The 31 Days of Geocaching

After my 505 day streak I thought I was done with the streaking.  It really got to be hard...more like a job that I did every day.  There were times I drove over 40 miles round-trip to grab one.  In some cases it might be a little obsessed in a way.  Then I saw the email in my inbox.  Groundspeak had this idea of streaking every day in August and there were 31 days.  I thought to myself, this might be doable with all the recent caches that have published in the area the past few weeks.  I read on.  This time as an incentive that each cacher would receive a special souvenir for each day.  

It's on!

Here are a few stories and pictures from some of the days.  A few of the caches really weren't all that spectacular or memorable.  I will share the more memorable ones.

Day 2 brought me to one of the remaining close ones in my area.  It was called Down the Tracks and it was on the Yelm-Rainier-Tenino trail towards McKenna/Roy.  I had been out there once before grabbing a cache by the same cache owners.  They just added one more further down the tracks.  Since these tracks aren't in use anymore there are lots of great hidey holes.  Luckily for me this one was a regular size.  I walked past the canal and made my way down the tracks.  For some reason I had trouble pinpointing the location.  I read the hint and did not see anything remotely close.  I moved over to the other side of the tracks and started flipping over rocks.  I finally set my hands on the container.   On the way back to the car I took a picture of the graffiti I noticed on the way in.

On Day 4, I decided to drive into Hawks Prairie.  There were several I still had to grab inside the LOTT Wastewater area, which is also an informative nature walk.  The last time I came out here was at least over a year and a half ago when we grabbed several others in this system of trails.  I got out and followed the trail towards Lighten Up.  In my mind, I expected a light pole, a flashlight or one of those LED path lights.  I found the side trail and saw the creepy baby doll people have noted in their logs.

I got closer and closer and of course I looked at the ground first.  I looked up and saw this light.  this must be the cache.  And then I saw the geocaching sticker on it.  It took me less than a minute to figure out where the logbook was.  It was a pretty creative one and I gave it a favorite point.

Days 7-10 I spent picking up the rest of the CWT caches.  Each time I parked at 41st and rode my bike to the respectable caches.  Those included MR Geese, Bark of a Different Tree, Hot Dog and Train Off Track-PaSvede to the Rescue.  Luckily, the weather was decent for each bike ride excursion. 

I left some trackables inside Hot Dog for the next cachers.  I found a coin inside the train so I took it to move on.  Well, turns out DubyaDee, a local cacher, put a disclosure on it.  Apparently the next finder of the cache got to keep the coin.  He had already activated it.  What do I do?  I guess you can adopt coins...just like you can adopt caches.  I had no clue you could do that.  I have a new train coin to add to my collection.

I went to Whtewolfden's and Clay4's Meet and Greet in Issaquah on day 16.  I saw it on the WSGA website a few weeks back and had to go meet the guys who created the ET Highway I did with Geek&Gopher last April.  I got there earlier than I needed to be but better to be early than late.  I talked to a bunch of people, local and visiting for the Block Party/Ape event.  I got Gus and Clay to sign my ET Highway scrapbook...which totally made it cooler than it was originally.

August 17th was the annual Block Party hosted by Groundspeak in Fremont (north of downtown Seattle) and this year was suppose to be better than the previous.  On Wednesday a series of caches published.  They were the HQ GeoTour caches.  That, plus the GeoLabs tour were the two things we got done today in our group made up of Ray and Brenda, Kenny and Shari and Bev.  We were quite a team.  This year marked the first viewing of GIFF (Geocaching International Film Festival) and it was quite entertaining.  FTF by the Czech's and Addiction by the guy from Minnesota were my favorites.

I joined in the hike up to GCD on Sunday morning, day 18. GrnXnham, put together an unofficial event at the trail head of Mount Margaret.  Several people from other states, countries and even some locals set out on a beautiful sunny morning to go grab the oldest cache in Washington.

I later joined the Ape event down at the tunnel.  I met up with my mom and Bev and we went into the tunnel to do the earthcache.  Afterwards, I went and helped jcar, during my volunteer shift for the WSGA.  It got very hot.  I was tired and hungry but the weekend was so worth it.

On the last and final day of streaking, I went out to the CWT and grabbed one of the BigFoot series by TracyTom.  They were very creative and I really liked where the last one was hidden.

