It's Not Stealing...it's a Change of Possession.

(The title is a reflection on the quote of the day.  This was said by Pat about the Mexicans when it came to the geocaching containers we use to hide.)

My alarm went off at 6:30 but I ignored it and slept a little longer than I should have.  I got out of bed, washed my face, brushed my hair and threw on clothes as fast as I could.  I was hoping Bob didn't come earlier than 7.  I got my lunch I packed the night before out of the fridge, my bag and a ziplock of corn pops and a thing of orange juice.  I even had time to grab my phone car charger out of my car.

I saw the headlights of his truck drive down the driveway.  Time to go.

I climbed in and he said there was a change of plans from the last time we spoke.  Mike was going to come with us in Bob's truck and Kenny, Carson and Pat were going in Pat's Prius.  We grabbed Mike and we were on our way to the rest stop just before Federal Way on I-5.  Instead of waiting, we grabbed two caches before Pat and Kenny met us.

We got onto Hwy 18 and went down the hill into Auburn.  We started with the closest cache we all had in common.  It got rough later on in the trip because Kenny and Pat have never been here and Mike and Bob went about a year ago and I went on a separate trip about a year ago.  Bob and Mike had some I didn't and I had some Bob and Mike didn't have.  We didn't stop at the ones Bob and Mike already had.  Kenny and Pat thought that was selfish.

We did a few downtown while we tried to figure out what we were going to do next.  We had to climb up a parking garage to get it.

We did all of the 12 Days of Christmas series.  I had done a few of these over a year ago so it was lame I had to walk to them again.  Oh well.

We got off on a tangent while trying to find a cross road over the railroad tracks to get to the beginning of the series so we found a group of them and went with it.  One took us to a small park next to the Green River. We saw goats.

We got two along the river.  We walked back on the path to our cars and drove up to the church we passed on the way in.

We found out it was a Russian church.  We got out and some Russian lady really wanted us to accompany her to church.  Bob had to tell her that we only attend church on Sundays.  We got to the cache zone and found out it was up a hillside.  Mike and I both climbed up and found out we went up to high.  Kenny and Carson made the find.

We went back to the the vehicles and made our way to the trail via several parks around a bunch of new houses on the southwest side of Auburn near the Pacific/Algona area.  We grabbed about 6 or 7 of them.  We found the beginning of the trail and started our trail extravaganza.  We grabbed the first 5 of them before everyone got hungry.  I ate my sandwich and chips a while ago.  We stopped at Wendy's near the Super Mall.  So happy for a bathroom and a place to wash my hands.  This is where it started raining.

From there we were on the back side of Emerald Downs, where we got three more caches in a short walk.

The series was almost over.  The 12th one was just before Willis Street near Renton.  This is where Pat, Kenny and Carson decided to go home for the day.  Mike, Bob and I went and got a few more before dark.  We went into town and grabbed a few others.  I have been to Renton twice now and have gotten most of them so being here really didn't help me out.  We went over to Kent Station for a cache and a multi.  We had a very hard time finding a parking spot.  We almost gave up when we found the park and ride across the street.

Sadly, we did the multi and the cache was not there.   Ugh, I hate those!  We gave up on it and grabbed the regular cache near the entrance of the mall.  We still had some daylight left and their closest caches were ones I found already.  We really didn't want to end on a DNF so we grabbed two more as we found a gas station.  Bob needed diesel.  We stopped at the Shell station near the cornstalks.

I helped Mike find the cache since I had been here before.  There used to be a challenge here before they got rid of them a few weeks ago.  We headed home for the day.

Next Adventure:  Cowlitz County and possibly Polar Bearing.

Christmas 2012

Merry Christmas!

I woke up around 8 to the sound of dad freaking out because the cars were still in the front yard and the smell of bacon.  I washed my face, grabbed some warm clothes and some keys and headed out the door.  I drove my car around back last night.  I got into mom's car and took it to the back.  Doug drove dad's car and parked it beside/behind it.  Doug's car had a flat tire so it stayed put.

People started to arrive around 9ish.  Grandma had called a little before that to tell us she didn't feel too good and she was going to stay home.

