Oregon Highway 30

We got up around 9 a.m. and decided to get our stuff ready to go home.  We thanked Brandon and Maria for letting us stay at their house.  Our route today was to go Oregon Highway 30 up through St. Helens and over the bridge into Longview.  There were many caches to get but not enough time to grab them all.  We thought about going to Voodoo Doughnuts but decided to do it another day.  We ended up eating our cereal and bananas instead.

Our first stop was a few miles south of Scappoose, in the small community of Burlington.  The cache was part of a 35MM series by a local cacher named Blazingthrewthewoods, this one was 35MM23 (GC2BZE3).  It was a quick park and grab.  We found a few more of the 35MM series as we drove north.

The next cache took us to a "Marker" (GCQP12).  Fort William was a trading outpost built in 1834 and was the site of the first Euro-American trial because of a murder at the fort.  The murder was a disagreement between two "friends" who fought over a Native girl.  They believe alcohol was also involved.

Just Between the Two of Us (GC2NNAP) was a pretty cool location.  There were cement structures and no one (even the cache owners) have no idea why they are here or what they used to be.  My guess is probably a structure from the old forts along the river.

We found one as we got closer to town.  After we found it, it was archived.  We were last to find.  Then we came to one that irritated us to no end.  It was called 11 Alone (GCGKNC) and there were grave sites.  I couldn't find any history on the location but the tree the cache was hidden in was difficult for some reason.  We were either not looking in the right area or it was hidden very well.  We were getting irritated after searching for twenty minutes for something we should have found within minutes.  Finally, we found the beast.  The flowers were pretty too.

We could even see the landmark Scappoose was known for from this location, the Peace Candle.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_Candle_of_the_World

We found Crown Zellerback Rd or Columbia?  (GC25ZAK) we found a nano, Tram-law (GC27DNB) was a pill bottle we found in a tree bunch at the local Walmart, 35MM12 (GC2BA8H) was a film cannister hidden in a guardrail and the Not So "Kind" Fishing Hole (GC16MAF) which was a cache inside a stump you actually had to fish for.

From there, we picked up a few more along Hwy 30.  I Hate Hwy 30 #2 Rock of Ages (GCG0RW) which was an older cache from 4/27/2003, Fiona's Cache (GC2K6B4) which was tucked inside the base of a tree and was really hard to grab plus we had a muggle watching us the entire time.  Sadly the cache is now archived.  River Queen Rock (GC22BDF) has always intrigued me.  When I was seeing someone in Oregon, I would drive this route often and noticed the old river boat along the river.  I always wanted to stop and look at it and now I got my chance.

We found ourselves at Trojan Park just up the highway.  I really want to do their disc golf course some day.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trojan_Nuclear_Power_Plant


We found a parking spot and looked for My Evil Micro #3 (GC2V7VB).  There were several others but we didn't have a lot of time to walk around the park.  After some ground petting, I managed to come up with the evil little hide.

We continued north and found The Whistling Swan (GC1GNT0), On the Way to the Beach (GC2V93T), two more of the 35MM caches and we couldn't leave Rainier, Oregon without finding a cache at their sign.  I am from the other Rainier in Washington.  Welcome to Rainier (GC1XYP1) was a quick find in the tree nearby.

We drover over the Lewis & Clark Bridge and the Columbia River into Longview.  We stopped in Kelso to grab Food Break (GCK58Q) near the Taco Time.  That one was hard to get with all the people watching us.  We ended up grabbing some food at the McDonald's before we drove up I-5 towards home.  We did make one more stop at the Toutle River Rest Stop.  That was number 3 of the Road Rage series by Charlie Trail Duster (GCK58Q).

We got home just before dark.  I unpacked my stuff and logged my finds from the trip this afternoon.  It was a great cache machine weekend.

