We talked about the plan the night before and they came and got me at around 7 a.m. I took a blueberry bagel and some oj with me for the car ride. I was exhausted. We had a list of caches written out of ones we didn't have in the area. We weren't sure how the weather would hold up for the amount we had written down.
The drive up wasn't bad, no rain yet.
We started out where we left off last time we were here, in the downtown area. We did all of the work for a cache called Kent Station but it was missing back in December. We had to come back because some guy was power washing the area. We got one near the ShoWare Center....I remember being there about two years ago and not finding it. I think this is a newer series. We walked over to a small park nearby and looked for one I had previously found, I couldn't remember where it was so we didn't find it. We went back to Kent Station and found the cache right where we thought it would be, sweet.
We worked on a historical tour of Kent, a multi done by Mc3Cats. The waypoints and gathering information was easy but the find, took us a while. We had to phone a friend and he told us right where it was and that is where we all looked at least three times. I ended up pulling it out of its hiding spot.
We found three others just down up the road from downtown, one took us in to the forest and made us climb back up a wicked hill, another was a guardrail cache and the other was at a local Top Foods and I'm glad someone grabbed this spot because it was screaming for a cache. We didn't PANic! Haha.
We went to a few small parks, nestled in various neighborhoods. You really had to be on the look out for them or you would drive by them, they were that small. The one we thought was someone's back yard, nope just a tiny park with two picnic tables.
We went to another one just down the road at a rock wall. It was near a church and the parking lot was closed so we parked on the street and walked over to it. Bob found it quickly.
The next three caches we went after took us near the event site. This was a busy part of Kent. One was a key holder hiding near a restaurant, one was a bolt near a car part store/pet supply shop and the other was near a grocery store next to a rock and a hard place.
We drove eastward to a park called Morrill Meadows. We parked and Bev was intrigued by the Cottonwood tree fluff and how much of it was in the parking lot.
The first cache took us around the short trail and we had to slightly bush whack to the spot. We read the hints because the GPS bounced around a lot. Bob and I found the make-shift stump it was hidden in. We walked to the next cache, which was at a dog park at the east end. Bev and I stopped to get a picture. I thought it was a cool spot.
Bob got a head start looking for the dog park one while we caught up to him. He had looked in many places already but came up with nothing. I looked and Bev looked in the same places and came up with the same result. Then Bev had an idea and wandered away. She came back a few seconds later holding the cache. Bob and I were like, where did you find that at? She told us there was another gate it was hidden on. We signed our names and put it back. We walked back to the car and drove to the next cache down the road.
This puzzle cache was one I had looked at online a few months back just in case we were in Kent at some point. It was located at the spot it said but you had to figure out the lock combination. It was in a church parking lot and was put there by a elementary school class. The combo was knowing three of the books of the Bible and the order in which they came in. Bev was all over it with the help of the internet. Yay smart phones! We got out and put the numbers into the lock and was denied. We must have done it wrong. Sure enough we didn't turn the combo all the way around. We tried it again and it opened. We cheered and did a little victory dance. I didn't realize at the time but this was my 7,000th cache and I should have taken a picture with it. Oh well.
We got to twenty caches before we had to go over to the event. One took us to someone's front yard near a random erratic rock, it was a sprinkler head, another took us to a swampy area, supposedly there is a llama farm, we didn't see any llamas but the cache really made me miss Hostess cupcakes.
The other cache in the area, was near a church and we went the hard way to it. Bob is not one to read the directions before we go. We grabbed it, signed it and ran back because it was raining. We got in the car, went around the corner to the church and parked in the parking place to get the squirrel snacker one. Then we tried to get one at the 360 Skate Park and that one was missing. One other reason to read the cache page before you walk over to it and find out it's not there.
It was about 12:30 and we needed to get to the event, of course it stopped raining knowing we were now going to be indoors. Everyone was getting tired of having pizza parties so Mc3Cats booked us a meal at the Golden Steak and Steer Rib House. We got there and were shown where we needed to go. We signed in, paid, got our tickets and found a seat. We chatted with some people, discovered trackables, told stories, ate our food. The food was sandwiches, salad, chili, fruit and macaroni salad. I had everything but the macaroni salad. I think I had way too many sandwiches because I paid for it about an hour later.
We did the raffle a half hour before we decided to leave. He drew my number and I picked one of the geocaching triad geocoins. I was so excited. I thought why not have one of these since I have completed the triad.
We said our goodbyes and headed out the door. Bob wanted to find a few more before we went home. We got one at a park, which was a quick easy grab, one at the museum down the hill that opened at noon, this was one I had intended to get two other times but it wasn't open, and grabbed one more multi down by a baseball field that was owned by one of the cachers at the event.
For some reason I was exhausted. The last thing I remember was getting off of Hwy 512 at the Pacific Ave exit and then the next thing I remember is waking up at the gas station in Rainier. That's a good 35 minutes between the two. I must have passed out hard. They dropped me off at home and I started getting ready for my hiking trip with Lindsay.
Next Adventure: Enchanted Valley, Olympic National Forest.
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