Dad had all the food out and we piled food on our plates, sat down, said grace and pigged out!  Our conversations at the table are always rather interesting.  From poop to the birds and the bees, to really weird work stories to the Titanic and Abraham Tinkin.  Yes, that is suppose to say Tinkin...long story.

We cleaned up and got the dish washer going and headed into the "Christmas room" and Karla started handing out presents to each of us.  I opened a hat, gloves, money, snowman figurine, candy, popcorn,  a hiking pole (which I asked for) a card table (also which I asked for) and a couple other random things.

Everyone gathered their stuff and went home to take naps and to get their portion of dinner ready for 5ish.  I really wanted to take a nap but Grandma called wanting us to bring soup over to her.  So mom and I took her soup and her presents.  We got there and I made her some soup and then we watched her open her presents.  We talked to her and watched some TV shows for a few hours just to keep her company.  We decided to go home just before the ham was done.

Everyone came over again around 5:15ish.  We had to wait until the ham reached its correct temperature.  Grammie brought rolls and sweet potatoes, Grandma gave us the salad and we provided everything else.  The ham was delicious.  We were too full for dessert so we ate it later.  No one really wanted to stay very long so everyone packed up and went home.  It was weird not playing any games.

We watched TV for a while and then went to bed.

12.12.12

Today was 12.12.12 and there was an event at noon at Dirty Dave's in Olympia.

I got up around 9 because I needed a shower and to gather all of my stuff for the event later on.  I got cleaned up, got my clothes on, made sure I had everything and Bob and Bev rolled up in the driveway.  I was hoping we had enough time to go to the bank so I could pay for my coin that Joy had minted for the special day.  We did not have enough time so we had to do the bank thing after the event.

We got there just before 11 and I ran into the place and started the job Joy gave me last week.  I was to check people in, make sure they sign the logbook, get their name tag and get their raffle ticket for the prizes we put together.  Jen and her husband Chris, ran the plant quiz, Lars helped out with the raffle prizes and Liz would be helping if help was needed in one of those areas.  Joy was manning the coin/money table.  Bob and Bev picked up my coin and I would pay them back afterwards.

It got crazy busy at one point.  I could not believe how many people came to this event.  The place was packed.  Five minutes before noon we all headed outside for a picture, for 12:12.12 p.m. on the dot.

We all went back inside to finish our food and to start the raffle.  Our little room got overwhelmed again.  I took Joy's plant quiz and got 6/8 right.  The one who didn't get any of them right received a plant book as a prize.  As the raffle went, I could not hear a thing, or even if my name was called.  Bev brought me over some pizza and a pop.  A few minutes later, Joy popped her head into our room and told me I won a raffle item.  I chose a trackable tag.  Once it settled down, I talked to Lars, Dan, Ben, Jayme and Sean for awhile.  Of course I had to give Sean a hard time about his Huskies losing the Apple Cup this year.

We left around 1 to go to the bank and I had to go home to wait for the stove guy, who was suppose to come over between 2 and 3.  I got some laundry going and turned the stove off.  He got here around 3 and did his stove thing.  A while later, he took his stuff back to his work truck and I had dad give him a call about payment because neither he or mom left money before they went to work.

Mom came home and frantically got ready for her quilting Christmas gathering at 6.  Dad and I had leftovers.  I went to Walmart for a quick shopping trip.  I got some stuff for my gift for Saturday, some soup and the movie Ted because I really wanted to see it.  Most of the night I hung out in my room logging caches, updating Blogs, making my gift and watching Ted

Keep In Mind

1.  Life is a series of negotiations.

2.  Making time for you is not selfish.

3.  Don't get to comfortable.

4.  Passionate pursuits are essential.

5.  You control the way the world perceives you.

McMinnville, Oregon

Wow, 5:20 is way too effing early.  The night before I made my lunch, put my clothes together and made sure I had batteries for my camera.

I got out of bed, washed my face, put my clothes on and put some Cheerios in a bag.  I saw their headlights come down the hill.  I grabbed my coat and we headed off to Mike's house.

