls dry. Today, this massive cliff can be viewed from the Dry Falls Interpretive Center, part of Sun Lakes State Park, and located on Route 17 near the town of Coulee City. Admission is free however a Discover Pass is required for parking; 5$ a day or 30$ for the year.

 

Before we left the parking lot, I made some PBJ sandwiches and we had Cheetos and Doritos with a cold Pepsi for lunch.  It was delicious.

We continued south along Hwy 17 towards Soap Lake.  We could only get a few more caches along this road because it was getting late and we needed to get home at a certain time.  We grabbed a few more before getting to the lake.  I would have smothered mud all over me if we had the time to do so.  The earthcache here, required us to play in the mud and analyze the water.

The mud was wonderful.  This lake as well as Omak Lake were both soapy, due to the minerals mixed in with the water.  It was suppose to be good for your skin and such.  We cleaned ourselves off and went to the next one, which took us into Moses Lake.  We got a few there and merged onto I-90 towards home.

We made a few more stops, one was the rest area along the Columbia River near the Vantage Horses and the other was at the top of the hill at the Rye Grass Rest Area, where we grabbed a puzzle cache by ohjoy, it had to do with the windmills.

We got home around 9 p.m. that evening and I packed my stuff in the car and went home.

Next Adventure:   WSU Cougars vs. Oregon State Beavers, Seattle, Wash.

Omak Lake and Grand Coulee Dam

The next morning I went to use the bathroom and they tried to confront us.  I told them I could not and to talk to Derek.  I would have punched one of them, plus I had to poop really bad so I had to hurry.  The guy walked over to our cabin and talked to Derek.  He said that he though his uncle was renting the cabin next to them and that was his container with fire making stuff inside.  Derek basically said, still you should have asked and not assumed it was yours to take.  He said that he and his friend were sorry and he gave us back the rest of it.  We packed up our stuff and checked out.  We told the lady at the front desk what had happened and she gave us free firewood and a new fire clicker.  I told her I appreciated it and she said that she appreciated us telling her about the incident so next time it will not happen.

We got a hold of Steve and Tammy and they were on their way to Okanogan to get their tire fixed and said that it would be about an hour.  We decided to get the one DeLorme Square that people said would count but we weren't sure based on the map we had.  We went with it.  I found it after about five minutes of searching.

We drove to Okanogan to meet up with Steve and Tammy at Walmart.  We went inside to use the restroom, we got a few snacks and walked around while we waited for the tire to get fixed.  Steve and Tammy were going to follow us to Grand Coulee.  When we left, we saw Brad and his family in the parking lot.  We chatted for a bit.  Steve and Tammy got their car stuff taken care of and we were off to Omak Lake via Omak Lake Road/Columbia River Road.  But first we stopped by the famous Omak Stampede Suicide Race stadium/hill.

Here is more information about the hill and race:

The Suicide Race, also promoted as the World Famous Suicide Race, is a horse race held every year, during the second week of August, in Omak, Washington as a part of the Omak Stampede, a rodeo. Held for more than 70 years, the race is known for the portion of the race where horses and riders run down Suicide Hill, a 62-degree slope that runs for 225 feet (69 m) to the Okanogan River.  Though the race was inspired by Indian endurance races, the actual Omak race was the 1935 brainchild of a local Omak business owner. The race has provoked serious concerns among animal welfare and animals rights groups.

We walked back to our cars and headed to the lake. 

The lake was beautiful.

We went to the famous Erratic Behavior (GCQWV6) and climbed up the insanely steep hill.  It was worth the climb.

It was pretty cool since I have an interest in geology and earth science.  We spent a few minutes taking pictures and examining the rock before we went and got the actual cache, which was about 500 feet from the rock formation.

We drove down to the lake and did some wading.  The water felt soapy because of the minerals that make up the rocks that surround it.

The lake felt so nice on a hot day.  It was really shallow and you had to walk further in a ways to even reach the deep parts.  We walked out to the island and then decided to go and head to Grand Coulee, grabbing the deLorme squares as we went.

We got to the dam and went to the visitor's center to find out when the times were for the dam tour and to find out when the laser show began.  We rushed to where we had to be for the tour because one was starting up soon.  We parked, got rid of all of our things that might pose as a terrorist weapon (pens, pocket knives, etc) and stood in line to get in.  It was a free, first come first served basis.  We went inside the building and listened to the tour guides.  We were loaded up into two vans and taken to the first part of the tour, the inside of the dam.

The tour guide rattled off lots of facts, statistics, history and stories while on our forty five minute tour of inside the dam.  The guy knew his stuff.

We were loaded into the vans again but this time they took us to the other end of town to take us on the outside of the dam tour.  We were literally on top of the Grand Coulee Dam.  The views were amazing.

Some info about the dam:

Grand Coulee Dam is a gravity dam on the Columbia River in the U.S. state of Washington built to produce hydroelectric power and provide irrigation. It was constructed between 1933 and 1942, originally with two power plants. A third power station was completed in 1974 to increase its energy production. It is the largest electric power-producing facility in the United States and one of the largest concrete structures in the world.  It generates 21 billion kilowatt-hours annually.

They loaded us back into the vans and took us back across town and to our vehicles.  They thanked us for visiting the dam.  Steve, Tammy, Derek and I were starving so we went to the R&A Cafe and had their famous Dam Burgers.  Afterwards we cached the town until we had to go check into our campsite before the laser show began.

We drove up the hill and got onto Hwy 174 to the Grand Coulee RV Park.  He went inside to talk to the man and we got our tent spot on the grass.  We put most of it together in the dark with flashlights.  We got everything set up and by about that time it was time to head back down to the dam for the laser show.  This was my first time with the laser show.  I brought some snacks and a drink with me just in case.

It basically took us on a historical tour of how the Columbia River and the dam came to be and how it has influenced the area with its electricity, the wildlife, the people, the Native Americans etc.  The first ten minutes of the show was all about the Columbia River, speaking in first person..."I am the mighty Columbia, I bring life to all..."

Columbia River you are very conceited, lol.

Laser show information:  http://www.usbr.gov/pn/grandcoulee/gcvc/laser.html

Steve and Tammy went back to their hotel and we went back up the hill to our tent.  I took a quick shower and got ready for bed and then used the internet for a while.

During the night a mouse tried to climb up our tent.  You could hear the scratching and see the silhouette of the mouse slide down the side of the tent.  A little while later, it started sprinkling and we got to see some flashes of lightening.  

Next Adventure:  Electric City, Dry Falls, Soap Lake...