 On to the next set of challenges.  Bring 'em on!

Caching Milestones and More

My first cache was without a geocaching account and without a GPS on July 29, 2010 with my friend Jon (ccccwu17), we went on a very long bike ride down the Chehalis Western. The cache was called Maple Lane (GC1JCCN).

Started officially caching on July 30, 2010.  I registered with a caching name that morning at work.

My first cache by myself was 8/2/2010 without a GPS.

I found my first 50 geocaches without a GPS.

I bought my first GPS for my 27th birthday.  It was a bright yellow Garmin Rhino 110.

I got my first 100 caches on December 31, 2010 up in Port Angeles, Wash.

My first event was Hey Sailor (Take Two) ( GC2MRC8 ) in Everett, Wash.  There was a freak snow storm on the way home.

My first cache machine was in Wenatchee (GC2NVH2).

My first virtual was Plains of Abraham on 8/19/10 when I hiked the Loowit Trail with Lindsay and Sean.

My first hide was Triangle (GC2EYYM) on September 10, 2010.

My first webcam was December 5, 2010 in Morton, The Morton Loggercam (GCKA5Q).

My first geocoin was a 250 achievement coin, 2.25.11 AC5Z21.

The first time I visited Groundspeak was 4/29/11.

I hit my 1000th cache milestone July 3, 2011.  I got 1000 before a year into geocaching.

I hit number 2000 on January 10, 2012 at GC3AFPC It's A Trap!

My 3000the milestone came on a visit to Port Angeles on May 26, 2012 at Super Series-Aquaman (GC26FW6).
The 4000th milestone was at Campsite Cache (GC18KK5) down in Vancouver on the Burnt Bridge Trail on 9/16/12.

Number 5000 and 6000 came during the epic trip down to Nevada to experience the ET Highway, this was April 1-4th.  We got all 2000 ET caches and then some.  We got our first California and Arizona caches as well on the trip.

When I got home from the trip, we went up to Kent for a meet and greet on 5.18.13 and I got my 7,000th cache at a really cool puzzle cache (GC200CM).

I was featured on the geocaching blog on 6/27/13

http://blog.geocaching.com/2013/06/a-geocache-made-in-hollywood-but-placed-in-washington-ring-of-fire-gcjyhz-geocache-of-the-week/

6/8/13 Washington State Parks GeoTour.  I took on the cache Millersylvania (GC4D5B9).

http://www.geocaching.com/adventures/geotours/washington-state-parks?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=7-1-13

Finished my silver coin on July 3, 2013 and recieved my coin in the mail about a week later.  I was the 25th person to complete it.

**This is an ongoing process and I will add to it as I go.**

Fox Island

I got a phone call from Bev the night before asking if I wanted to go with her and Bob to Fox Island.  I have never been there before.  I actually have never heard of it and had to look it up on the map.  It was the island west of Gig Harbor.  I tried to get everything ready the night before so I could sleep in as long as I could.  I made my food, did my query and set out the clothes I was gonna wear.

The alarm went off at 6:30.  I found out dad was taking the day off and Doug was going to come home later this afternoon.  Of course he gave me a bad time about going geocaching.  I remembered to grab my phone charger out of my car since my battery goes dead around the tail end of our caching trips.

They rolled up and I threw my stuff in the car and we were off to Fox Island via the back roads of Steilacoom and western Tacoma to Hwy 16 and the Narrows Bridge.  Bob and to pull over because he got dizzy so Bev drove us to the first few caches.

We got off at the airport exit and grabbed two we didn't get the first time we were over here...which was awhile ago.  One was new and the other one we DNF'd because I think it was missing.  We found it this time very quickly.  The next one was along East Bay Drive called Picnic Point.  It was a very nice view of the Harbor from the cache site.

And now a place called Harbor Family Park...a place you could actually lose your family inside of.  The first one was an ammo can stuck underneath a weird foam like rock creation.  I saw it right away because it didn't fit into the surroundings.

The next one was even cooler.  We all walked past it and on the way back out of the area I spotted something up in a tree and then looked around for a TOTT (tool of the trade) to get it down with.  There was a handle with a nail on it laying on the ground with stuff written on it with a marker.  I grabbed it and put it to some good use.

