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!
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