Neah Bay & Sekiu

We had the alarm set for 7 a.m.  I was lazy and didn't want to get up but I wanted to go get those caches so we can finally complete this corner of Washington State on the DeLorme map.  We got dressed, had the GPS ready, grabbed our snacks, hit up Subway and got gas and drove up the road north on Hwy 101.  We basically bypassed quite a few of them because we decided to get to our destination and then grab them on our way back down to Forks.  It didn't surprise me that it rained the ENTIRE day.  It is the Olympic Peninsula in the winter time after all.

The drive was pleasant.  Lots of great views of the forest, the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the coastline and many little towns I have never been to.  From Hwy 101 we got onto the 113 towards Sekiu.  It rained harder and harder.  The first cache we got to was in Neah Bay.

There was barely a town here and you could tell it was pretty run down.  We had now entered the Makah Indian Reservation and the most northwestern point of Washington State.  It was a virtual cache called Makah Heritage (GC60B4) and it has been here since 6/4/2002...three days before I graduated from high school.  We were suppose to find the answer of who carved the totems.  I found it quickly on the plaque and then we took a picture with the carvings.

We really didn't want to be out in the rain that long so we got what we needed and started heading back towards Forks, stopping along the way.  The first one was along the highway called DNC Micro Set Sail (GC23HC4) and it was an easy find.  The view of the ocean was pretty incredible.  You could see Sail, Seal and Pinnacle Rocks.

No trip would be complete without finding an Ohjoy cache, Two Traditional Options for Page 27- Wusses Read!  (GCXTPE).  One was for normal cachers and one was for the handicapped.  We could not believe she had one clear up here!!  I also made a note in my log about it. 

"We came up to Sekiu and Neah Bay for page 27 while visiting a friend in Forks for the weekend. I've never been up to the NW corner of the state before. We should have picked a better day, it rained the ENTIRE time. Oh well. Thanks for the views and the cache!

P.S. We just can't seem to drive anywhere without finding an Ohjoy cache. :)"

I think we ended up finding both of them just for fun.

We tried looking for another one along the road.  This time we were able to park the car along the road and hang out along the shore for a while.  We didn't find the cache but we got a great view of the rugged coastline and the ocean.

We made it to Sekiu again and stopped for the cache just before the turn by Clallam. Bay on the 112.  We had to stop at See You in Sekiu (GC1WV3R) because it was near a statue.  This statue was pretty unique and it even had a name, Rosie the fish.

We made the turn and started  heading south back to Forks.  We picked up two along the way.   DNC Micro Cache-Beaver Falls (GC23HCX) and DNC Micro Cache-Sappho P&R (GC23HD1).  Beaver Falls was a quick stop along the highway.  We walked down a trail and saw the falls.  It was a cool place for a cache.  Sappho P&R was at a park and ride at the junction of 112 and Hwy 101.  There was LOTS of garbage.  We took the time to pick up cans to take back with us after we located the cache.

We arrived into the Forks city limits and decided to grab one more, Forks Pride (GC1X7HP).  It was in a small industrial area outside of town and we were looking for a nano.  For some reason at this cache we got into a lame argument and I don't know how or why it started.  I guess I didn't care too much about it to remember the details.  Just over the bridge was the cache Welcome to Forks (GC2A3MJ), which my mom and I found back in August 2010 when I was just a brand new cacher.  We found it without a GPS.  We stopped there again because Derek needed to find it.  I just took a picture at the sign made famous by the Twilight series.

We went back to Willmarth's house and started packing up our stuff.  He took us around Forks for about an hour while he told us stories that he heard from the locals.  He had been here since August and has learned a great deal about the area.  His stories were pretty interesting.  One even included WWII.  We figured we should leave so we could get home at a decent time.  It was already getting dark.

We arrived back to Lacey just before bedtime.  I threw all of my stuff in my car and headed home.  I logged my finds, took a shower and went to bed.

Next Adventure:  Finding Bigfoot in Elma, Wash.

Forks, Twilight & La Push

I had to go visit Willmarth while he taught, coached and lived in Forks.  He didn't get very many visitors besides Shannon.  We planned to go up a weekend in January.

