Kelso/Longview Caching Adventure

Saturday evening I was asked if I wanted to go with Bob and Bev to Kelso/Longview on Sunday.  She said we would be leaving around 6:15 a.m....ouch.  I said yes and immediately started getting ready to go.  I made a query, got my clothes ready and made some food because I didn't really have a lot of money to spend down there.  I set my alarm to 6 and went to bed.

My alarm scared the crap out of me.  I knew they would be here soon so I had to get up and get ready.  I got all my stuff done and as soon as I walked outside they were coming down the hill.  I had to grab my phone charger out of the car.

I put my stuff in their car and hopped in.  It was sprinkling.  I was really hoping it would go away.  Once we got to the Denny's off of 13th Street in Chehalis, it kinda died down.  I ate my Captain Crunch so I didn't have to buy anything.  The waitress and cook ended up messing up so I got a free pancake.

Bob had made a written list of the ones he did not have yet.  My GPS list would be very different.  He would have to be patient while we figured out where we needed to go, we'll see how it goes.  The rain stopped completely once we got past the Onalaska/Napavine exit.  Our first cache was off of Ostrander Road on a guardrail.  A quick and easy grab.  

Kelso/Longview was a tricky town to cache in because there is I-5 we had to worry about and the Cowlitz River that made it hard.  Plus the GPS maps were slightly off and you couldn't tell if it was on one side or the other. 

We hit up a few on the same road, The Garden Stops Here, The Path Less Traveled (one we should have read the cache page on) and Geo Library (we thought it was at an actual library, lol.)

Last time we were here together was in October and had a couple of DNF's.  We got rid of four of them and it was awesome.  The first one was at a church by the Bearsnme, who has over 200 hides in the Cowlitz area.  That little bugger was hard to spot.  We saw there were five caches along Mt. Brynion Road.  We went to the cemetery first and got one that was part of a cemetery series and I think we had a couple others from past adventures.

We went further up the hill to First on The Hill, Room with a View, Gov. Block Rd and Miners Payback.  It would have been way cooler if the sky was clear, we would have gotten to see Mt. St. Helens.  We found all of them.

We went back down the hill into Kelso and to the Three Rivers Mall to get rid of another previous DNF from October.  We would have so seen that one the first time.  It had to be missing.  Afterwards, we went into the Target to use the restroom.  I bought popcorn because their popcorn is awesome.

This is where we got confused because of the freeway and the effing river.  We had to back track and flip some u-turns.  Bob got a little upset but if he were navigating we would be lost as well.  We picked up I Can See the Freeway and A Smile Goes a Long Way.  We tried for another but had to figure out how to get there first so we went for another on the trail in Tam O'Shanter Park.  That one took us a while to find for some reason, those frickin' nanos!

We figured out how to get to the tunnel cache but we had to walk a ways from the parking lot of the Dairy Queen.  It actually started to get warm and we started getting rid of coats and sweatshirts.  We reached the tunnel and we literally walked underneath I-5.  Bob made the find and we were second and third to find.  I took pictures.

We walked back to the car and went for the next closest one according to Bob's list.  That took us up the hill again to this meadow area that looked like it once had a parking lot in it.  Bev found the cache and saw that Bak09 and ZenKitty were just here.  I wonder where they were now...

Then it was taco time because Bev says it's always taco time.  We headed down the hill and back to Kelso for lunch and hit up Taco Time.  I brought food with me so I just went in to hang out.  I ate my sandwich in the car later on.

From there we crossed over the bridge into the industrial area of Longview.  We missed the first exit off of Tally Way so we had to improvise and get off at the next exit for a guardrail cache and one by an old Walnut tree.

The next section took us to Lake Sacajawea, a place I've heard was cool, but have never been to.  It didn't disappoint.  The first one we looked for took a while.  Previous finders have been here multiple times.  Bob and Bev had been here once before and could not find it.  We looked at past logs and it had to be in the bush we were molesting.  A few minutes later we had our hands on it.  It's amazing how well some of these containers blend in with their surroundings.  Then we did others along the lake.

