My Yakima Visit, November 30

5:30 am is the worst time of the day.  I have the hardest time getting up and it doesn't even matter what time I got to bed the night before, it is always hard to get up for.  I didn't sleep well the night before anyway because I worried about the weather on the pass and possibly Grandma changing her mind about me borrowing her van to drive across the pass.  Oh well, one foot in front of the other today and to keep myself moving.

We threw the recycle into the car, I made my blueberry bagel because someone ate some of my cereal and did not close it, so it got stale.  Huge pet peeve.  Climbed in and headed to work, in the dark.

I kept myself busy majority of the time.  We had our reviews with Dr. Smith starting yesterday and wrapping it up today with the three of us who were left to do them.  Carrie's wasn't done yet so she finished hers around 10.  I was worried I would get the last interview again and have to wait around.  I needed to leave before 1 so I could get to Yakima before dark.  So I ran upstairs and asked Dr. Smith if I could have my review next.  He was on board.

There weren't any negatives to my work ethic, which was nice because several people cried during their reviews yesterday.  He asked me what my duties were, how my life was going and he gave me a dollar raise!  He may add hours to my week and I might get my own locker.  The only negative thing he had to say, which wasn't really that negative, was an OSHA thing with my uniform.  I had to wear long lab jackets if I wanted to take my clothes home.  Which was okay, I just didn't think I mattered enough to have lab jackets. So I got a raise, possibly more hours and two long lab jackets and a locker out of my review.   I would say I kicked Friday's butt.

We got the rest of our stuff done and headed out.  We dropped by the post office, went to the recycle, our post office to send Erika and Amy's packages and headed home.  I ate a couple bites of last night's dinner and hurried to pack up my stuff so I could get on the road.  I hoped I got everything.

I got over to Grandma's house and put my stuff in there.  I told her thank you for letting me use the van again.  I drove into Yelm and got gas.  Everyone and their dog were getting gas the same time I needed to.  Luckily, I snuck in there and left before it got crazier.

I was finally on my way and I was very tired.  I hated going through Eatonville but there was a cache just before the bridge on the other side of town I stopped for.  A quick guard rail cache.  To Hwy 7 I go.  I was so happy I did not have to follow anyone.  I did have to pass a motor home on my way to Morton.  Grandma's van drove very smooth.  It made my drive over less stressful.  I got to Hwy 12 and had to follow a semi truck for a while until I could pass and after that no problems.  Driving over the pass was as simple as driving over it in the summer time.  There was some snow but it was mostly near the ski area.  There were no cars or no one skiing.  Down the pass we went.  I gained about 7 minutes on the way down which was nice.

I got into Naches and called everyone to tell them I made it over.  I got into Yakima and it was starting to get dark.  I pulled up next to their driveway and got out and heard a hisssss.  Lame, the right rear tire was flat.  I've never gotten a flat tire.  I guess it was bound to happen since I have driven back and forth a lot from Pullman and Yakima in the last 10 years.  I walked into the house and was immediately attacked by the two crazy dogs.

They eventually settled down and Willmarth's voice came back from the surgery and being under anesthesia so we talked about some stuff.  I brought my stuff in from the van and then had pizza for dinner while we watched the Pac-12 championship football game.  Time got away from us and it was about midnight when I decided to call it quits and go to bed.  It had been a long day.

Sequim Cenntenial Geocoin Challenge

We missed the actual event two weeks ago so we went today instead.  I really love the Facebook group South Sound Cachers because if you have a questions or a comment about something someone on there will know the answer.  I'm glad I heard that you could still do the coin challenge.

A few days ago, Bev and I decided that Monday would be the best day.  The weather was going to be dry and to get the coin, the city hall would have to be open.  And Monday it shall be!

The night before I printed out a few things to help us with our efficiency of grabbing the caches.  Essentially it was a large circle.  If we stuck to the circle, we should be able to do it in less than 3 hours and no back tracking.  I got my food together and stuck it in my lunch box and put it in the fridge for safe keeping.

For some reason I slept like garbage.  I tossed and turned all night long.  I might have gotten a few hours of sleep but it wasn't good sleep.  My alarm went off and I zombied myself out of my bed, washed up, put my warm clothes on and gathered the rest of my stuff.  I got everything done before 6:30 and waited.  And waited...

It was about 6:40 so I texted Bev.  They are never late.  She got back to me quickly.  She said they were on Runyon Rd and that the chickens they were watching for their neighbor took some extra time and she left the coffee pot on and had to go back and turn it off.

I grabbed my stuff and out the door I went.  It was so dark outside.  We had some conversations as we drove the 100 miles plus to Sequim.  I showed her the map I made and we sung Christmas songs there and back. "It's the most wonderful time of the year!..."

We stopped in Quilcene to grab a cache that Bob and Bev have been to three times now.  We figured since we had the time why not stop?  I found it within a minute of arriving on the scene.  They used the facility and we were on our way to our free geocoin!