Next was a cryptex cipher cache that I found the code word to as we walked down the trail.  None of us have actually opened a decvice that looked that that before so it was kinda fun.  I put the magic word in and watched it open and inside was the log.

We picked up one more on our way to Fox Island inside a guardrail.  There was a lot of traffic on this road.  Next stop, Fox Island!

We stopped after we crossed the bridge for a very creative one.  I'm glad Bob found it.  There was a fisherman loading up his boat down below after a morning of fishing.

We rolled up to the next one, got out of the car and another vehicle drove down the hill and parked.  We saw the TB and knew she was a cacher.  In fact, it was the cache owner of the current cache we were looking for.  She came down to check on this one because of the recent DNF's.  She introduced herself as MorkIsle.  While chatting, I found the cache on the ground. We signed it and then returned it to its rightful place.  It was nice meeting her.  Most of the caches on the island belonged to her and she said none of them should be that hard.

The next ten or so were her caches along with a historical series we needed codes from for the final.  Of course there was the geocache in the local cemetery.  This one took us to some of the famous people's gravestones who either founded or lived on the island.  At first we had trouble finding the gravestones because the coords jumped around.  One of the waypoints took us to our first female governor of Washington State, Dixy Lee Ray.

One of the things I love about geocaching is the history you learn as you visit these unique places.

At I'm in a pickle, we hit our first DNF that we knew was there.  For some reason we really made this one harder than it actually was.  We read the logs and the same thing was happening to us.  It was listed as a 1.5/1.5.  It couldn't be that hard right?  We moved on and thought about coming to this one later.  We found a few more before running into a mom and daughter caching couple.  The daughter was living in Tacoma and the mom was from Eugene.  The island was small enough, you were bound to run into someone.  We chatted with them for a bit and then went down to the Fox Harbor pier.

We found the cache nearby and went to the next bunch of them.  We ran into the cachers again at the Fox Island Ferry dock II.  They had just found the Pickle one we could not find.  She showed us a picture of where to find it.  We also traded TB's. We went on to grab a few more before returning to the pickle one.

We drove back to it and sure enough a place we thought we checked a bunch of times, there it was smiling back at us like we were stupid.  Eff you pickle!  Haha.

We did our math to the final of the Fox Island historical series and made our way to the final.  For a while we had the wrong side of the road until we ventured to the other and read the hint some more.  Bob found it eventually.  We found one more on the island, went back over the bridge and found two more on the way home.  We were even honked at angrily by a butthole in a SUV who could clearly move into the other lane if he didn't want to follow us.

And then the phone went off.  A cache had just published in Steilacoom.  We had a somewhat semi good chance at getting FTF.  We went back over the Narrows and had to pay the lame toll fee, back along the west side of Tacoma and onto the back roads of Steilacoom.  We followed Nuvi to the parking lot and saw a silver Prius waiting.  Poo, they must have gotten it.  I walked over and Omnispirit and Kogcon had just walked back from signing the cache.  They said they were second to find and couldn't read the FTF signature.  He gave us some hints on where to find it.  We walked over there and found it within ten minutes of searching.  We got back in the car and headed towards home.

Bob wanted pizza so we called in our order and picked it up from Pizza Hunt and it was a nice day so we ate dinner in Cochran Park.  The bees wanted pizza too.  We wrapped it up and they took me home.  It was a nice day and we found 38 and DNF'd only 3.  Thus completes day 22 of the 31/31 in August streak.

Next Adventure: Round Mountain and Lake Wenatchee with Jacob (Shrek198)

China Town, Seattle Center and a Storm Game

I got a phone call from Shauna a few days ago asking if I could come with her to the Storm game.  I had to check my schedule.  I could fit it in after my staff meeting.  I didn't hear from the other person I was suppose to hang out with so after our meeting I went and got a Oreo Blizzard and went over to Shauna's house early than I was asked to.

Jen was looking at flights to Mexico for her mom.  Her and Shauna decided to get married in September.  So there was a lot to do for them now until then.  She showed me her chickens, ducks and new bunny.  The pond was done and looking nice and they arranged their back yard differently.