Next Adventure:  4th of July

Multnomah Falls, Original Stash, Estacada and Buffalo Wild Wings

We got up early because we didn't know how long it would take to go to Multnomah Falls, Estacada and dinner before the sun went down.  This time of year the sun was going down around 8:30 p.m.  We got dressed, grabbed our sandwich making stuff, chips and fruit, our binders, the GPS was ready and off we went.  We got onto I-205 and then merged onto I-84 towards Mt. Hood.  The drive was pleasant.  We knew it was going to be somewhat nice this afternoon.

When we got to Multnomah Falls it was hard to find a parking spot.  There were so many people here this early in the day.  I had forgotten it was tourist season.  I grabbed a cache in the parking lot as we were looking for a spot.  River 300 (GC2G7XA) was hidden underneath the brush where everyone could see you grab it.  You had to really be stealthy.  I managed to grab it sign it and put it back without being too obvious.  Finally a spot opened up and we snagged it.

We grabbed some paper and shoved it in my bag because I knew we would need it for the next cache.  We took a few pictures and made our way up to the Benson Bridge, where we'll start the What's Behind Multnomah Falls? (GC14VG2) earthcache.  Multnomah Falls, the nation's second largest year-round waterfall, is located east of Portland, Oregon. The two-tiered waterfall tumbles down a total of 620 feet, cascading over Grande Ronde Basalt, one of the basalt formations in the Columbia River Basalt Group.  We were going to focus our sights on the rock layers for most of the cache.  The notes and illustrations on my pad of paper were hilarious but I managed to cipher it when I logged it.

Once we got all of the information we needed we started the hike up to the top.  It was almost a two mile hike with eleven switchbacks.  Of course we had to follow a bunch of slow kids up the hill.  The two girls wearing Jellies sandals ahead of us complained the entire time.  They eventually stopped at one of the benches so we could go around them.  We took a few picture along the way.

When we made it to the top and walked over to the next cache, Beyond Multnomah Falls (GC1N7RV).  It was a quick find next to Multnomah Creek.  It was a small lock n lock container with rocks piled on top of it.  The scenery was marvelous.  We walked over to the platform where you could see the falls and the bridge and lodge below.  We were up really high.

Before we walked back down to the car, we stopped at chatted with a girl who was doing her internship with the Oregon State Parks.  We told her we were geocaching.  She actually knew what that was so it was a fun conversation. We grabbed one more before walking back to the car.  Mile Marker 32 (GC1PDT), was a quick find without all the muggles wandering around. When we got back to the car we had our sandwiches, chips and drinks.  It hit the spot.  We were now en route to Estacada and the Original Stash Plaque!

I've been to Estacada a few times while disc golfing.  The most recent trip out here was in 2009 when we played at Milo McIver State Park.  This was the same day which I found out one of my friends, Megan had her first baby, Mason.  This time we were just west of the state park in an area owned by Port Blakely Tree Farms, who by permission, allows geocaches on their property. We followed Nuvi up South Fellows Road and to the location of the very first geocache by Dave Ulmer.  Unfortunately, his cache was ruined by an Oregon road crew mower and was not salvageable.  Instead, a plaque was placed here to dedicate the historic cache for geocachers everywhere!  When I got out of the car and saw where it was, I was not expecting it to be this close to the road, in fact, I thought it would be harder to find.

I finally made it to the Original Stash Tribute Plaque (GCV0P).  There was an ammo can nearby, the Un-Original Stash (GC92), the one you actually signed your name in to get credit for both caches.

We climbed up the muddy hill and through the brush (because we make things harder than they really are) to get the two caches behind the Original Stash.  The first one Steve had told us about, One in Fifty (GC1ZKWZ) and Take A Hike (GC27ZA7).  One in Fifty had us going for a while until I remembered what Steve said to save us some time.  I won't spoil it for those of you who have not been to this area for the caches.

We went back to the car and started our way down the hill.  There we grabbed Slider (GC2W5V6), thank God we had a magnet, Sharpe Curve Ahead (GC1QG4W) and All Broken Up (GC1ZAVM), we had a little trouble with this one because the coords bounced and there were lots of places to look!

At the bottom of the hill we went and grabbed Viola School (GC1ACKH).  It was a very cute little school building.  This one room schoolhouse was built in 1894. It held its last class in 1939.