We knew about two other groups of cachers who were also going up to Sequim today.  Two guys from Seattle and a couple from the Marysville area, I actually knew them.  We drove right by the red Prius, that the guys were driving near a cache we already had from a previous trip.  Maybe we will meet up with them later?  We went to our first cache of the challenge.  It was in the small town before Sequim, Blyn.  It was at a family cemetery.  It was a quick grab.  We were to stamp our passport and gather a letter and number for the final cache.

Sequim Centennial History and Geocoin Challenge:  http://coord.info/GC41686

As we left and got back onto 101, we drove past the red Prius again, I waved but they didn't see me.  They followed our route the rest of the day.  They contacted me later saying every cache they signed that day had our names on it.  We continued on our circle around Sequim.  Some of the caches took us near the ocean, some to historical buildings, canneries, sites and one even took us to a place where they dug up a mastodon in the late 70s early 80s.

 Two caches didn't have stamps in them and that got us worrying that we might not get a coin.  We met up with the two other cachers in their white Toyota Echo.  We exchanged greetings and asked if they found two caches without stamps, they did as well.

We finished the last few we had to do, which took us south over 101 towards the Olympics and the final one of the series at the park in town.  The same park we had lunch at a few months back.  We put together the letters and numbers we gathered and found the solution to the final but went the wrong way to it.  We read the hint and figured it out.  It took us to the building who were sponsoring the caches (besides City Hall) and the final was underneath one of the old historic buildings.  I climbed underneath to take a look, got a sliver and set my knee on top of a small rock trying to get out from beneath the building.  We took pictures and reflected on our caches we got.

We drove to City Hall a little bit worried that we might not get out coins because two of the stamps were missing.  The lady was understanding  and let us have them.  She apologized to us for them being gone and she hopes that they will be replaced soon.  We also mentioned that 4 other cachers were right behind us will have the same issue.  Bob and Bev bought the silver version of the coin for Kenny and Mike.  We did the only challenge in town before we headed out for more caches around town.

We started off with one I've had a hard time with for almost a year.  I can't believe we didn't look there but both times we didn't find it, it was hurricane-ing and the second time too many muggles watching us. Check that one off the list!  We drove around town a little more grabbing ones we didn't get to on previous trips and had two DNF's.  We even finished a couple of multis in town.  They were kinda fun.  One multi took us to a park we've been to before.  We got out of the car and was molested by about 50 ducks.  I fed them the rest of my crust from my sandwich.

We hit up a a few more and it started to get dark and we could not end on a DNF.  We grabbed one of the lavender series and then back on to Hwy 101 towards home.  We told stories and enjoyed the ride.  I almost fell asleep but caught myself.  We got into Shelton and decided we needed gas and something for dinner so we went to Denny's nearby.  They had a turkey dinner and I had a burger.  We headed home, they dropped me off and I took a shower and logged my caches while I caught up on some shows.

Next adventure:  Yakima, Wash.

My 29th Birthday

Today was my birthday.  I turned 29.  I slept in because sleeping in is amazing and I didn't sleep well the night before. I got up around 10:30 to several phone calls.  It's weird when everyone decides to call at the same time...one of those weird wonders of the world.  I talked to Grammie for a bit, then Grandma and Bev and then Doug called me on his lunch break to wish me a happy birthday.  Weird I know.  Maybe he's growing up and becoming more responsible?  Or maybe he cares more?  I don't know.

Bev picked me up and we went and got a cache from Yelm and we met up with Gabe and found the cache together.

We got into Lacey and went to Costco first to get a $1.50 meal of a polish dog and a Pepsi for lunch.  Afterwards we had to do a few errands at the grocery store so we hit up the nearby Walmart.  I recieved a Coldstone gift card from Lacey a few years ago and finally used it this afternoon for some ice cream to share with Bev.  I had an very interesting conversation with one of the workers there.  We got it to go.

I got home and then headed over to Grandma's house to drop off a quilt for her to quilt.  She wasn't home so I called Ms. Hamel back in the car and talked to her for a while.  I dropped off the quilt and headed over to Bev's house for a while.

I picked up Megan and drove into Puyallup for my birthday dinner at Buffalo Wild Wings.  Fitzy got there a few min after we did.  We chatted, laughed and ate our food while enjoying the company of the servers and floor manager.  Lindsay got there as soon as she could.  it was a fun birthday party.

Found out my brake lights don't work.  Not cool.

Until next year...the big 3-0.

Pinnacle Peak

It all started with a post on The South Sound Cachers group on Facebook.  I find this group very informative and a great way to plan trips with other cachers.  Chris (Mc3Cats) posted he was interested in hiking up Pinnacle Peak, which was in Enumclaw, about 25 miles from Rainier.  He wanted to know if anyone was interested and when and where to meet up.  No one expressed that much interest in it and I thought it sounded fun so I told him I would come.  I talked Bob, Bev and my mom into it as well.  All the information was hammered out and all we needed to now was to get ready for the hike and download all the caches we needed.