There were a few muggles around but they were more interested in their fishing than watching us find containers.

After the lake we went to the old part of town and found one that required a magnet to retrieve. And apparently the entrance to Narnia is in Longview.  Haha.

We went over to the next one and got distracted by the large squirrel statue in the middle of the grassy area surrounded by the road.  I had to get a picture with it.  I'm one of those people who like to find the weirdest things and take pictures of or with them.

Then we walked over to the cache site.  There were signs that talked about the birthplace of Washington State and we soon found a problem.  There were two boys sitting on the benches hanging out listening to music.  Bob started reading the boards and I went in to find the cache without looking too suspicious.  I read the hint and found it quickly, all while listening to Gangham Style.  I signed the cache and put it back before anyone noticed.

We went to a few others and then we were taken to the Cowlitz County WSU extention building where people can take classes to learn about horticulture.  The cache was easy to find.  GO COUGS!

Just for the halibut, we went to a fish and chips restaurant to grab another one to add to our growing cache collection.  This one was tucked inside the hole of a post with some buoys on it.  The building looked like other buildings you would find at Ocean Shores.

We drove to the industrial area again to find a few more we had previously DNF'd last October.  The first one we looked for was over by the Lowe's and a storage facility.  It was hidden very well.  I give props to Bearsnme it was a great hide.  I have no idea how I found it or what I was thinking while I looked for it.  It just looked out of place and I picked it up and saw the nano on the backside of it.  The next one was at a pet store that we DNF'd as well last fall, that one was actually missing because of the recent landscaping, this time it was there and Bev found it.

We went into a feed store to find the next one, it was in a cow planter.  Also, Bob bought some starter onions to plant in his garden. 

We moved onto the Weyerhaeuser area to find a cache and to stop at the Texaco to use the bathroom.  Some lady and her husband saw our GPS's and asked us about geocaching.  She was very excited to find out that there was one less than 500 feet from where we were.  We drove west to get a few others.

There was one at the mint farm and two just up the street with a Christmas theme by Bearsnme.  I found one that a previous cacher could not find.  We saw a few snakes.

We found one at a rock pit with no trespassing signs, some cemetery ones and even a multi because we didn't want to be traditional hogs.  The multi was done by a cacher named Kyle, his grandparents were buried in the cemetery.  We had to go collect dates from the tombstones and do a little math to figure out the final coords.  Yay, we did it right!

By this point, we drove around to the next few caches just to make our 50 for the day.  We searched at a park, at a coffee stand, a park and ride and a bank next to the Columbia River.

We stopped at Papa Pete's in Longview off of Hwy 4 to have some dinner before we hit the freeway for a 2ish hour drive back to Rainier.  The weather was awesome, the caches were all there except for one that was missing on the lake and we had some good food, good company and many laughs.  Onto the next adventure!

Yakima Visit Day 4

My alarm went off at around 9.  On my way to the bathroom I noticed he was asleep on the couch.  I'll give him an hour.  I went back in my room and started packing up my stuff.  It's always harder packing on the return trip home.  I managed to fit most of it in my duffel bag.  The rest will have to just be piled in the van.

I went back out in the living room and he woke up.  He said he made some doughnuts, I laughed because I could see they were from Safeway.  I had a maple bar and a sprinkled one.  We did a few things before deciding to do some errands around town.  I ran out of socks so I had to wear flip flops.

We got in the truck and picked up some meds for Shannon.  We hit up the McDonald's in Selah and he bought some ice cream sandwiches for Shannon's 4th graders.  I ate my lunch in the truck.  We drove over to the elementary school and had lunch with everyone in the classroom.  He's been hiding a dollar somewhere around the classroom and he gives them one clue everyday until they find it.  A group of girls found the most recent hide right in front of us.  It was on the sink.  After lunch we went out to the field and played whiffle ball with the whole class.  We had a great time in the sun.

