My Adventures and Places Life Takes Me: 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.