We drove down I-5 for about 2.5 hours.  Part of the trip I fell asleep and it all made the difference of being really tired or being semi tired.  We hit pockets of stop and go traffic when we crossed the border into Oregon, which was typical at anytime of the day.  We talked about regretting our decision to go down I-5 and maybe going the other way though Longview/Hillsboro, turns out the stop and go was only minor.

It was weird driving this route again after so many years of not coming down here like I used to when I lived in McMinnville.  I told them some stuff about some of the routes I took when I drove down here and the towns we passed.  I've been to the museum once before while I lived in McMinnville.  My mom and dad came down once and they wanted to go see the Spruce Goose.

We got to the Evergreen Aviation Museum at about 9ish.  We parked the car and walked in.  We weren't sure what we needed to do so we asked one of the people at the desk.  She told us it was upstairs and we needed to pay our $20 to get into the museum before we could do it.  We paid, got a wrist band and walked around the museum before we did the caching maze.

The Spruce Goose is insane!   I've seen it before and had forgotten how big it really is.  We took a few pictures and then walked upstairs to the maze.  We really weren't sure what we were suppose to do so we read the directions.  We were to take a postcard size paper with passport squares on it and take it to each of the rooms and put a stamp on it.  While in each room you were suppose to look at the displays and information about GPS's, hiking, containers, satellites, maps, topography, where it all began, landmarks, etc.  The information was pretty fun to read but we were experienced geocachers and this maze was for newbies.  We wanted to see it and get the icon.

We were there for about an hour and then everyone got antsy and needed to go get caches in McMinnville.  We walked down the stairs and into the gift shop.  We browsed as people used the restroom before we left.  Bev found a coin and since we were in Oregon, there wasn't any tax.  She and I got one.  When we got to the car, I took a pic of my coin and posted it onto the South Sound group.  It was an instant hit and no one knew there was a coin in the gift shop when they visited.   I turned it into a chain reaction.  Some guy in our group made it a project of his to get coins for everyone who wanted one.

We left and started around town.  Our goal was at least 30 in the amount of time we had left before it got dark.  We started with the area around the museum and worked our way to the middle of town.  It was kind of funny how things came back to me even though I've been away from this area since 2008.  I knew where to go and what road to drive down to get to where the cache was.  It made caching really easy and efficient.  We grabbed about eight to ten around town and moved on to a park across the street.  Only one was available.  I told them we should head over to Linfield because there were about 14 in the area.

The ones at Linfield were tough with kids running around everywhere and two required us to climb on top of the structures to retrieve the cache.  One of them was during class and the people inside could see us!  Yikes.  One of them was a webcam on campus was at the fountain.  One more reason why I love smartphones.  We could take it from our location live and it helped that the webcam was a live feed.  While we were figuring it out, a student walked by and was very excited about what we were doing there.  Almost like she knew what we were doing...possibly another cacher?

We moved on to the northwest of town.  We hit up an area surrounded by lots of houses in a development and a walking trail in the middle of it.  We started with the trail and was disappointed we could not find the one in the tree.  Mike climbed up two of them hoping we would see and grab it.  No luck.

Then there was this TB hotel I looked at about a year ago when I looked up this area.  It looked awesome and it was.

We found about ten or so more around the housing development before we went to Discovery Park, a place Jessie and I have spent time in while I lived there.  We were there about a half hour and grabbed three caches, the fourth one was disabled.  We drove back towards town and grabbed others while we found another area to hit up.  This was west of the college.  We got about three of them and then went east to a woodchip trail along a fence.  We were almost to 40 caches and it was getting dark.  We found another housing development south of the college and met our quota.  Then Jessie texted me that she was in town.  I wasn't sure if Bob would stop by.  She had a gift for me that she didn't want to send in the mail.  I should have brought her present with me but I had no idea where it was.

We ate food at Wendy's before we left town.  I asked Bob if we could go back into town and get the gift from Jessie.  He said sure.  Besides, we needed to waste some time before heading to the freeway or we would be stuck in horrible traffic.  We got to her place and she was waiting for me by her porch.  I had Bev come with me to take a picture.  I haven't seen Jessie since June of 2011 at her birthday party in Portland.