We went back to the truck and he asked if I still wanted to go to Moxee for some caches.  I said yes and that I will be the navigator.  We got there in about ten minutes and found the first one underneath a lamp skirt in a small park off of Hwy 24.  The second one was at a guardrail not far from the park.  The third one was at a cemetery but was not there.  Dang it.

We went back to the house and I started slowly packing the van with my stuff.  I gathered the cans, left my Sega behind for him to see if he could get it working again and we talked about the next time he would be over on the west side.  We said our goodbyes and I was off.  I stopped and got gas in Naches at the Arco, the price was $3.29.  I grabbed some snackies and a Dr. Pepper for the way home.  I was hoping I would not get stuck behind a semi on the pass.

I got to the tunnel and this time I did not have to stop but they were still blasting.  I did get stuck behind a slow car though.  Just before the climb to the pass, we did get stuck behind a semi truck but he was nice and let us all pass him.  A very large victory for a two-laned highway mountain pass.  I ate my apple, had some of my chips and chex mix along the way.

I got into Morton and texted mom and Willmarth to let them know where I was.  When I got to McKenna, I called Grandma to let her know what I was going to do.  I didn't have enough time to go home and go back up to Lacey so I just went to Lacey for my soccer meeting with Kat and her people about the evaluations.

I got to the RAC way early so I called some people, used the bathroom and hoped that I went to the right building.  A bit later, I walked over to a building and the guy inside said it was the right place.  He commented on my Coug sweatshirt and he said he went there and graduated in 1982.

The meeting was interesting.  I just sat there and listened.  Kat tried to get me to coach.  I don't have the means right at this moment but maybe someday...

Afterwards Kat, Eric and I chatted in the parking lot for a while.  Uh oh it was almost 10:30!  I needed to give Grandma back her van.  I headed home and got there just before 11.  I traded the stuff out of the van into my car and went home.

I brought in a few things, made a sandwich, got ready for bed and passed out.  5:30 a.m. comes too fast.

Yakima Visit Day 3

I got up around 10.  Early this morning was really crazy when they were trying to get the dogs to cooperate while trying to get ready for work.  Willmarth was subbing again at Naches and he had to take Shannon to work.  It was going to be a long day for the both of them.

I took a shower and realized there was only one more towel.  When I was done I decided that I would earn my keep, plus I was home, to do a little laundry for them while they were gone.  I put whatever was in the washer in the dryer and did a load of towels.  While that was doing its thing, I made a few little corn dogs for lunch.  I had no idea when they were suppose to be home this time around.  I ate my corn dogs, watched TV and logged more ET Highway caches.  I was determined to get it done.  I let the dogs in after I was done eating.  Once again, they looked for Willmarth and Shannon.

About a half hour later, they both passed out on the couch. 

A little bit later, Willmarth showed up and we got ready for basketball practice in the Tri-Cities.  We grabbed Shannon from work and took her home and immediately headed east on I-82 towards Kennewick.

We stopped in Prossor to get some food at Taco Bell.  Then he got a phone call that lasted until we got to Kennewick.  I just watched the scenery out the window.  We got to Park Middle School and went inside.  The floor and backboards were covered in dust.  When the basketballs came, I put on my shoes and started shooting.  Girls funneled in one at a time.  I was hoping we would have more than four people.  We got lucky, nine girls came to practice.

Practice looked and felt just like all the practices I had in high school.  Nothing has changed except for the girls and the years that have gone bye.  I threw myself in some of the drills just to see how the girls would react.  They actually reacted well.  The rest of practice we worked on zone defense and zone offenses.  It was a lot of fun.

I met Willmarth's Aunt Betty and Uncle Bob, they try and come to all of his practices.  Afterwards, we went over to their house and she made us almost a Thanksgiving dinner.  I am never really that hungry after running around so I didn't eat very much.  Betty is hilarious and I enjoyed her stories.  It was getting late so we grabbed some gas and a drink and headed back to Yakima.

We got home almost 10:45 but had some time to get a peanut buster parfait.  Dairy Queen was actually closed but the owners allowed us to order and pay.  We drove up the hill and made it home.  The dogs went nuts and Shannon was on the couch looking miserable.  I guess she fell down today when she wasn't suppose to go outside...