Back in 2006, the league was re-aligned and Forks became one of the schools who moved into our league.  Instead of what I was use to, Rainier now played  in the northern half of the Evergreen/Tri-Co Division.  The Evergreen Divison included:  Elma, Forks, Montesano, Rainier, Rochester, Tenino and Hoquiam.  The Tri-Co Division included:  Castle Rock, Columbia, Ilwaco, Kalama, La Center, Stevenson, Toledo and Woodland.

I told him we would be there on Friday evening.  He was looking forward to it.

I worked that day but had everything pretty much packed up for three days.  Work was pretty much routine and I had some food, went home and grabbed my stuff and headed up to Lacey and parked the car in the parking lot of Derek's complex.  I put my stuff in his car, got situated and were on our way to Forks, via Hwy 101.

We stopped a few times to grab a few caches along the way.  One of our stops was near Amanda Park and Lake Quinault at the world's largest spruce tree.

We did the virtual, Sitka Surprise, which were just a few questions about the sign near the tree.  We took a few pictures and walked back to the car.  It was pretty chilly.

We got a little further up Hwy 101 and stopped once more for a cache called,  Mount Olympus View Point, which was archived at the end of May 2013. Not sure why it was archived.  Didn't want to take care of it anymore?  It took us a little bit to find it because we had to bush whack.  Eventually I saw the lock n' lock hidden away in the brush.  We signed it, put it back and didn't stop again until we got to Forks.

We arrived a little early and in the dark, we had to wait until Willmarth was done with practice, so we went and got one more cache, near the candy store, called The Sweetest Spot in Forks.  It was closed, so we didn't really have to worry about the store owner coming out and wondering what we were doing, if they didn't know about the cache.  We found it near the front of the store.

After we signed and put the cache back we went over towards the school.  It's hidden behind some buildings to the east of Hwy 101.  It's actually really easy to miss.  I've been here a couple times, once for a softball game that I coached, but the games were not played at the school but at the nearby park, Tilicum. And the other time it was just driving through to go to La Push for the day.

Willmarth met us in the parking lot, I knew we were in the correct area because I recognized his truck.  We said our hi's and I gave him a hug.  He was very glad to see me.  He doesn't get many visitors so it was nice for him to see a familiar face.  He took us inside the school for the tour.  It was recently remodeled because it was old and really needed it.  They received a grant to do so.  He showed us his high tech classroom, the library (where he taught some of his classes), the library, the commons and the gym (his second home.)  We were there for about an hour wandering the hallways.

Everyone was getting hungry at this point so we followed him over to Home Slice Take n' Bake.  He told us it was the best pizza in town.  We went in and he ordered two pizzas.  Kids from the high school worked there so he knew most of them.  They chatted as they made our pizzas.

We followed Willmarth to his house and parked in the mini parking lot.  This was the first time I was seeing this place since the internet page he showed me last July.  It was small but cozy enough for one person or maybe two.  We brought our bags and sleeping stuff in because I knew we would be on the floor.  Luckily he had a sleeping pad for us to use.

We sat around, ate pizza and watched some Sportscenter for a while.  Willmarth said he had a Netflix account and that some new movies came in the mail.  He made all of us a huge bowl of air pop popcorn and watched Reel Steel.  It was an interesting movie.  Probably one I may or may not watch again.  We all went to bed shortly after.

The next morning we all got up, had some breakfast and Derek and I explored the town while Willmarth got ready for his game against Elma this afternoon.  We had to be done before three so we could meet him at the school to let us in.

It was a pretty nice day and we hoped it stayed that way.

We had some snacks with us so we didn't have to stop anywhere and buy lunch.  We were trying to save money when we went out and cached.  We started at the south end of town at the visitor's center.  We stopped in and talked to the guy who was manning the front desk.  We really weren't Twilight fans but the guy seemed interested in sharing it with us anyway.  He did tell us that the visitor's population since 2008 has skyrocketed since the franchise began.  The town has made some serious money since.  He even had a graphic chart on the wall.  We thanked him for the information and decided to start caching since we had a deadline for the day.

We started at Bygone Era (GCC0Y1), a magnetic cache hidden inside some old logging equipment.  We found it easily inside the lip of the metal façade.  We took a few pictures and started the ten waypoint Twilight multi cache, which began at Bella's pick-up truck in front of the visitor's center.

