Tri-Cities Geocoin Challenge

We saw this event post a few months ago and just looking at the cache page we were excited.  A geocoin that came in three pieces for each city we were in and all of the pieces were trackable.  Nice.  We started preparing.  Then we hit some snags.  Then it was figured out again.  Luckily the Richland Parks and Rec Dept. had some spots open for tent camping at the last minute.  We jumped on it.  Now, we had to pack accordingly.  A few days beforehand, I started dragging out my camping stuff.  It hadn't been used since October when we went to Oregon to help on the rental down in Dexter.  I was so excited to finally cache in the Tri-Cities and get a free geocoin!

I was really hoping work didn't go beyond noon.  I wanted to hit the road as soon as possible.  Work did go past noon so I finished what I could and left around 12:15.  I am so thankful I bought a lunchable the night before (when I got groceries for the trip.)  I would have not had time to eat.  I got everything out and put it next to the door.  Then I waited for Derek to get there.  He arrived shortly after.  We packed the car and headed south on I-5.  We hit the 205 and then Hwy 14 along the Columbia River gorge.  We had a few caches to get in specific areas. 

We stopped at Beacon Rock because we needed the square and I’ve always wanted to go.  Last time I was down there, I went to a RHS playoff game in Stevenson back in 2010 with my mom.  We did the earthcache and took a few pictures

We got back on the road and headed east.  We stopped for a few random ones, looked at the views and enjoyed that it wasn’t raining…yet.  We had a few miles to go before we were in Maryhill and the Stonehenge.  I’ve always wanted to come to the Stonehenge monument.  I’d like to go to the real one in Europe but this one will suffice for now…

We got there and I literally jumped out of the car and ran to it.  We looked for the cache first.  The hint was weird so we just looked near every rock.  I eventually found a container that said geocache on it and took the logbook out.  I was concerned because I did not see BobBevLacie on it.  I know they were here earlier and they found the cache.  The last time it was logged was yesterday.  I flipped through the book to see if they wrote it somewhere else, nada.  We texted them and told them about our findings.  Bob thought we’d call because we would have trouble finding it.  I found the one in less than two minutes.  It was found 60 feet away from the coords.  I guess there were two of them.  It counts!  We took a few more pictures of inside the monument before heading out. 

We grabbed a few others along Hwy 14 to fill in our DeLorme squares.  It started raining so we really didn’t want to get in and out of the car that much.  It got darker and darker as we moved east.  The rain clouds were so low.  The wind was fierce and it was pouring.  We were very upset it was raining in the Tri-Cities and we had to set up and stay in a tent.  We stopped by Harbor Freight to grab a few tarps just in case to keep the rain and wind out of our tent. 

From there we headed to the campsite, which happened to be at the event location, and were confused on where to set up, park, etc.  We got out and a lady came out of her RV and we asked where we were supposed to set up camp.  She said anywhere along the grass where the cars were.  She then said, a night cache just published in this park, you guys wanna do it with me?  We never pass up a FTF if it’s get able.  We should have waited to do it because it was hard trying to find the glint tacks in the “twilight” stage of the evening.  Bob and Bev showed up and looked for it with us.  We only got to the 5^th glint tack before we came across a dead end.  We were using weenie flashlights anyway.  We gave up because it was getting late and our tent wasn’t set up yet.  We spent some time working on the tent.  We started seeing others with flashlights.  They also came to that very same dead end.  Then, the cache owners and a few other people met down by the 5th glint tack.  You really needed a strong flashlight.  The CO didn’t realize the light would come on down in that corner of the park.  It was hard to see but it was there.  We walked to the others and finally the final.  CO-FTF in Richland!!  Go us!  We chatted for a while and then went back to the tent.  Then we decided we were hungry and headed to Jack in the Box.

Then Mike and his family rolled in about 11 that night.  He got out of the car and walked towards us, I said, I know you.  He said, oh, is that Val?  Haha.  We talked a bit and then took him out to the cache before we hit the hay.  We said our goodbyes and headed to the tent.  We got ready for bed, situated and passed out.  The entire night I heard semi trucks and cars driving up and down Hwy 12.  We were at least a football field away from the highway.  I was so tired I tried to drown it out.  I woke up a couple hours later from the wind blowing hard.  It shook the tarps.