I went in my room and logged a few more of my ET Highway caches until he came in and said he was going to go to bed.  We basically covered every aspect of what I needed to know about Ebay and PayPal.  I got my bed ready and watched TV as I logged.  Around two, I finally fell asleep.  Tomorrow was going to be a long day.

Yakima Visit Day 2

I woke up way to early.  It was about 4 am and immediately wondered where the heck I was.  I do that every now and then when I am not in my own room.  It's weird.  I fell back asleep until I heard the dog noise and Shannon yelling at Fletcher for getting muddy, that was close to 5-6 am.  I fell asleep again until about 9ish.

I got up around 10 and started getting ready to go enjoy the weather.  Willmarth was subbing at Naches, he has been doing that a few days a week for about two weeks now and Shannon was at work.  I really didn't want to sit at the house so  I thought I would start where I left off last summer when I rode my bike along the trail.  I drove the van down to Sarge Hubbard park, along the Yakima River.  I set aside some time to grab about ten of them, this time I would have to walk, it was going to take more time. I started off with the ones near the park and got rid of a DNF from the past.

I headed east and had a bad patch of missing caches.  I am absolutely certain they are not there anymore, either that or they are hidden very very well.  Three of my DNF's were along the river buried underneath the massive rock piles.  The hints were poor and several of them had recent DNF's and have not been checked on by the CO.  I was getting frustrated.   In between the latest DNF and the walk to the earthcache, I called my grandmother to chat while I walked.  It was a nice conversation.  I walked to the end of the trail near the humane society and walked back to the park.

I worked on the puzzle that was there and it had me walk over to the Walmart across the street.  While there, I used the restroom and bought some pretzels and a drink.  I walked back over and worked on the puzzle.  It didn't seem right so I saved my work and will get it some other time.  By that time it was almost three so I went back.  I found out I almost walked 4 miles!

I got all situated and let the dogs out.  They went crazy trying to find Willmarth and Shannon.  They weren't going to be home until at least 5ish.  I sat in the recliner and logged caches while ESPN played in the background.

Shannon had her first day of physical therapy and she came home hurting.  Later on she let me feel the screws in her ankle. I cringed.

Around 5, they both walked in and the dogs went nuts.  Everyone settled down and Willmarth and I went to Walmart to find some stuff for dinner.  We decided to do Papa Murphy's after the store.  Then we ran into a problem and had to go back to Walmart.  He bought a card you can use on PayPal and Ebay and he grabbed the only 2009 card on the shelf.  They were obsolete and they had to figure out how to get him a new one.  This took about 45 minutes.  I shouldn't have decided to stay in the truck but we thought he would be in and out.

We got back home and made the pizza's and watched the 30 For 30 Elway to Marino show while we ate.  The 1983 NFL draft was insane!  Later on we had ice cream cones and then Shannon had to go to bed.  We went into the other room and he showed me some more stuff on PayPal and shipping labels.  I got ready for bed, did some more logging, watched TV and then went to bed. 

Yakima Visit Day 1

My alarm went off at 8:45 and I immediately got ready to go.  I didn't want to waste any time.  I packed the stuff up in my car, grabbed a couple of nibbles, a drink and my keys and headed over to Grandma's house to trade vehicles.  It didn't take long to unload my car and load the van.  She had gone to the store that morning and bought too many bananas so she gave me one for my trip.  She said bye, safe trip and I drove into Yelm to get some gas since she had given it to me with less than a half a tank.  Gas prices are slowly going down and I only paid $3.45 a gallon.  I went inside and grabbed a few other munchies and a drink just because.

I drove out to Hwy 7 and stayed on there until the turn off at Elbe.  Along the way a helicopter followed the shoreline of Alder Lake.  I turned on my GPS and found the closest one.  It's weird that I haven't stopped at this one yet or why I had missed this one all the times I've come through here.  I pulled over and parked at a gated forest road.  It was a bit chilly and the ground was saturated with water but my shoes didn't get wet.  I immediately saw where the cache was hidden, grabbed it, signed it, took a pic, put it back and went back to the car.