I kid you not, I actually said this out loud before we left the center. "Since this cache begins here, wouldn't it be funny if this multi took us all over Forks and La Push and ended here?"  We got the first waypoint and moved on to the next cache and waypoint according to our map.  Forks Geocache (GC628F), was the next one on the list.  It took us up the hill to the DNR building.  We parked the car and walked out to the viewpoint near some picnic tables.  It was hidden in the tree in a large bucket.  You had to avoid stepping in elk poopies.  It had a bunch of toys inside.

After a short drive down the road, we came across a cache called Mill Creek (GC1RBYJ).  We parked the car at a the beginning of the old logging road and walked the rest of the way.  It was a short walk and I picked up cans along the way.  We came to the cache and found it within a few minutes.  It was soaked but we managed to get our names on it before we put it back.

Before we left Forks and headed towards La Push, we gathered a few more waypoints.  One took us to City Hall, another to the Hospital, Forks High School, the Cullen's House, Swan's House, to the Police Station and eventually we made our way to La Push's beach, where we gathered our last waypoint.  And what do ya know?  The final took us to the visitor's center like I said before we started the multi.

We enjoyed the landscape for a while.  The last time I was here it was foggy and I couldn't see the landforms off in the distance.  We decided to grab a cache in town before driving back to Forks for the final and to meet up at the high school for the basketball game.  Quiloot (GC2HFA0), is still my furthest cache west from the Prime Meridian.  It was placed with permission by the Quileute Tribal  Council to be placed on the Indian Reservation.  It was hidden underneath a structure that was part of the Oceanside RV Park.

We drove back to Forks and made it to the visitor's center again.  We put the cache coordinates on the GPS for a better accuracy and walked behind the center on the small nature trail loop.  It wasn't far from the first waypoint, just about a quarter of a mile on a well kept trail among very large rain forest trees.  I saw the area before he did and started taking the bark and tree debris off a very huge ammo can.  It had everything Twilight inside.  We signed the book, looked at the swag and took a picture.  Like I said before, I am not a Twilight fan but the cache owner did a great job on this cache.  I gave it a favorite point.

We had timed this perfectly.  After we were done with the Twilight Cache (GC1N9H4), we made it over to the high school and watched Forks lose to Elma.  It was a pretty good game but they fell short.  Willmarth said in the next few years they would be competitive again, that's if they decide to keep him as a teacher and a coach due to the first year probation clause.  We ate some popcorn while we watched the game.  Afterwards, we went back to Willmarth's house and had some dinner and watched Moneyball.  We went to bed fairly early since we had a small excursion planned the next day up to Neah Bay to get some of our DeLorme squares out of the way plus I had never been there before.

Next Adventure:  Neah Bay and Sekiu

Winter Ice and Wind Storm 2012

Ok, we did not sign up for this. We were told we were only getting snow and then it would warm up and rain and melt it all away...

Not exactly.

We got freezing rain after being dumped on by 13 inches of snow. So, between night and day everything we got froze. Everything.



The power went out at 7:30 a.m.

I woke up around 9 a.m. to things cracking, snapping, bending and falling. It was gut wrenching. You had no idea where, when or what it was going to fall on. The trees, bushes and brush were now heavier and were starting to give way. Every two minutes you would hear sounds that made your heart stop or hold your breath. Once you knew it didn't hit the house, the cars or the animal pens you relaxed a bit until the next time.



Turning the TV on helped with the noise, for a while. We had to turn the generator off for a while to conserve gas. Then the noises started again. It got worse as the day went on.



I went outside to take some pictures to document this disaster. I saw the tree bending towards the house by the garage. That one worried us the most. We knew at some point it would break and fall, but when. The anticipation was killing us. I called a few people on the land line since that was the only one working. I did get texts throughout the day, when service was available at times. I was talking to Derek at the time and I heard a loud crack and the sound of something big hitting the side of the house. I yell, "the tree just hit the house!" I told Derek to hold on a sec while we went and looked at the damage. Thank god, no damage was done. It just ruined the gutter, which was already falling down from the other branches and trees. There were tons of branches in the chicken pen and lots behind the duck pen. If any of the pens would have been anywhere else we probably would have had dead animals.