We took pictures and we chatted for about 15 minutes about random things.  I was nice seeing her in person instead of through Facebook and texting.  I jumped back in the car and we were off to I-5.  Mike had mentioned that he wanted to stop by a Target or a Best Buy.  There was a Target in Sherwood we stopped at.  I bought some popcorn.  They didn't have what Mike was looking for so our next stop was the Tualatin Best Buy.  He did not find it in there either.

The freeway was looking normal so we jumped on and headed north.  We got home around 9ish.

Next adventure:  12.12.12 Event at Dirty Dave's.

My Yakima Visit, December 6

I was spared this morning.  Willmarth and Shannon took the dogs for a walk and let me sleep in because they knew I had a long drive ahead of me.  While Shannon got ready she opened my door and I was still out.  Willmarth called my phone from the living room and that woke me right up.  Then the dogs came in to check on me.  I got ready as everyone grabbed their stuff for the day.  We were going to take Shannon to school so we could use the car.  The truck had stuff in the back of it and needed to go to the dump.

We dropped her off and tried to head for the bank but got interrupted by a phone call to meet someone in Union Gap for some Louis L'Amour books from Craigslist.  So we hurried over.  We met up at the bingo hall.  We made the trade and he was hungry so we went to Burger King for breakfast.  We each had a breakfast sandwich, the little potato gems, two cinnamon rolls and our drinks.  We sat there talking about random things, waiting for his doctor's appointment.

We started back towards Yakima and stopped at the MoneyTree to grab some money.  We got to the doctor's office, which was by the movie theater we've been to several times, and found out there was a cache there.  We went inside and he was seen immediately.  I walked over to the theater and grabbed a lamp skirt cache.  I walked back, used the bathroom and sat in the waiting room until he was done.  It probably took about 45 minutes.  We got back in the car and drove towards Granger.

I set the GPS to the dino coords and got off at the right exit and drove towards Main Street.  He had no idea there was a Main Street in Granger.  There were tons of dinosaurs in this little park.  We took several pictures, ones with Santa hat and ones without.  We had fun.  We continued around the town taking pictures of dinosaurs.  We got to the City Hall and found out there were 28 dinosaurs and 1 caveman.

Every June they have this build a dino in a day.  The first Saturday in June they build a new dinosaur in town.  I have considered this for next summer.

We finished the dino tour, grabbed some gas and Pepsi at the gas station, took a few more pictures of the dinosaurs and saw my 3rd 9/11 memorial this year.  He shared that there was a golf course nearby and his friend who coaches in Granger goes there frequently.  We stopped by and there was a putt putt also near the building.  We played 18 holes of putt putt and had a blast.  He had two holes in one and beat me by about 15 points or so.

We went back to Yakima after going to Walgreens and the Post Office store.  We got home and the dogs attacked us.  I started gathering my stuff and putting it in the van.  We talked about stuff as I was doing this.  I made sure I got everything I came with and then some.  He said it was too bad I worked tomorrow because he wanted me to stay longer.  He also said if he came across a job opportunity he would let me know.

I drove down the hill and got gas at the Arco.  Luckily, I had cash on me because it was a cash only way to pay without having to go inside.  I filled it up with 40 bucks and headed west.  There was already an accumulation of snow on the pass.  I was hoping I could still go over without any trouble.  It was amazing to see the weather change so dramatically in 145 miles.  It was dry until I reached Rimrock Lake.  It rained, then it snowed, then the snow started sticking to the road and then the snow was impacted into the road.  About 5 miles from the top of the pass, I rounded the corner and bam, a freaking semi truck was in the way of about 4 vehicles.  We finished going up the pass going about 20 miles an hour.  Are you kidding me?

We got up to the ski area and it was crazy snowing.  We started our descent and we went about 12 miles down until the semi pulled over and let us all by.  That's when I made up my time.  When I got closer to Packwood, it poured down rain.  I was so glad I was in a van instead of a car, the spray from the truck in front of me didn't faze me at all.  I got to Morton and called everyone to let them know I made it over.