We decided to leave earlier than intended.  She had printed out some coupons from several restaurants in Seattle and Phnom Penh Noodle House off of King Street in China Town.  I was kinda excited to try Pho for the first time.  We followed her Nuvi to the place and then we had to be creative and found a parking spot just around the corner.  A man walked by and talked to us about our sports teams and then walked away shortly after.

We went into the restaurant and they immediately served us.  I ordered the chicken noodle, which was rice noodles, chicken, green onions and garlic.  It was delicious.  She ordered pad thai chicken.  We both got drinks as well.  It came right away we were surprised on how fast our food came after we ordered it.  We visited as we ate our food.

I tried eating it with chop sticks...I lost.  Haha.

We paid for our food and then we wandered around looking at the shops for a bit.  Then we took some pictures around some of the architecture in China Town.

We went inside an oriental trading store and scoped out their merchandise.  There were tons of statues, budahs, coins and I found some nunchuks to play with.

We walked around the corner to a convenience store and we each grabbed a couple of Pepsi's for the drive to the Key Arena.  I had a few bucks so I paid for them.  We walked to the car and headed to Denny Way.  

Along the way, I debated turning the GPS on, Shauna thought we could get there without it.  I was like, sure...I am up for an adventure through downtown.  She said, doesn't 3rd Street take us all the way down to Denny Way?  Uh, maybe?  We take it and all we saw were buses and transit vehicles.  The center lane had a couple of bike cops pedeling their way down the street.  The signs on the road were not very clear and we were wondering why there were no cars around.  We pull up beside the cops and ask if the road we were on took us to Denny Way.  They said we were on the wrong street and that it was a transit only street at this particular time.  He told us to turn right down the next road and take 4th all the way to Denny Way.  Hahaha!  At least we weren't going down a one way road the wrong way.

We made our way to Denny Way and once Shauna was there she felt more comfortable navigating to the parking garage.  We found a parking spot down on the bottom level near the exit.  She was excited.  I told her about the two pieces of the Berlin Wall in Seattle.  Last Saturday I saw the first piece and I heard the second piece was in the Seattle Center near the food court.  It took us a while to find it because it blended in so well.

We walked over to the Key Arena because the doors were going to open in a few minutes.  We stood in line to get our picture taken with the Pemco Bear and to shoot some freethrows for a free shirt.  I have one and Shauna has several of them so we brought one home for my mom.  We stood in line, grabbed a program and went inside.

We both did the Bing Challege, she won a Bing beanie and I got a Bing hat.  Shauna decided to renew her season tickets so they wouldn't lose their seats.  We walked down to our seats and that's where we remained until the game was over.  

The Storm beat LA by 20 points.  There were many great shots and awesome passes.  On the way out and to the car I got a shot of the Space Needle with the full moon by it.

We got to Shauna's house around 10:30 and to my house by 11.  It was a long day.

Next Adventure:  Fox Island

GCD and Going Ape Event

My alarm went off at 5 a.m.  I was woken up several times throughout the night from people yelling, running into walls and someone violently puking in the bathroom across the hall.  Hey, it was free lodging right?

I allowed myself fifteen minutes to get ready and have my stuff packed in the car and headed to I-5.  They still didn't have food in their house.  Lame.  I tried to find Doug to tell him bye but I couldn't find him.

There was actually a lot of people on the road for it only being 5 a.m.

My GPS said I would be there around 6:15.  I hope my car will get me there.  Haha.

I merged onto I-90 and drove across the Mercer Island tunnel.  It was kinda fun that early in the morning.

I went through Issaquah, North Bend and made my way to the up hill grade towards Snoqualmie Pass.  My car had trouble on the really steep parts of the climb.  This is why I don't drive my car outside of Thurston county.  I got to the Hyak exit and followed my instinct since my Nuvi wanted me to go another way further down the freeway.  I followed a one-laned road that parralleled I-90. It seemed right but I wasn't sure so I called Bev.  She couldn't remember.  How could you not remember something like that?  You either remember a freeway or you don't.  They came up in October for Shrek198's (Jacob) milestone event.  I was going to go but got called into work.

That paved road turned into a rather bumpy dirt road.  This continued all the way to the trail head parking.  I took a wrong turn and had to turn around....effing Nuvi!  I made it to the parking lot and I was about a minute late from being in the trail head picture.  Poo.  I grabbed all the things I might need and joined the group of people.  Painter was among the crowd.  It was nice to see him.  I didn't realize this gathering would be so popular.  GrnXnham should have made this into an event but they said they didn't want to take away from the Ape Event.  Which is understandable.