We drove into town to get a few there.  We didn't do a query for the actual town of Estacada so we had to find a place with WiFi.  We ended up at the high school at the top of the hill and it was very weak but got the caches on the GPS.  The first one, Guarded View (GC1ANWW) didn't take too long to find since it was inside of a guardrail that over looked the town.  The Old Mill Saloon (GC2A5YT) was a quick grab.  We did not expect an ammo can but a find is a find.

Before leaving town, we got two more How About an UpGrade?  (GC2C4C8) and Cazadero Cache (GC2DBQG).  And of course, got my picture with the town sign.

We drove back to Portland and went to the nearest Buffalo Wild Wings for dinner, which was at the PDX Airport area off of I-205.  He had never been there before.  I got my honey BBQ wings, fries and a drink and I was pretty content.  

We went back to Brandon's house, chatted with him and Maria for a while. logged our finds and went to bed.

Next Adventure:  Hwy 30 Caching

Portland Cache Machine

We had so much fun at our first cache machine in Wenatchee, we decided to plan for the one in Portland.  My friend Brandon lived in Vancouver, just across the Columbia River from Portland.  I got a hold of him, thank god he was going to be in town that weekend, he usually is gone playing horse polo somewhere.  Plus it would be great to see him and Maria.  I know it's been a while.

As the date approached, we put together what route down and what route back we wanted to go and printed off the PDX Cache Machine route booklet. This trip would be specific caches and the cache machine.  I looked at the route and the first few I already had so those should be quick park and grabs.  We were going to go I-5 down and take Hwy 30 to Longview back, of course grabbing caches as we go.

I had burned myself a few days ago retrieving a pizza out of the oven.  The oven mitt slipped and it burned the palm of my right hand.  So that was going to bother me during the cache machine.  I'll manage.  I found some awesome band aids though.

Wednesday I went grocery shopping at Winco for a few things for the caching trip.  I like to have cereal, fruit, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, chips and drinks on hand.

The Friday arrived and of course I worked my half day at the dentist office.  I got my stuff loaded into my car and drove out near the Capitol building, where my dad works.  I needed to pick up the Washington/DeLorme maps to figure out which squares we still needed.  I looked all over the house the night before and he said he had them at his desk and that if I came out to pick them up, he would let me borrow them. I grabbed a cache as I made my way back to Lacey, it was called Swantown, next to an old building on the registry of historic buildings.  After, I went to Target to waste some time until Derek was done.  He didn't get the time off so we could get down there at a decent time.  Oh well.

I met him at his apartment and I threw my stuff in his car, got gas and we were off to Portland.  We were going to meet Jessie for her birthday at the Montage, which features a wide variety of meals and then your left overs get wrapped up in foil shaped in one of their signature masterpieces.  I didn't want to spend the money so we ate something before we went.  (http://www.montageportland.com/).  I met her boyfriend Mike and some of her other friends she talked about.  When we were done we exchanged birthday/Christmas gifts in the parking lot.

We drove back up to Washington and to the Vancouver area.  Derek had not been to WSU Vancouver before so I navigated our way towards that direction.  We spent a few minutes driving around their parking lot.  It was getting dark and we needed to find a cache in Vancouver.  We found the closest one to us.  It was a quick guardrail called No Brainer 2 (GC2CTYK).  We plugged Brandon's address into the GPS and made our way to his house.

We found Brandon's house, parked and knocked on the door.  He greeted us, gave me a hug and gave us a quick tour of his house.  This was my first time visiting him since he moved down here.  We brought our stuff in, he showed us the downstairs area which we will be sleeping in and we sat upstairs visiting for a bit.  He said that he and Maria would be gone most of the weekend (local) with polo stuff so he handed me a key so we can come and go as we please.

We went downstairs and made ourselves at home.  I took the couch since I brought blankets and a few pillows and gave Derek the bed.  We had to get up really early so I tried to get ready for bed as soon as I could.  I am not a morning person...even when it comes to caching.