Dad's Road Runner and Tornado were hit by a tree but did not do that much damage. There were tons of downed trees on the hill beside our house and a few did in the drive way, dad cut them with the chain saw. Our driveway was covered in branches. We went out and helped clear them. It started warming up and more and more stuff fell from the trees.



That evening it got warmer and another storm came in off the coast. While watching the news they told us it was the third punch to the gut. Great, just what we need, wind. That meant more trees and branches and a prolonged power outage. I agreed to stay up with the fire in the "Christmas" room and put wood on it every couple hours. Around 2:30 that morning I woke up to the sound of awful coming through the trees. It was hard to go back to sleep that night because of the sound, and I was exhausted. I tried to say to myself, nothing is going to fall on you, your house, your animals or cars. Then I heard a huge burst of wind howl through the trees, a crack and a fall. Where did that fall? I eventually went back to sleep and didn't wake up until mom and dad started making noise in the kitchen.

We went outside and did more clearing of the tree limbs from the chicken pen and the driveway. I went into town with Derek so I could get away from the house and take a much needed shower. He didn't have to do that but he did to be nice. Dad left the yard and went into town for a few things at the store. We stopped by Grammie and Grandpa's house and their yard was pretty bad too. They had power lines in their driveway. The wreckage from Rainier to Lacey was pretty bad. Rainier Road was bad. No wonder it was closed on Thursday and Friday.

I came home about 9 that evening and on the way, Derek mentioned something about how the power will come back on when he's about to leave my house. Sure enough, he was almost out the door and the power came back on around 10 p.m. Weird.

Snowmageddon 2012

Washington State, our home, is known for its rain, was instead forecast to get dumped on by snow. Last Friday we were inundated with newscasts, articles, headlines and projection photos of what may happen in the western Washington area. They were calling for 8-16 inches of snow in certain areas. Our forecast went national, then international when the BBC picked up the story. Hundreds of people thought it wasn't going to happen and were held in “snowspense”. We got dribbles of snow here and there and then it got more serious. I never really look forward to the snow when they say we're getting some because, in the past, they've always set me up for disappointment when it doesn't fall.

However, last night, at about 1 a.m. it started falling and didn't stop until about noon today. Mom woke me up at 5 a.m. this morning and pulled my blankets off telling me to come with her to look at it off the back porch. I nodded and went back to bed. I got up at 9ish this morning and took some pictures of the snow before it rained. It never stays very long here. Final tally: about 13 inches. Last time it snowed this much was back in 2008 when we almost didn't have a Christmas.

Snow 2012

Today was our first snow fall of the year. It amazes me how many people still can't drive in it. Use your brains! Common sense! I've already read a post on Facebook about someone being rescued from the ditch. If you can't drive in it, DON'T drive in it! It actually surprised me tonight, while heading to a movie in Yelm, that there were tons of people driving out in it. I had a discussion today about snow and how prepared Western Washington is, which we're not. It hardly snows here and when it does for some reason it's a surprise to everyone. Why put money, man power and time into something that doesn't happen often? Just suck it up and drive in it. Don't cancel things just because it snows a few inches. Go learn, wear a helmet and I hope you have insurance.

Something Strange in the Neighborhood...

I was on Facebook the other day looking through posts people had shared that day and I came across a really cool picture from our friend Brad.  It was his daughter with a really cool cache.  I HAD to know which one and where it was.  I messaged him.  He wrote me back and said he was on the westside this past week visiting family in the Graham area.

Sounded good so far...

He continued by saying that the cache I was in search of was in Eatonville.  I was stoked.  It was an awesome cache and it was less than twenty miles from my house.  I began planning.

The past few months we've been working on the puzzles in town we haven't found yet.  Those were also on the list of ones to do while we were there.

I got Bob and Bev on board, got a hold of Jeremy and Shaundra and Derek came along too.  We took two cars because we came from different places and we met up at the store in McKenna.  We put the coords into the GPS and I could not wait to get there.  I was too excited.

We got to the cache zone and I immediately got out of the car and started looking.  Indeed, the cache found me before I found it.

I was so excited I took a bunch of photos.  It was cold but fun wandering through the woods.

After getting our Slimer on, we headed towards town to do a few others we had on our list.  First we stopped at the grocery store on the corner of Hwy 161 and the Eatonville Cut Off.  There was one across the road underneath an abandoned median block.  A few of us ran over and grabbed that one.