Along the way up to the first section, I talked to several people who were not from here.  It was fun chatting as we hiked.  There were two caches along the way.  I wanted to grab them on the way back down...when there were less people.

We took another break at the second landing just for the people who did stop at the caches to catch up because this area is where people have trouble navigating.  This third piece to the hike was the less steep part because of the switch backs. She took us around and then through because the last 200 feet was bushwacking...she tried to minimize that for us, especially the cachers who really don't do hikes and/or forest caching.  It didn't bother me either way.

And now the cache we've all been waiting for...GCD!  OMG OMG!  I was stoked when we got there.  We arrived around 8 a.m.  It took us an hour and a half to get up the mountain.  I immediately grabbed the pathtag that was in there.  I signed the logbook shortly after and then took a selfie of me and the cache.  I was interviewed by a cacher with a small video camera.  He said once he splices them all together he would post it on his log.  I ate my Odwalla bar I am so glad I brought with me...since I didn't have breakfast.  I spent some time hanging out with the ET Highway guys, Gus gave me one of his pathtags and then I wished I had my own to trade with him.  It is in the workings.  :)

A few of us walked to Livin on the Edge, about a quarter mile from GCD on the edge of a ridge.  Getting there was sure fun and I don't mean that sarcastically, I actually had fun walking to this one.  The views were just amazing.  I would totally do this hike again even if it meant that I would not get a cache up here.

After spending some time up on top of the world, it was time to head back down to the parking lot and then across the freeway to the Ape event.  I walked down with Painter and grabbed I've Fallen and I Can't Get Up, which was dedicated to a guy on a hike with his dog, tripped over his dog, fell, broke his leg and had to be airlifted to the hospital and 56 Miles and 4 Days.  We actually got down the hill pretty quickly in a little over an hour.  I found the Mt. Margaret Trail Head cache and then went to the car and drove to the tunnel.

I called mom along the way to see if they made it to Hyak yet.  They did and her and Bev were waiting in the line to get a parking pass and to park.  I was about five minutes away from parking my car.  I finally got there and they were waiting in line to buy a coin.  This year I volunteered to help out WSGA since this was their major event of the year and I felt like I needed to, to give back in a way.

After Bev got her coin, we made our way to the tunnel, for the second time this year.  Mom and I were here back in July grabbing the state park cache near the entrance.  Abby has had to replace and move it several times since the launch back in June.  There was a mob around it when we went by.  I rode by bike while Bev and mom walked.  Inside, we did the new earthcache, which required us to answer a bunch of questions.  We took pictures.

We turned around about the half way mark and headed back.  My shift was about to start soon.  Lots of people were walking past us.  Many people brought their dogs, you could see their green eyes glowing in the tunnel.  There were these two girls who had just met.  They were really excited about walking through the tunnel together.  We reached the end and made our way back to the event area.  Bev wanted her picture with the ape.

They both decided to go home.  I spent the next two hours in the sun making sure everyone signed the log and that JCar didn't die in the ape suit.  For volunteering, I received an ape event t-shirt.  I got to talk to a lot of people and even made a new friend who lives in Rainier.  She just started caching.

At the end of my shift, I hung around a little while longer.  I was getting really tired and hungry.  I spent some time talking to the WSGA members and listened to Abby tell the story of what happened last year in the parking lot.  I used the restroom and headed to North Bend for some food!  I was so hungry.

I got home roughly around 5ish and unloaded the car, took a shower and passed out.  This weekend took a lot out of me but it was fun.

Next Adventure:  China Town and a Storm Game

Geocaching Block Party and the Geocaching International Film Festival

Today is Seattle Geocaching Day proclaimed by the Mayor Michael McGinn.

Mom called and woke me up around 8.  I almost didn't answer the phone because I wanted to sleep longer.  I answered it anyway.  She asked me how the event went last night and how it was staying with Doug and his roommates.  I talked to her for about fifteen minutes and then decided I should take a shower since I won't have time for one later tonight or early tomorrow morning.  I actually felt good after.  I got all of my stuff together and really debated whether or not to ride my bike the mile and a half down to Fremont.