I remember being half asleep in the middle of the night and falling off the couch and onto the floor.  It kinda scared me a bit but picked myself up and got comfortable again.

We got up at 4:15 a.m. and it killed me.  I had a hard time getting motivated in the morning.  We got our stuff on (it was suppose to get warmer later on in the day), I wore layers, got our food, binders, papers, and other random things and put them in the car without waking up Brandon and Maria.  We were off to where we were suppose to meet, the Portland IKEA, off of I-205.  Most of the day we pretty much stayed near the PDX Airport, Hollywood and the surrounding area.  We met up with our new friends Steve and Tammy, who we met in Wenatchee a few months ago.  We followed them the entire day.

We grabbed a bunch of them near the airport, mostly at hotels and restaurants.  About a year ago, when I was here last, I had some time to get most of these ones.  I knew where they were so it shaved some time off of our route.  We even ran a red light.  We had found 20 caches before 6:20 that morning.  We were on track to finding all 145 of them.

Some of the memorable caches from this section of the cache machine were the PDX Airport Travel Bug Embassy (GCKQXQ), Shelrik's Happy Cache Inn (GC1KT61) and A Tribute For CCG (GC2NJCG) which was a very cool Chinese dragon head.

We got to OICU Found-R-Cache (GC14XWY) which was by the famous Sloughs of east Portland, kind of out in the woods and nearby was a "muggle" who knew where the cache was.  Another cacher who was at the same one as we were, deemed people who don't geocache but know about it and respect the hobby, as "squibs."  That day I learned a new caching term.

By 8:35 we were at 40 caches and just getting warmed up.

At E.T. Free Hydro Park (GC1P25Q) we had a great view of a neighborhood water tower that could also be a UFO.  We found the cache quickly among the four of us.

One of the caches I gave a favorite point to was Along Argyle (GC2CGWM).  It was near an industrial area along a fence.  It had us stumped for a while.  We had never seen a hide like this one before.  We knew they had the duct tape wallets but we weren't prepared for this kind of a hide.  I started feeling around for the possibility of a nano we were all missing.  Then a piece of the fence moved.  I peeled it off its hiding spot.  It was like one of those snap bracelets from the 90's except it was the color of the fence made with duct tape.  It was pretty clever.

Around 11:15 is when we reached our 40 cache mark for the morning and we made it to Delta Park, a famous soccer complex in Portland right off of I-5.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delta_Park

One of the more memorable caches we looked for at the park was I Just Love It (GC2HRVG).  It was one of those famous Oregon duct tape wallets crammed into a nook of a tree.  We almost walked away from it until one of us found it in the tree crevice.

As we moved further east, along the side of Marine Drive, a road that parallels the Columbia River, we got closer and closer to the PDX Airport, where we were up close and personal with several planes taking off in the distance.

Nearby, we found a cache called Boat Keys? (GC22Y4H).  And saw a great view of the airport.  I saw all the caches along the Marine Drive trail and so wanted to do it.  It would have to be another time on a bike unfortunately.

We made it to cache #80 after lunch around 1:45.  We ate our sandwiches, chips and fruit on the go.  We got pretty good at making our food as we drove to the next cache.  If you wanted to finish the cache machine and get as many as possible, you had to use every minute to your advantage.  We definitely perfected this task as the months went on.

I hit milestone #900 at Shield's Cache 01 (GC26Z5G).  I had feverishly taken notes all day so I timed it just right so I could celebrate it while on the route.

We did a cool historical virtual a few caches after my milestone.  It was called End of the Streetcar Line (GCHB4T) and has been around since 12/9/2003.  This virtual cache puts you in hot pursuit of Portland's streetcar history, in particular the Broadway Streetcar, which ran between the Alameda neighborhood and Downtown Portland from 1910 to 1948.  Portland's streetcar system was truly something to behold. A wide network of rails took early residents just about anywhere they needed to go. The Broadway Line was one of the signature routes, connecting Northeast Portland with the heart of the city.  The line was first constructed as far north as Northeast 24th and Fremont in 1909. The Alameda Land Company, which began developing the neighborhood above the ridge in 1909, paid $30,000 to extend the streetcar line up the hill to where it terminated at the location marked by our virtual cache.  The Broadway streetcar was replaced by bus on August 1, 1948. By 1950, all of Portland's once ubiquitous streetcar lines were gone. In the early days of neighborhood life, our streetcar was indispensable. It was one catalyst that made development of Alameda possible. It linked us to downtown and to other neighborhoods near and far.