Onto Eatonville we go!

The first one we went for was one we solved over a year ago.  It was part of the Mario series.  It was an easy find once you figured out how to navigate through the new housing development.  The cacher that put this series together was pretty creative.

Bev wanted to do Mainstreet:  Eatonville, Washington puzzle.  This one took us to several places down main street.  We had to match the pictures with the symbols on the buildings in town.  We didn't know one of the pictures was changed but luckily I had a smart phone with me to find the correct picture.

And then it started snowing.

That didn't stop us.  We did have to regroup when we made a wrong turn down the wrong road.

We figured it out and made our way back to where we needed to go.  We came across a local who was very chatty.  We were talking about how small the town was and we were over heard by one of the locals who told us a little bit about the town. He started off with, do you know why the population stays the same up here? A girl gets pregnant and the guy leaves. Then he added, if the girl is pregnant with twins, two guys leave. Oh small town humor. Yay Eatonville!

We didn't realize the walk to the final would take as long as it did.  We made our way to a small park north of town and we were freezing.  We found it after checking a few wrong spots.  The next cache took us to the cemetery.  We misinterpreted it a few times but managed to do the math right on the back of my hand.  We found the cache quickly.

We were cold and hungry and stopped by Bruno's, (http://www.eatbrunos.com/ ) a local restaurant, just down the street.  We all ordered burgers and fries and enjoyed each others company.  About an hour later, we found two more before heading back home for the evening.  Both were part of the Mario series.

The final to the Super Mario Geocaching:  The Incredible Rescue took us from Eatonville to Hwy 7 off of a old logging road that is now fenced off.  Jeremy, Bob, Derek and I went after that one while Bev and Shaundra stayed by the cars.  We said our goodbyes and all went home to get warm.  Until the next time.

Next Adventure:  Snowmageddon 2012

Long Beach Cache Machine

After the Methow Valley Cache Machine back in September we had already planned on going to the Long Beach/Ilwaco Cache Machine in January. We started preparing because three months really isn't that long...

I started looking at the area and we guessed which ones might end up on the route. We looked at the puzzles and some of the multi's, just to see how involved they were. We will be trying the beat darkness since it was winter time. We wanted to qualify for the Über Icon Challenge, which is seven different cache types in one day. We could potentially get it done in Long Beach if we managed our time well. Sadly, the actual cache to the challenge is up near Bellingham...

The weekend arrived and I had to constantly remind Derek to book the hotel. If we didn't we would be screwed and I was not going to camp out at the beach in January. I told him about the Heidi's Inn in Ilwaco. I knew about this place because when I helped coach the basketball summer league, Gowan stayed in this hotel, plus it was pretty cheap and not too far away from Long Beach. Bob and Bev stayed in Astoria, across the bridge. Since the event/cache machine was closer to home, we could actually go to the pre-event dinner the night before. It was at a quaint little restaurant named the Lost Roo (http://lostroo.com/). It was known for its specialty wines and micro brews. The food was pretty good too. We spent most of the evening talking to other cachers about random places and events they've been to.

On Friday, we had all of our stuff packed and he met me at my house since we were going south on I-5. We had a few places to stop before we actually got to our hotel. We filled in some DeLorme squares I had all mapped out and Wahkiakum County we needed to grab.



Other than those two things, we just stopped when ever we felt like it. I think we managed to grab over 10 caches that afternoon.



From there, we went to our hotel, checked in, unpacked some of our stuff and headed over to the pre-event dinner. I asked Bob and Bev what they were doing and they really didn't want to go to the dinner so they stayed in Astoria. We were kind of on our own the next day too because they had already came to Long Beach another time and grabbed a bunch of them. So they were going to do a different version of the cache machine. We went back to the hotel and logged our finds. The internet shut off at 10 p.m.

We got up the next morning, got dressed, ate food as we drove and met up with Steve, Tammy and Melanie at the webcam. It was hard to take a webcam pic at 5 a.m. in the dark. We did it a little later, yay for having a smart phone and can do it myself without having to call someone to take it for me. Plus the webcam updated every 30 seconds, that helped a lot.



From there, we did the route. This was the last time we would actually do the cache machines like they were suppose to. We took pictures at the boardwalk, the mermaid who looks like a man and other several memorable places.