I was disappointed that they had absolutely nothing to eat in their fridge.  I managed to find some english muffins and some milk that wasn't expired.  I ate that while I did some internetting before it was time to head on down.  I ended up driving my car down the hill.  I drove around looking for a parking spot but decided to park in the alley next to the troll, like I have the past two years.  It was a quick walk down the hill and a block over.  Took maybe five minutes to get to Groundspeak.

There were already a ton of people there.  I shimmied my way through the crowd and made my way down the stairs to one of the welcome tables.  There, I found Brad and his posse.  We chatted for a bit while we waited in line to "check-in".  I saw Jayme and said hi, I didn't want to bother her too much because she was busy being a Lackey.  There was a girl in line behind me who was from Qatar, we exchanged brief conversation.  I received my balloon.  Inside was the mini adventure you can either do on your smartphone or the computer. Also, the Geocaching HQ GeoTours published on Wednesday.  Another adventure to complete today.  I picked up my passport at the table as well.

I went back upstairs to sign the log, that's where I saw Brenda and Ray and their dog, Zuri.  I got my Coug stamp out, found a good place and made my mark.  I signed my name just above it.

I called Bev to find out where she was...they were going to miss the picture at 11:20.  They had just made it to Burien...still a ways out.

The Lackey's gathered everyone in the plaza and we got ready to take the group picture. We all looked up at the Lackey on the roof with the camera.  I like to pose in the front because it's easier to spot myself later. 

I met back up with Brenda and Ray and we made our way downstairs to the vendors and food trucks.  There, we talked to the WSGA booth for a while...I made a new friend, Jacob.  We tried chatting with Lisa from Cache Advance but she was way busy.  We'll just stop by later.

We found a place to hang out for a while until Bev, Kenny and Shari arrived to do the GeoTour.  I told them to come down and see us at the vendors/food trucks.  Of course Bev asked where that was.  I told her to find a map and follow it.  Haha.  They finally got there and found us at the table.  I told them to go see the welcome tent and to get their balloons.  We met up and headed to the first cache, Beneath Aurora.  Most of these caches will have mobs by them...not much mystery to where they are.  But with over 1,000 geocachers unleashed in Fremont, you're bound to run into a dozen or two.  We saw a bunch of cachers we knew from our area.  We chatted for a few minutes then everyone moved on.

The next one took us to a cache similar to Doctor Who in Portland, Goblindust, made this one as well.  This was called Ode to the Golgafrichan Phone Workers.  It was a puzzle that required you to put in the right code.  There were so many people at this one.  Also, nearby was part of the "labs" caches.  We took a group picture.

From here, we wandered over to the Fremont Library.  Brenda and Ray did this one earlier so we all just went to the final of the multi cache.  They explained the other pieces to us while we signed the log and stamped our passports.  Some cachers approached us after we made the find.  We told them where to put it back when they were done.

We walked up the hill to the Fremont Troll for a cache called Troll Droppings.  There were tons of tourists as well as cachers all in the same small area...plus the cars that drove through that intersection.  I had many pictures of the troll already so we just did the cache this time.  PS, I stole this picture from the geocaching website.  I didn't want all of the people in the picture.

We made our way back down the hill and near the busy intersection and found our next GeoTour cache, Within Reach.  It was a bicycle rack with a twist.  Again, there was a mob of cachers waiting their turn to sign the log and stamp their passports. 

There was another multi on the list, we did the first two waypoints, one was at the rocket and the other was at the statue of Lenin.  We grabbed Chairy Tree before we found the final to De Libertas Quirkas (freedom to be peculiar.)  I gave Chairy Tree a favorite point just because the tree was so freaking cool!  They even had a mini chair attached to a rope with the cache on it.  It was pretty rad.

And now to the final to De Libertas Quirkas.  We saw the mob of people near the shrub dinosaurs and a locked box on one of the display signs.  It required us to do some math to get the lock open.  Kenny reached down and pop, lock off and cache in hand.  The mob of cachers got bigger.  We got out of there as fast as we could to the next one.

