About a month ago, I tried getting my enhanced driver's license so we could go to Canada and while up there, visit Lauren in Kelowna. Because I do not have a physical address I get mail sent to, technically I don't reside at a physical address. It was on my driver's license, issued by the DMV/DOL, but it didn't count. I had to have two pieces (I had one) of evidence of my physical address. I couldn't come up with anything. I spent two hours wasting my time because I thought I had everything I needed. I was angry, very angry.
I worked that morning so as usual, I was exhausted but had to get motivated to get all my stuff ready to go. I drove over to Lacey and packed my stuff in to Derek's car. We got off to a late start but we hoped we would not get stuck in traffic. We headed up I-5, got off at Hwy 18 and onto I-90 through Snoqualmie Pass, there we stopped for caches. We made it to Ellensburg and got off at US-97 and went north towards Wenatchee. We stopped for a few caches along the way up.
We got a few DeLorme squares as we traveled into uncharted areas, lol. It was getting dark as we reached the Chelan/Pateros/Brewster area. We had booked a camping spot for two nights at the Twisp KOA and we had no idea if we were going to be too late to check in. We rolled in around 8-9 p.m. and it was dark. Good thing I know how to set up a tent in the dark. We talked with the lady in charge, she gave us some information about the area and a map and told us where we were going. We got back in the car and headed to our campsite. I started unpacking the car and my stomach dropped. We forgot the tent. I remember looking at it in the back of my car and thought I had grabbed it along with my sleeping pad.
What were we going to do?! I was so mad at myself I think I actually said the eff word without realizing it.
We thought about moving the stuff to the front seat and sleeping in the back of the car. We had too much stuff and some of it would have to sit outside over night. I didn't like that idea because I don't trust people. People like stealing things. Then we drove to the nearest store to ask if they had tents for sale or to rent.
None.
Crap, what are we going to do?
We went back to the KOA and went and saw the lady at the front desk again. We told her our issue and she let us upgrade to a cabin instead. We were very lucky there were still some left to rent. We just had too much stuff to sleep in the car. We drove to our new campsite and it was comfy. It was almost similar to the ones we stayed at in Anacortes back in August. We unloaded the car as quick as we could just because it was getting late and we had to get up really early for the cache machine.
I left my bin of firewood, kindling, logs, newspaper and a lighter on the front porch. You would think no one would mess with it right?
My alarm went off way too early. I think it was about 4:45-5:00. I rolled out of bed, got my clothes on, I dressed in layers, nights are cold, days are hot, got my caching stuff together, made sure we had our food, locked the door and drove to the first cache, in downtown Winthrop.
It actually had a really cool downtown, almost like a wild wild west motif. I felt like I needed to be wearing a cowboy hat, boots and walking my horse down the road.
We waited until a bunch of other cachers met up at the first one. We waited for Steve and Tammy, our buddies from Hillsboro, Oregon. We were going to do the cache machine together, like we have for the past two we've done.
We were told this one would cover a lot of ground and would cover more time than the day had allotted. We even found out from someone that there was a ridge that only trucks and SUV's could do, so we decided as a group to skip those ones.
The first few caches took us around the recreation part of Winthrop. We found a few near a large pond. That was quite the walk for that early in the morning.
There were a lot of horse trails, hiking trails and in the winter time they were used as ski and snowmobile trails. We had to walk down a few of them and drive down some of them without getting lost. While getting one in particular, we had to turn around because we took the wrong road. That set us back. Once we figured out where we needed to be, we saw some other cachers parked at the parking coords. We had to climb up a hill. I huffed and puffed. Once at the cache, we found out there was a road that took us right to the cache. Lame. There were great views from the parking area.
We drove out of the recreation area and back onto the main road and headed East on Hwy 20 towards the merge onto Hwy 97 to Okanogan. I have never been here before but have heard stories from my friend Brenna while at WSU, she is from Omak, which is the town nearby. Due to the route on the cache machine booklet we printed, we by-passed Okanogan and Omak for the way back. We stopped in Riverside for a few. That was the most northeast we were going to go.
On the way back through Omak, even ran into Frisbeer and RL Painter while running around town. We briefly chatted and moved on to the next set of them. This was about lunch time so I busted out the PBJ sandwiches and Doritos.
The route took us along the road, up on the hill overlooking the town and next to huge cliffs. Many of the caches in town were guardrails and caches hidden in piles of rocks. While driving around town we listened to the Cougar football game at San Diego State. We lost 42-24. Ouch. We still wore our colors proudly. I sure hope Cougar football gets better. It's painful to watch and/or listen to the games.
The next bunch took us back through Winthrop and west towards Mazama on State Route 20. These caches required lots of driving up hills. We stopped by one on the route that required you to walk underneath the highway through a tube. It was called Afraid of the Dark? It was pretty cool.
We drove further up the road and to a dirt road that took us up a very large hill. There were tons of switch backs but the views were awesome. It was dry so lots and lots of dust and potholes. We really had to be careful because both parties had really low clearance vehicles.
It was getting late. You can kinda feel evening as it approaches. We drove down the hill and took another dirt road to the left and there were lots of cabins and places for skiing. We got a little bit further down the road and pulled over for a cache. On the way back to the cars, Steve and Tammy were surprised with a flat tire. What bad luck. We helped them put their spare tire on and headed back into Winthrop.
On the way, we called a pizza place in town because none of us felt like Mexican food at the cache machine dinner. Steve tried calling a place that would fix their tire. No one was available. He found out he and Tammy would have to drive to Okanogan in the morning to get it fixed at the Walmart.
We got to the dinner and signed the logbook. We wandered around the restaurant and talked to the people we knew and tried to sell coins. We talked to Painter and Frisbee'r for a while. We found out that they had to drive back to Olympia that night because Painter had to work the next day. Yikes! What a drive they have ahead of them.
We stayed for a little while and walked around town, went into the gift shop and to the car. We told Steve and Tammy we would be in touch with them later on that evening. We went back to our cabin. We rolled up and I did not see my container with the newspaper, wood, fire clicker and kindling on our porch.
"Someone stole my fire making bin!"
I was pissed!
Who would steal from someone else's campsite? We looked around. The noisy neighbors to our left were having a drunken campfire and I saw the container I brought was in their possession. I went over there and told them that it wasn't theirs. Derek told them they were immature because they stole from someone else. We just let it go for the night, it was late. We used the restroom, showered, and got ready for tomorrow. We took some time to log some of our finds from the day. Then passed out because today was a long day.
Next Adventure: Omak Lake and Grand Coulee Dam
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