I pulled into traffic and hoped that I didn't get stuck behind a semi truck.  I caught up to some of the vehicles ahead of me and one of them was a semi truck, crap.  We got into Morton and the semi turned off at the gas station.  I got onto Hwy 12 and had no trouble until I caught up to the slow caravan.  I ended up following two white vans from Oregon the entire length of Hwy 12 until we merged with Hwy 410.  We passed a few cars here and there and once we made it up the pass, near the top was a frickin semi truck.  Luckily, he pulled over to let us by.  When we got to the tunnel on the eastern side of the pass, we had to stop for construction.  Thank goodness it was only for a few minutes than up to 30 minutes like the internet warned.  I took this picture.

After our quick stop, it was a breeze the rest of the way to Yakima.  I texted Willmarth to tell him I was almost there, I called my mom to let her know I made it over and I gained six minutes of time from when I left home to when the GPS thought I would make it to Yakima.

I drove past their new house, thinking it wasn't literally next door, I had to turn around and then turn around again to be able to park correctly on the street.  I grabbed my bag and left the rest of the stuff in the van to bring in later, when the dogs weren't going insane.  We chatted, he gave me the grand tour of the new place, went and got food from Subway, watched TV and talked about Ebay stuff.

Shannon broke her ankle back in January and is in a boot that she can not put weight on.  We had to go pick her up from school.  She has a scooter to help her be more mobile than the crutches while teaching.  We had to go to the store to pick up some stuff for dinner.  We ended up picking pulled pork sandwiches and mashed potatoes.  We watched ESPN.

Shannon was exhausted and most of her nights have been on the couch because of her condition, we made her bed and retired to the extra room to get some Ebay stuff together.  He showed me how to list stuff, what to look for, how some one wins a bid, pays, how to do Paypal and how to print postage labels.  It seemed pretty straight forward.  He did warn me about the weird things that might happen every now and then.

It got to be late and it was time for bed.  I made my bed on the air mattress and got comfortable.  I turned the TV on and watched a few things while I continued to log ET Highway caches.  I was almost done.  Only a few more days and I will be done!

Tonopah to Las Vegas to Seattle and Home

The alarm went off and we got up at 5 am because we weren't sure how much time we needed to get our list of stuff done today.  I kinda regret getting up that early because by the time I actually got into my bed at home it was about 2 a.m., however, we did get everything we wanted to do and then some.

We packed the car as best we could.  We went to Giggle Springs one last time (a convenience store) to get gas, doughnuts and OJ for the ride to Las Vegas.   We left town via US 95 and drove through several little towns.  We had an epic fail when we drove into a new county and did not have caches loaded on the GPS to get Esmeralda County, oh well.  We moved on.

A little while later we entered the town of Beatty.  We saw a facilty where you could vaccume and wash the car.  We thought instead of the rental car place adding fees to our rental agreement, we would spend some change to clean the car out a bit.  It started getting warmer. We vacuumed it out first and then Ray rinsed it off.

We all got back in and drove over to the nearest store to use the restroom and to grab snacks for the remainder of our drive to Vegas.  It seems like every building in Nevada has slot machines.

We got back in the car and headed to Amargosa Valley.  It was a 34 mile side-trip to the California border and back.  We all thought it was worth the quick "out of the way" to grab our first California cache.  It was a cache by Clay, one of the guys who did the ET Highway and it was a traditional film canister next to a sign that said Clay Road.  We got to the sign and saw the pile of rocks next to the bottom of it.  We pulled over and we all got out to sign the log.  It was getting warmer and we were excited we got our first California cache.

Our view from the cache towards Death Valley.