We started at the beach and ended at the beach. The route took us all over the peninsula. A cacher, who we have learned a lot about after caching the area, LedgendofthePickle, had a lot of hides in the area. Most of them were the cache machine, the pickle series. I found out that day she was a girl and I got to actually meet her.

I had no idea they had cranberry bog farms in this area. I was really glad I kinda knew the area a little after being here so many times in the recent past. Ilwaco was in our league in high school so we came here often. It was a cold day but on the bright side, it did not rain. In western Washington, you just assume it's raining on the coast no matter what time of the year it is. We headed into Cape Disappointment and the lighthouse, where Derek had to buy his Discovery Pass, a requirement in the State of Washington to visit majority of the parks.



It is located in one of the most foggiest places on earth, receiving 106 days of fog a year. This is where we met up with Bob and Bev. The climb up to the lighthouse was very steep. This is where we lost Steve, Tammy and Melanie. We met up with them later at the pizza place in town.

After Cape Disappointment, we grabbed others as we headed back into town. It was almost getting dark. We had to finish an earthcache, that was the only one keeping us from our challenge. We got to the spot just as it was getting dark. We had to determine how far each side of the beach was from where I was standing. I knew how long the peninsula was, so it wasn't hard to guess. Yay for my earth science skills, they came in handy that day. We got our traditional, webcam, multi, puzzle, earthcache, virtual and event that afternoon. Bob and Bev snuck in with a letterbox since they already logged the webcam several months ago. We grabbed everyone and headed to Figaro's Pizza. I had been here in 2010 for that basketball tournament and we wrote our names on the table. Mine was still intact two years later. I showed everyone and added 2012 to it. We had pizza, pop, traded TB and coin codes, took pictures, chatted with other cachers, signed the log book and enjoyed our time there. I had to leave after it got too crowded and the place burnt something so the smoke was burning my eyes. I needed to leave and go back to the hotel. I was exhausted. Before we left, we got a hold of Brad for a Coug pic and to decide what we wanted to do the next day. He wanted to go around Astoria and do the Goonies series. We were on board. We went back to our hotel room, took showers, logged our finds, updated our GPS's for tomorrow's adventure and passed out. It was a very long day.

We got up and were amazed that the weather was nice. It was cold but it was a beautiful, clear, sunny day. We packed our stuff, checked out of the hotel room and got in the car and headed over the Astoria-Megler Bridge. It is a 4.1 mile long bridge from Washington to Oregon. It is the longest continuous truss bridge in North America. We met everyone at the webcam near the Maritime Museum along the Columbia River.



We found the caches that were nearby as we waited for Brad's gang to show up. Once they arrived, we had trouble getting the webcam to work. We spent probably an hour dinking around with it. We finally just gave up and took a picture of all of us with the webcam in the background.



From there, we followed Brad to the different waypoints to the Goonies Series. I guess you had to watch the movie to figure out some of the coordinates. Luckily Brad had all that taken care of. We went to each of the places listed on the cache page and collected the information.

Of course we took pictures. If there were caches nearby, we grabbed them as well. One of the waypoints took us to the Goonies house. It made me want to watch the movie again.



The final took us to the Astoria Columns. Which had a great view of the Columbia River, Astoria, the Megler bridge, the coastline and the mountains behind us. At the visitor's center in the parking lot, you can purchase a small glider to throw off the columns for a dollar. We did it because it was also a challenge. Wow, by the time we reached the top of the column my calves were burning! Well worth the view though. We spent some time up there throwing our gliders. We gathered as a team again and tackled the trail behind the column. There were about 8 caches stretched over the entire thing. We didn't want to walk back up the steep hill so we had one of Brad's friends come get us in the van.





Back at the column, we gathered around the picnic tables and ate our sandwiches. We grabbed the caches near the picnic area. At that point it was time for everyone to head out and do their own thing. Bob and Bev did some more around the Astoria area, Brad and his friends and family went back to their beach house and cached around the Seaside/Cannon Beach area and me and Derek had to head back home.





We cached the whole way home. We even tried for a FTF in Tenino and was beat out by maybe a half hour.

Next Adventure:  Something Strange in the Neighborhood

Next Cache Machine: Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, March 2012