I grabbed the things I would need, made some sandwiches and Bob and Bev rolled up about 8:30.  We headed to Enumclaw via 512/167/410 and grabbed two on the way to the peak.  It was almost 10 so we out the parking coords into Nuvi.  Part of Mud Mountain Road was blocked of so we had to take the detour around.

When we arrived there were a bunch of cars parked along the road.  I knew most of those cars were non-cachers just enjoying the hike.  We spotted Chris and Ben and from there decided how we were going to tackle this.  We left our car, Ben and Chris drove to the other side to leave Chris's car behind so we all could be driven back after the hike.  While they dropped the car off, they had us look for the first one near the gate.  It was a 4/1.5 and all of us touched the cache at least twice without realizing it was the cache.  Chris and Ben got back and we had to have a hint from them to find it, lol.

We headed up the gradual elevation end and worked our way up to the top.  There were a few difficult spots and everyone was out of breath.  We got the first few caches on the way up.  One of them was a tribute/memorial for a Black Hawk that crashed on this peak on December 21, 2006.

 (http://www.komonews.com/news/4987776.html)

We got to a landing to wait for the others to catch up and the views were breath taking.  We could see the town of Buckley and because of the clouds we could not see Mount Rainier today.

 We reached an area that took us into the woods.  Autumn made the surroundings very beautiful.  Chris had told me about a challenge that took you all over King County to learn about how certain areas have been kept forest land for everyone to enjoy.  He gave me the link to check it out and told me about the caches and the passport so we can stamp all the ones we've been to.  Apparently, Pinnacle Peak is the furthest south.  One down, 18 more to go to get the coin.

There were lots of trails and if you didn't have a guide, have been up here already or a GPS with maps, you could get turned around.  We're glad this sign was here, haha.  No, I thought it was funny so we got a picture of it.

 The terrain started getting steeper and steeper.  Bob, Chris and I had to go off and grab one on another trail while Ben, mom and Bev headed up the hill.  We grabbed it and headed on back towards the top.  Wow, was that climb exhausting. I know for a fact Bev was mad at Bob and I for making her walk up a mountain.  I knew she would forgive us after a few days.

Then we got to the hardcore part.  We had to climb up basically a natural staircase to the top.  I had to stop a few times to catch my breath.  Chris and I headed off of a spur to grab another cache off the beaten path.  Some other hikers walked by and talked to us for a bit about caching.  They've done it in the past.  We joined our group near the top.  Ben told us about the lookout on the tippy top.  It used to be a building and now is just benches for people to enjoy.

We got to the earthcache and that's where we decided to have lunch.  Just before busting out the sandwiches, we got our picture and got the answers taken care of.  We found a wide spot in the trail and started eating our food.

A few people and some dogs walked by as we were eating lunch.  About 15 minutes later we were heading down the peak.  We stopped at the more picturesque basalt columns.

And now the descent down the steeper side of the peak.  There were about 5 or 6 down the hill.

Ben, Chris, Bob and I went for one that took us a while to pin point.  Meanwhile, Sue and Bev made their way down the peak.  I ended up finding it shoved up a hole in the tree, about 60 feet off the coords.  The hint was terrible.  We made our way down, grabbing the caches as we went.  We got to the bottom and found Sue and Bev standing in the parking area.  We grabbed the letterbox nearby, the original coords were horrible, so we used the coords Chris found on the cache page.  We used our stamps.

We drove back to where we had parked originally and Ben wanted to show us some cool caches in the area by a guy named roadtrip.  They were pretty creative.  One was in a rock wall, one was near a bridge hidden really well and the other was in an metal arbor.  I touched it twice before realizing it was the cache.

We found a TB hotel and one more placed by Ben and Jayme before calling it quits and heading home.  It was a fun day had by all and we're looking forward to the next caching adventure.  :)

Halloween 2012

The night before Halloween, dad and I carved pumpkins and mom frosted her famous sugar cookies everyone wants.  We tried getting her to carve her pumpkin but she wouldn't.

On Halloween night, I dressed up as Scooby Doo this year.  I already had the T-shirt and I received the hat in the mail from Willmarth a couple weeks ago.  It totally completed it!  So I went with it.  None of my friends were having a party or doing anything so I did what I always do.  I went trick or treating at my grandparent's house and went and saw Bev at her house.  She dressed up as a pumpkin.

I went to Grandma's house and then to Grammie and Grandpa's.  I stayed and talked to Grammie until 2:30 in the morning!

Doug dressed as Leeloo from The Fifth Element.  (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0119116/).  He said more guys hit on him than girls.  Haha.  It was a pretty revealing costume.

Erika, who is in Landstuhl, Germany, got Halloween 8 hours before we did here in the states.  She got to wear civilian clothes to work and she dressed like a kitty.  I guess candy corn is hard to find in Germany.

And so the rest of the holiday season begins...