We turned around and went back to US 95.  We drove through a bunch of small towns and finally we saw the metropolis of Vegas.  It was kinda nice being back to civilization.  Once we got into town, we merged onto the 515/US 93 towards Boulder City/border of Arizona.  We got off the freeway to use the bathroom at the Sinclair gas station.  Traffic kinda got busy.  On the way to Arizona, our GPS took us around Boulder City instead of through town.  It kinda overwhelmed Ray so Brenda got in the driver's seat.  We still really weren't sure where this virtual for Arizona was.

We saw Lake Mead, last time I was here it was very low, and I noticed that US 93 was now a four-laned highway instead of a two-laned road.  This also was the first time I will be going over the new bridge instead of over the Hoover Dam to get to Arizona.

Information on the Callaghan-Tillman Memorial Bridge:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_O%27Callaghan%E2%80%93Pat_Tillman_Memorial_Bridge

We got closer to our destination and realized at the last minute we were in the wrong lane.  Brenda quickly switched lanes and took the next road to our left.  Yes, we had no idea there was an exit off of the left hand lane.  We screamed a little bit but made the turn.  It would have sucked if we'd missed it.  We got to a parking lot and saw the white bridge.  This area was also the beginning to a trail that went up to an arch.  If we would have had the time, it would have been fun to see.  We read the informational boards and then walked over for our picture with the White Rock Canyon Bridge.

We got our first Arizona cache in the 80 degree weather and was briefly in Mountain Time Zone.  It was almost like we went into the future to get a cache and then returned back to the past to get back to Nevada.  It's like we were never in Arizona according to the time.  Haha.

We got back in the car and went back into Vegas.  On the way just outside of Henderson, I noticed a travel trailer ahead of us with a Cougar logo on the spare tire cover.  I just had to make their day.  I pulled my sweatshirt off and as we got closer I held it out the window for the people inside to notice.  It was an elderly couple, probably on a road trip or snow birds, the woman was driving as her husband rode shotgun.  She saw my logo on the sweatshirt and her face just lit up with joy.  She honked the horn to acknowledge that I was also a Coug fan.  It made me smile.  It seems like wherever I go, there is a Coug fan, excited to yell "GO COUGS!"

Since we were coming from the south, we found our coordinates for the Welcome to Las Vegas sign.  Last time I was here we had no idea where it was or how to get to it.  Ray and I found coords on Google Maps and saved them.  They had built a parking lot in the middle of the boulevard so people could visit the landmark.  We found a spot and saw an Elvis impersonator.  While in line for a picture, we were apprehended by a Lucille Ball impersonator working on a Podcast.  She asked us if we wanted to be a part of it.  We said sure and she asked us a few questions.  We took a few pictures and she was on her way to another group of people.  We got to the front of the line and had our pictures taken with the famous sign.

We went back to our car and put In and Out on the GPS and we headed there for lunch.  Brenda and Ray had never been to one.  I was very surprised and told them it was a must if you are ever in California, Utah, Arizona or Nevada.  They told me it better be good or they would leave me on a street corner.

We got there and it was packed.  I remembered that the lines go very quickly since there aren't very many things on the menu.  We got our order in, Brenda found a table inside and Ray and I waited for them to call our number.  I was so excited to have an In and Out burger.  It's been almost three years.

They called our number, we took our food to our table and enjoyed every morsel of it.  Afterwards Brenda and Ray thought it was delicious and can't believe they haven't been to one before. 

We got back in our rental car and went to the Monte Carlo to see if we could park for free inside the parking garage.  We could.  Apparently they don't have any indications of who is or isn't staying in the hotel.  Duly noted for next time I am here.

I needed to finish the homework I was given by my mom.  I needed to get her a Las Vegas sweatshirt.  We spent some time wandering around the strip looking for one.  In the meantime, Brenda and Ray showed me where some of the caches were nearby.  I grabbed a few of them.  We also went inside the M&M store and I bought some crimson and gray M&M's.  We went into the Walgreens, this is where I bought most of my souvenirs because they were cheap.  I found my mom's sweatshirt here among other things.

We continued down the strip towards the Bellagio Fountains, taking pictures as we went.  The weather was so awesome.  I really didn't want to leave.  We got to the fountains and watched the show for about ten minutes.  After, we walked back to the Monte Carlo.