A Bedassling View took us along the Burke-Gilman trail.  A trail we all have been down several times over the past three years.  We walked down the mini pier to where the cache was, of course there were cachers there signing the log.  They told us where it went back to when all of a sudden a huge rat came out of hiding from underneath the stairs.  Some of us saw him and some of us didn't.  He made one more appearance before we left for the next cache...it was going to be a walk.

We took a short sit down break at the stairs along the waterfront.  There, we looked at the lab caches more.  We still had no idea what to do.  The break was over and about two tenths of a mile later I realized I didn't have my GPS.  It must have fallen out of my pocket when we sat down.  Shari and I ran to the location and she found it right away.  Yikes, that was scary!

We stopped at the Fremont Bridge to watch it open and close for the boat traffic and for some pictures.  Again, we walked past several cachers we knew and exchanged some brief conversation.  We got to the corner and noticed Lake Union written on the sidewalk with chalk.  We asked the guy handing out buttons what it was for.  He said the lab caches...OH!  We were suppose to find codes...crap, we had already walked past several of them.  We might have to ask someone who wrote them all down.  I really didn't want to walk to them again.

It was bathroom break time.  We all took turns while some of us rested at the picnic table underneath the Aurora Bridge...almost near where we started the tour.  I saw Jen Jackson and talked to her for a few minutes.  She gave me the codes we didn't write down.  We even talked about the possibility of a Halloween event near Olympia with a night cache attached to it.

We finished our walk to the last GeoTour cache, the letterbox Geo Post Office.  It was at the new Evo building and someone had turned in a newspaper dispensing machine into a cache.  It was a pretty cool one.  It was unlocked when we arrived.  I grabbed a few stickers and some event postcards.  We were now done and needed to head back to the Block Party.

We turned in our passports which entered us into a drawing to win one of the GeoTour geocoins.  Forty people were drawn.  We turned in our labs sheet and either got a HQ tag or a geocaching beer mug.  I chose the mug.  The odds of one of us winning one was pretty slim.  We stood in line and bough our merchandise.  I got two coins, the block party and the geotour coin.  Then we all found food.  I was starving.

The choices the food trucks gave really didn't interest me.  I went upstairs and found a guy making polish dogs.  I instantly bought one.  I met up with Brenda and Ray and we sat in the plaza eating our food, visiting and people watching.  We had a lot of time to kill before GIFF (Geocaching International Film Festival.)

Kenny, Shari and Bev had to leave.  They had something else going that evening and needed to be home around 6.  We said our goodbyes and I told Bev I would see her and my mom tomorrow at the Ape event.

We got temporary Signal tattoos from one of the booths.

I took a few more pictures and then told Brenda and Ray that I would be up at my car getting ready for the other event later that evening.  On the short walk a lady in a decked out hippy van was giving out log rollers, she was very proud to hand them out to other cachers. I walked up the hill and sat in my car for a bit while my phone charged.  I used the internet and ate some more food.  I packed my bag up for the evening.  Some drinks, snacks and I should have grabbed my chair.

I went back down about 45 minutes later and talked to Lisa and JD for a while at the Cache Advance tent.  It was a very nice visit.  Then I looked at the Oregon GeoTours and Canada GeoTours booths and then finally made my way to the GIFF location in the Adobe parking lot.  I found Brenda and Ray on the hillside.  I talked to a very nice guy from Casper, Wyoming for a while.  Then they announced that there was a logbook to sign, free popcorn and some refreshments.  Ray and I stood in line.

Finally GIFF started and there were quite a few people at the inaugural event.  They introduced the event and then started showing the films.  There were 16 of them and some of the cachers who made the videos were present.  My favorites were the Addiction (Minnesota) and the FTF (Czech Republic) videos. 

Addiction:  http://youtu.be/sjlw1cSjreo

FTF:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TobhWpuhl1k

I enjoyed them equally but voted for Addiction just because the guy was really weird.  It was a great first time event and I hope to see another one next year.  I walked back to my car and drove the two short miles to Doug's house.  I brought my stuff in and he came up to ask for me to come downstairs to meet some of his friends.  They were celebrating a birthday.  I stayed down there for a little less than an hour.  I needed to go to bed since I had to get up at 5 a.m. to drive to Snoqualmie for the 6:30 a.m. hike to GCD.  It was a very short night and a very long tomorrow.

Next Adventure:  A hike to GCD and the Ape Event