More information about the neighborhood can be found at http://alamedahistory.org/.

 
Just after 4:00 we found our 100th cache of the day.  We were stoked to have found over 100 caches in a day compared to our dismal records of 25 and 30 caches.

We found a lot of guardrail, tons of micros in trees (I think Portland or Oregon for that matter invented this type of hide) and some lamp post skirt caches.  There were a few unusual caches, great cammo and very clever hidden caches for the next 25 or so caches we found with Steve and Tammy.

Then we arrived at a cache that reminded me of that scene from Singin' In the Rain when Gene Kelly wraps his arms around the light pole and swings around it.  I had to repeat that motion on this umbrella in front of me.  We found Perfect Place for a Portland Rainy Day (GC2GNPG) first and then went for the Kodak moment.

We grabbed about ten more and we were at 120 caches by 6:00.  I was starting to get hungry so I had a snack to fuel me for the next 15 caches.  The other one I remember being memorable was the Rocky Butte Earthcache (GC205HJ) and the view it provided.  Rocky Butte is an extinct volcanic cinder cone. It is one of three, along with Powell Butte, and Mount Tabor that are located inside the city limits. It is also part of the Boring Lava Field, a group of over 30 cinder cones in Oregon and Washington.  Formerly known as Wiberg Butte, a large quantity of rock was removed from the quarry on the east face of Rocky Butte in the 1940s for use in a new Multnomah County jail. After the jail was demolished in the 1980s, much of the stone was reused along the Historic Columbia River Highway. In the early 1900s, the Union Pacific Railroad had a spur into the east side of the Butte at a station named Quarry.

We grabbed a few more before heading to the cache machine event dinner (GC2W3NR) around 8:00.  I really wasn't feeling the buffet so we went and had a hamburger at Carl's Jr.  We arrived at the dinner and found a table.  We got out our coins and TB's and set them out for people to see them.  Immediately, a large guy with a WSU shirt yelled from across the room GO COUGS!  We were a little intimidated because we had no idea who that was.  He came over and introduced himself as Brad (Quadsinthemudd).  He lived south of Pullman in Uniontown.  He chatted with us for a bit and he saw our WSU coins.  He wanted ours.  We told him we could give him the information of the lady we got ours from.  He was stoked.  He grabbed a few more WSU fans at the event and got a picture.

We stayed for a little bit longer, signed the log and decided to finish the cache machine in the dark since we only had about five more.  We grabbed a Slurpee from 7-11 on the way back to Brandon's house.

We just got back to Brandon's neighborhood from Portland. We drove down his road and saw a bunch of flashing lights and flares. Almost in front of his house was this upside down van that had gotten into an accident 20 minutes before we arrived. 

The woman was distracted by her dog and clipped a truck and the van flipped over. We heard the woman was taken to the hospital and didn't hear what happened to the dog. The tow truck arrived shortly after and hauled it away. The firemen cleaned up the scene and the police took the accident report from witnesses.  I called Brandon and told him what happened.  He was in awe and told us he and Maria wouldn't be home until very late.  We logged our finds and went to bed.

Next Adventure:  Estacada and the Original Stash

Geocaching and a Mariner Game Part 2

I didn't have to go to work because the entire office was shut down due to the dental convention in Seattle. Derek asked for that day off so we left Lacey around 9:15. The night before I made sandwiches so we didn't have to stop or anything on the way up. I texted mom we were on our way. We got there faster than we anticipated and actually had to wait for her to get out of her last class. Then she said they were on their way to the hotel, that took a long time too. We finally got her and her luggage in the car and headed up to Fremont. Derek wanted to drop off a couple of trackables at Groundspeak. We waited in the car and he brought back a few trackables as well. We parked the car again and found out that the Freemont Fair was this weekend. We walked through the supposed "center of the universe" and got a picture of the mile marker.