I got to the Eatonville cut off and found out Hwy 7 is open again but it had its restrictions so I just went to Eatonville.  I got into town around 5:30 and headed over to Grandma's house to trade vehicles.  I went home, washed two loads of laundry, took a shower and mom brought home some KFC for dinner.  I watched a few shows and got ready for bed.  5:30 comes fast.

My Yakima Visit, December 5

I got up at around 6 with dogs jumping and licking all over me.  I told them I was up and to get out of my room because they tend to take my slippers with them as they exit.  I found my coat, vest, hat and gloves, put my shoes on and headed out the door to meet up with Shannon and the dogs in the car.

It was cold and windy.  I was actually freezing throwing the ball to Zoey.  She took a very large dump and it was hard to pick it up with the bag I was given.  I managed though.  Today we cut it off earlier than the rest of the week because she was tired of Fletcher pulling her on the walks.  We got back in the car and headed up the hill.

She got ready for work, I went back to bed until about 10:30 and Willmarth did a few things and then took a nap in the chair for a while.

I took a shower and got ready for the day.  I grabbed all of my stuff that I would need.  We got to the appointment at the sleep clinic for his results.  I dropped him off and there were two caches nearby on the trail so I went and got those before going into the clinic and waiting.  I read some of my book.

We went to the bank, Taco Bell for lunch and headed over to Selah to bother Shannon and her kids for a while.  We met the kids and played cribbage with a few of them for about an hour.  We got back in the van and got a cache before we left town.

We stopped by the ghetto Albertson's for some stuff for dinner and headed home and packed up a bunch of stuff to send.  Shannon made us dinner, Mexican rice mixed with chicken, we just rolled it up into a burrito, it was delish.

We watched 21 Jump Street, packaged up a Super Nintendo, made gingerbread cookies and watched the Coug and Zag game.  We busted out the gingerbread we bought the other day and made cookies.  Snoopy and Star Wars.

I helped box up a few eBay items before heading to bed for the night.

My Yakima Visit, December 4

I got up once again to two dogs jumping up and down on me with excitement.  I grabbed my shoes, my coat, hat and gloves and headed outside and into the car with Shannon and the dogs.  It had rained the night before so there was standing water in certain areas of the soccer fields that I didn't see until I walked through it and got my shoes and socks wet, mind you it was dark.  We were there for about 45 minutes.  We loaded up the dogs and headed home.

Shannon got ready for work, Willmarth played with the dogs and I went back to bed for a few hours.  I was exhausted.  I got up around 10:30 because I had to pee really bad and it was time to get stuff done.  I came out and the dogs were very happy to see me and Willmarth was asleep in the chair.  I had a cinnamon roll, banana and some graham crackers for lunch.

Shortly after, we got ready and headed down to town to do our errands.  Our first stop was the WorkSource place to figure out paper work.  He said he was the only white person in the building.  While he was doing that, I walked over to the cache that was out in the parking lot.  He was in and out quickly.

We then, drove to downtown Yakima to Millennium Park.  We parked the car, two free hours and visited the little plaza in the middle of this grassy area.  We spent some time looking for the cache that I could not find.  I did do the challenge on the saddle.  We walked along Main Street looking at the Cougar flags.

We stopped in a store to get something to drink and turned around at the Convention Center and walked back to the van.

We picked up a Twinkie figurine from some lady who posted it on Craigslist.  Since Hostess went out of business this stuff is ridiculously sought after.  We went to the Safeway nearby for stuff for our chicken burritos and headed to Verizon before going home for the night.

We ate our burritos, watched some TV and afterwards drove the dogs to a local school and let them loose inside a place Willmarth called the "impound."  We went and got ice cream from the ice cream store and went back home.  We watched more TV, did some internetting and relaxed.  I read my book and went to bed.

My Yakima Visit, December 3

I awoke to two dogs jumping up and down on me with excitement.  For a moment I had forgotten where I was.  Then I remembered that I helped Shannon walk/throw balls for the dogs down at the park, especially for what happened yesterday with Fletcher.  I grabbed my warm clothes and Shannon suggested that I bring gloves because it was cold outside.  The windshield had frost on it.