We went inside and made our way through the casino area and to the café we ate breakfast at the other day.  We ordered some sodas and Brenda and Ray had some dessert.  We sat there and talked about a bunch of stuff to waste time before heading to the rental car place to return our car. 

It was about that time, we went through the lobby of the Monte Carlo and I swear the entire country of Japan was waiting to check into their rooms for the weekend.  It was hard dodging Asians as we found our way out of the lobby and upstairs to the parking garage.  We had a heck of a time getting onto Las Vegas Blvd and out towards the airport.  No wonder...it was Friday.

We eventually got to the rental car return and found where we needed to go.  The lady came out and grabbed the keys and our information.  We drove that thing 1,013 miles.  We cleaned out our stuff and put them on carts.

We went into the lobby of the rental car building and sat in the lobby for a while.  We were a little too early to go and sit in the airport for our flights.  We found out that we didn't get to hang out until our flights left.  There are two concourses at McCarran and we were going to be separated.  We grabbed our stuff and I took one shuttle and they took the other.  I was dropped off in front of Southwest.  I grabbed my bags and headed in to wait in line.  I checked in and printed off my ticket.  I checked in my two bags and made my way over to security.

I had a lot of time to kill before my flight.  What to do?

I wandered the concourse to find my gate.  It was clear at the end.  I must have walked a mile just to get there.  I called mom, talked to Grandma and Grammie while I waited.  I got hungry so I went over to the Nathan's Hotdogs stand and got a sausage dog and a pop.  I ate that pretty quickly.  I went to find plug ins and found out there were only two stations and a lot of people using them.  I lucked out and found a plug in for my computer and I sat there internetting until it was time to go.

I gathered my things and headed to my gate.  I was in group B.  I hope I don't get to sit next to some smelly person or a crying baby.  I got lucky.  I got the window seat next to a couple in their late 40's.  They didn't talk to me the entire flight until we were landing in Seattle.

I was not happy to arrive in 55 degree rainy weather of Seattle from the sunny 80 degree skies of Las Vegas.  Sometimes I really hate where I live.

I got off the plane and had to wait a really long time for my bags.  I called mom, who was sitting in the cell phone lot to drive around and pick me up.  I didn't recognize her car because she got new license plates.  Now they are giving out the crimson plates instead of the white Cougar logo plates.  I threw my suit cases in and I took over the driver's seat.

We got home at 2 a.m.  The trip was well worth it. 

I came home and had 6844 caches.  156 more to go til I reach milestone 7,000.

Next adventure:  Visiting Willmarth and Shannon in Yakima.

ET Highway Day 4

I can't believe this trip has gone by so fast.  Just the other day I was looking forward to this trip and was really excited to ride on an airplane and explore southern Nevada with some cool people from Vancouver.  It has now come down to the last day on the ET Highway.

Our alarm went off at 6ish and we all lazily got up and started getting ready for our last day on the crazy power trail.  I was excited to get to #2000 but then on the other hand it was sad that we were going to find #2000. This time we knew where we were going to go to breakfast so we didn't waste any precious caching time.  We drove to the Burger King and all grabbed some sort of a breakfast sandwich and some OJ.  We ate as we drove to where we left off.

We got to the first section at 7:47 and began with #1413.  There were 45 caches in this line.  Brenda started off the morning while Ray drove and I stamped.  It was a little chilly this morning and slightly windy.  Brenda went all the way through to 1500.  When we reached that milestone it was about 9:15 and we almost had our 100 caches for the day.  We even saw what used to be the end of the ET Highway before Clay and Gus added 500 more to it.

"The End?  Or is it?  NO!"

Now it was my turn to get out and jump.  Brenda drove and Ray stamped logs.  This section was going to be a long one (1842 to 1946 plus a cabin cache at the end) for a total of 105 caches.  I powered these out as quick as I could.  We got them done in an hour and fifteen minutes.  We rewarded ourselves with an old mining homestead east of Highway 6.  The cache was called Daugherty Ranch.  We don't really know for sure but according to Gus and Clay, that's what it said on Google Maps when they did their research.

