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
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