We headed over to the Troll again, and found out it was under construction so we couldn't find the cache that was there. Sad day.

I've never been to Gas Works Park before. Since we had some time to spare before the Mariner game, we walked down to the park via Freemont. It was a nice walk. Lots of bikes and walkers down the trail. We got to Gas Works and took in the view. It was a pretty cool park. We walked around and saw some sort of photo shoot going on in the building nearby.








We walked back up to Freemont after a run in during a bathroom break at the public toilets at Gas Works. Those potties were disgusting!

We walked down the river front just to see what was down there, plus it was a nice day, so why not?





We found one over by the "downtown" Freemont area, Doggy Bowl. Next to a bar I went to with Nick and Nickey a few years ago for New Year's Eve.



We headed back up to the car and set out for the gum wall at Pike's Place. We were determined to find that gum wall bugger. We parked the car down by the piers and walked up the stair case up by Post Alley. I don't know how long we looked until mom said, "hey guys, is this it?" She found it sideways stuck in a hole in the wall between the brick and the window sill. We had to send Derek to the car to grab the tweezers. There was no way we were going to get it out without them. Me and mom stuck gum on the wall while we waited for him to get back.





Once he got back we pried that thing out of the wall. We all agreed that it wasn't suppose to be like that. We logged our find, took pictures and hid it back the way we thought it was suppose to be. Yay, Double Bubble Toil and Trouble is finally on the done list!



We walked through the Market and to a candy store that specializes in fudge and caramel apples because mom wanted to. From there we walked back to the car before our time ran out. We drove to our parking spot off of Massachusetts Ave and decided to get the caches that were somewhat near the stadium. We had a few minutes to kill before the place opened at 5:00. We grabbed Wacky Lego Micro #14 right near S. Airport Road under a lamp skirt.



Next on the list was The #1 Cache. We weren't quite sure why it was named that until mom found it near a hunk of wood that looked like a stump. It was a container that looked like some one had peed in it. The #1 cache. We got the name of it now. I opened it up because mom and Derek didn't want to.



We continued north to the DUCK you Rang! It was a micro hanging off inside a fence cap. Derek found it first.

We headed over to the China town area of Seattle for Youth in Asia. We kinda had to be sneaky with this one since there were a few people sitting in the park wondering why we were there. Derek found it and we hurried and put it back.


We tried looking for one more but we had to go to the ticket office so we left that one for another time. We got to the ticket office and tried getting tickets for the bleachers and they were sold out. My heart sank. She explained that it was an inter-league game and those go quick, it was a Friday and it was Ichiro jersey night. I had to pay $28 for four tickets. Thank god Derek paid for the other half. We got in the huge line and somehow snuck in with the group that was let in first. I wanted my jersey. We got in the blob of people and between the three of us, we got five jerseys. Now we had to wait for Doug to get here from the bus. He was coming down from Shoreline and got stuck in the traffic on I-5. While we waited, I was hungry and grabbed my Ivar's. The meal I always get when I come to Safeco.

Doug was almost here so we walked down to the entrance so mom could give him his ticket and his jersey. Derek and I waited by the gate.


Everyone was here and now mom needed food so we found the nearest burger place and ordered. She turned around and silently asked me what frites were. We were at a place called Hamburgers and Frites. I told her they were french fries in French. She told me not to laugh at her because she didn't know.

We walked up to our seats, relaxed and enjoyed the game against the Phillies.





We beat the Phillies 4-2 and it was a pretty good game. We walked back to the car and we had to take Doug back to Shoreline. We got to see his house and say hi to Spencer and Megan. We stopped at the 7-11 on the way out because I needed a Slurpee. We got home just after midnight. Great day for geocaching and baseball!

Next Adventure:  TBA