We went down to the park and she walked Fletcher around and I threw the ball a couple hundred times for Zoey.  We were there for about 45 minutes and we came back up the hill.  I ate cereal while she got ready for work and he got ready for his eye appt.  I was just going to wear what I had on.  I grabbed my wallet and my phone and my book.  I knew I would have to wait while he did his appt.

So I sat there in the warm waiting area reading my book.  I struggled so hard to keep awake.  Somehow I managed to stay awake the entire appt.  We got in the van, headed down the hill to the bank and then back to the eye clinic.  From there, we went to downtown Yakima to the Money Tree for a money order.  I guess the Yakima rotary club organized a fundraiser between Cougs and Huskies and the Cougs won.  Banners, flags and paint were placed all over downtown Yakima on Main Street.

We went to look but they weren't done yet.  We will have to go tomorrow.  We drove up to his Dr.'s office to pick up some medicine.  Then we went home and had cinnamon rolls and bacon for lunch.

We struggled to stay awake but ended up passing out for a few hours.  They have an awesome couch until the dogs wanna sleep on you.  Shannon came home around 4 and started making dinner.  We went and picked up a few things he wanted off Craigslist.  We watched Monday Night Football, Redskins and Giants while we ate penne pasta, Willmarth's birthday dinner.  A little while later he wanted a milkshake from Major's, a restaurant down the hill.  He got banana and Shannon and I got strawberry.

We watched TV, talked about stuff, went through pictures, went to the basement and went through his "picking" stuff and messed with the dogs for a while.

I read my book and went to bed shortly after.

My Yakima Visit, December 2

I slept til about 10 and wondered why I wasn't woken up to help walk/throw the ball for the dogs.  She was trying to be nice by not waking me up.  I wouldn't have minded.  I came out into the living room and Willmarth was asleep in the chair and Shannon spent a lot of time in her bedroom.  I found out she hurt her back when Fletcher got off his leash down at the park.  How ironic that the day she needed help she didn't have it.  She called Willmarth and he came down to rescue her.

We spent most of the day chillin and watching football.  The cable was out.  He got confused on what day the bill was due so we had to improvise.  We found some free streaming games on the NFL network site, however the Seattle/Chicago game happened to be on a British channel.  We watched some weird commercials.  Seattle played really well up until the 4th quarter.  Then it got bad and we started yelling at the TV.  We came back to take the lead with 1:30 on the clock and it gave the Bears too much time to work with when they got the ball.  And our defense let Cutler make a huge pass to a player we left open.  Now they were in field goal range to tie it up.  And, they did.  Poop.  Overtime.  Tails never fails.  We got the ball first in sudden death overtime.

We got lucky.

We scored first which didn't allow them to get the ball back unless we went for a field goal, then they would have a chance to match it or score a TD.  Game over.  Seahawks over the Bears.

We watched a few other games throughout the day, had dinner and looked at eBay items.  We watched a few of those ESPN shows 30:30.  A lot of them are sad stories but inspirational.  I read my book for a while and went to bed because 6:00 a.m. comes way too fast.

My Yakima Visit, December 1

I got up early to go help Shannon walk the dogs at the park at the bottom of the hill.  She waked Fletcher and I threw the ball to Zoey a couple zillion times.  We were there for about 45 minutes when we headed home.  It was cold.

Willmarth and I attempted to get the flat off but failed because of the angle of the van next to the curb.  We called the tire shop down the hill to come fill it with air so we could drive it to the shop.  We jumped in and drove it down the hill.  They got us in right away, fixed the tire and the repair only cost us 15 bucks.  The rolled the window down and I had forgotten that the driver's window has problems.  The guy couldn't get the window up.  Ugh, one problem fixed and onto another.

We grabbed some tacos from Taco Bell and came home.  We hate them as we watched a little TV.  After a while we all passed out for about 4 hours.  Shannon went grocery shopping and has social anxiety.  We found this hilarious.  She came back and did forget a few things.  We gave her a bad time but she is a great sport about it.

I fixed the window in the van and helped her bring in groceries.  She made us chicken and rice for dinner and watched sports and movies. I watched the dogs beat up a broom.  It was hilarious.

Stayed up til about 1 and had to go to bed.