We found the cache first and then had fun exploring the ranch.  We saw lots of old food cans, oil cans, really old sardine cans, beer cans, clothes, boards, make shift holding pens for horses and cows and old cardboard that they had put over the windows to keep the dust and sand from blowing into the old shack.   There was a fireplace inside that had names and dates carved and written on the mantle.  There were names and dates on there from the early 1900's.  Pretty rad.

It was about 11:00 and we all got into the car and went to the next section of caches, which took roughly a half hour to get there.  Remember, we were on dirt roads going maybe 40 mph.  We got to the next section and started immediately.  We hit our 200th cache around noon.  I did the 41 caches starting with #1947 and ending with #1988.  Then Ray took over only suppose to be doing 100 of the 168 of them but we messed up the math and he ended up doing all of them, luckily he didn't mind.  To give him a break, when we got 100 in to his turn, we pulled over and made sandwiches.  This is when the wind started picking up.

Our 300th cache milestone of the day was around 1:00.

We ate our sandwiches, some chips and our drinks and had some light conversations while we took pictures and talked about how many more sections we had to do.  We all used the bathroom, behind bushes and in back of our vehicle and we were on our way down the homestretch.

Ray finished his section and then it was my turn again. I did half of what we called "the beak".  It actually looked like the shape of a beak from the map.  A few times we had to stop because the wind was so strong.  It was blowing sand and dust at us and made it really hard to open and close the passenger door.

I was starting to get tired and my leg started to chafe from the repetition of getting in and out of the car and my leg rubbing on the seat.  Brenda took over and hammered them out.  The wind had gotten so bad, it tried to rip her shirt off of her.  We finished the beak at 3:40 and had over 400 finds.

At this point we all reflected on our trip out here in the desert and how many hours we spent out here grabbing containers from piles of rocks.  We are almost to the end of our ET Highway experience and it kinda made us all sad but excited at the same time because we were starving.  Brenda got them done quickly.  We were at the second to last cache called You're Almost Done! Or are you?-E.T.  This is Brenda's happy face.  It made me giggle.

 

And now to #2000.  It was almost unbelievable that I was actually there.  I can't believe I actually got to do the ET Highway.  We pulled up next to the side of the road, turned the car off and put it in park.  We took pictures of the rocks that led us to the last one and I ran to the cache.  I was so excited.  

 

We finished the ET Highway at 4:02 with 457 on the day and we were behind team STFU the entire time, who in reality were an entire day ahead of us.  We giggled at the name of their team.  We walked back to our vehicle and some guy pulled over to ask if we were okay and if we needed some help. We told him we were find.  That was the second time on this trip someone had pulled over to ask if we needed aid.  The vehicle we used was filthy on the outside and in.

We found a few more on the way back to Tonopah.  We went to our hotel, dropped off our stuff and drove over to Cisco's again.  They ordered baked potatoes and I had the burger and fries again.  The one the night before was tasty so ordered it again.  We ate our food and watched whatever was on the TV on the wall.  We finished and went and worked on the earthcache nearby.  I took some pictures before it got dark.

We all took showers and got comfortable.  We drove to the actual grocery store because Ray wanted a beer and Brenda wanted ice cream.  Ray ended up with a beer and Brenda came home with a candy bar.  I decided on nothing because I already had some stuff in my bag in the hotel.  We got back and started packing up our stuff so we didn't have to do it in the morning.  We decided at a group to grab our California and Arizona cache since they were very doable.  Ray fell asleep and started snoring.  We had to take a picture of him.  

I had all of my stuff packed up and ready for our 5 am alarm to go off to do all the stuff we wanted to do tomorrow.  Cheers. 

Links about the ET Highway:

http://onlinegeocacher.com/issue/real_time/article/the-return-of-the-et-highway

http://stealthrequired.com/2011/03/e-t-highway-geocache-series-gets-archived/

Next adventure:  California, Arizona, In and Out and The Las Vegas Strip