I got up around 8 and got ready for the day.  I headed over to the bathroom and on the way back I grabbed another cache that was in the park.  People started to arrive at the event.  We made sure we had everything ready for the crazy trek around the three cities.  We visited, saw people we knew, looked at the stuff Lisa brought with her Cache Advance store, speculated on the event, etc.  At 9:45, Jen gathered us around for a picture and a speech about what we were going to do.   

The caches would publish at 10 a.m. and we will be given a passport and coordinates.  The coords were scrambled and we would have to figure out which was which.  Each cache contained a word we would have to write down in our passport to get credit for the cache and the coin we would be getting at the end.  And of course sign the logbook. 

And we’re off!  We wasted too much time trying to figure out where all of them were from the park.  We found out there was an easier way to get it on the Nuvi and the handhelds.  We found the nearest Starbucks and loaded them up.  I thought it would be the most efficient if we started across the river in Pasco, then Kennewick and finished in Richland since the event was there.   We had no trouble finding them.  They were pretty easy straight forward.  We got turned around a few times and went the wrong way but eventually got back on track again.  We headed into Kennewick and Shari bought us burgers while we looked for the three in the park.  We ate as we went.  It poured down rain on us at one point and then it was 80 and hot again.  We finished Kennewick and headed into our last city, Richland.  That part took us the longest because the caches were further apart.  Each area took us roughly an hour and a half.  We grabbed our last one and headed for the park, it was about 4:30. 

I got out of the car like my pants were on fire.  I was soo excited to get my coin.  They checked my passport and handed me my coins. 

We looked at some of the trackables for discover before figuring out what we were going to do next.  We had a pre-arranged plan and I wanted to leave to go do it before it got too late.  We didn’t expect the coin challenge to start so late.  We grabbed Bob and Bev and headed out to what they called the Horse Heaven Power Trails.  There were about 200 caches.  

 I guess that they added another string of them that weekend.  They weren’t on our query.  Oh well.  Next time.  We grabbed about 75 of them that evening.  It was about 7:30 before we called it quits.  It was time to eat and shower at Bob and Bev’s hotel.  We ate dinner at Applebee’s and took turns getting clean at the Super 8.  We headed back to our campsite.  We decided to go for the other three at the other end of the park.  It was such a nice warm night.  We found the first two and didn’t find the other because it wasn’t there.  We went back to the tent because tomorrow was going to be a very long day.

We got up around 7 and packed our stuff and the tent.  We drove over to the hotel and met up with Bob and Bev to get more along the power trail.  We had to drive both cars because we didn’t want to head back into town since we were going south.  We started at the north end of the circle and worked our way east and then south.  We got at least 120 of them. 

 It was about 12:30 and we needed to go because we had to drive to DeLorme 89 and 90 and those were kind of out of the way.  We didn’t have those two caches downloaded so we had to drive into Hermiston, Oregon because that was the closest Starbucks.  There was a cache in the parking lot so we grabbed that before we left.  Now a race against time.

We didn’t stop until we got to the cache on page 90.  It was out on a windy canyon road with Mount Adams in the background.  It was on the western side of Goldendale.  An Altoids tin near a guard rail, one down, one more to go…

We headed west.

We arrived at another little town called Trout Lake, the gateway to Mount Adams.  We were on our way to an ice cave.  I read a little bit about it on my handheld but for some reason part of it was cut off.  We got into Trout Lake and headed northwest on a forest service road to where we needed to be.  We got to the turn off and headed to the parking area.  We looked at some of the caves nearby.  We did not know we needed a recreation forest pass instead of a discovery pass.  So a forest ranger let us off the hook since we were not staying.  She knew what geocaching was.  We almost left without actually seeing the real cave.  Luckily, the forest ranger told us to look over on the other side.  We almost missed the main event!  It was the coolest (literally) earthcache I’ve ever done so far.   

We spent some time taking pictures and looking at the info.  We needed to go because we weren’t gonna get home before 9.  We took a wrong way and lost some time but managed to make our way to Hwy 14 to Vancouver and then I-5 to home.  We got gas in La Center and grabbed one more cache just for fun.  I got home about 9:15, showered and got ready for work the next day.  It was gonna be a long week.

Next adventure:  Spokane Hoopfest