I got most of my stuff ready the night before just so I could leave at a decent time on Friday afternoon. I had no idea when we would be done with work since it's been so sporadic lately. We got done around 2, did our chores, ate lunch and went home. I grabbed the rest of my stuff, threw it in the car and headed to Vancouver. According to Nuvi, I was going to be there around 5, the time Brenda mentioned earlier this week to get there by.
Surprisingly I did not hit that bad of traffic. I really thought once I got into Clark county it would be crazy, especially at the I-5/I-205 interchange. Smooth sailing to my exit at Mill Plain. I pulled into their apartment complex and looked for their building. I saw Ray waiting for me in the parking lot.
I brought some of my valuable stuff upstairs with me. You never know in these larger cities. I set my stuff down and Brenda had made dinner. She told me I had perfect timing. We all sat down at the dinner table and had meatloaf and mashed potatoes. We talked about geocaching and other stuff while we ate dinner. Afterwards, we cleaned up our dishes, put the table back together and relaxed a bit. We showed each other our geocoins, got the borrowed gps's programmed for tomorrow's event and Brenda talked about her job. It was hilarious. I wish I would have gotten it on video.
It approached 11 and Ray made up my bed. I got to sleep on a really tall air mattress in the middle of the living room. Everyone retired for the night. The air mattress was so comfy. I immediately fell asleep and did not wake up until Zuri bounced on top of me the next morning.
I actually got out of bed around 8 and started getting ready for our day. We all had cereal for breakfast and Ray put everything in the car. We drove out to the parking lot trail head for the Burnt Bridge Creek trail. Ray and Brenda put caches along this trail back in September of 2012. Bob and I came down a few weeks later to do the entire trail and found all but two of them.
We started setting up the table, put the banner on and set out all of our geocaching information and the different types of containers for display. And then we played the waiting game. We didn't know who would show up. Brenda had a handful of contact info from people who were interested at the fair from a few weeks ago. We'll see if anyone showed up. We sat there and watched the clouds burn off. It was going to be a very warm day.
Brenda realized she had left her phone in the car and was probably receiving phone calls from people looking for this place. Turns out there was a gal with two kids trying to find this parking lot. She immediately called them back and told them where to go. They were walking from the other parking lot towards where we were. We looked behind us and there they were, eager to learn about what we had to offer.
Brenda gave them the run down of what it was, when it started, the different types, showed them the different sizes of containers. They were impressed. We gave them a gps to use and I went with them as a guide. I told them many stories, answered many questions, shared my experiences and overall enjoyed their company. I really enjoy teaching people how to geocache. I only have three years experience but it feels like I have ten or more years under my belt.
I didn't realize how long we were gone. I got back to the trail head after noon. Brenda tried calling me and I had my phone on silent. For a long time I thought I had left my phone on the table. Good thing I checked all my pockets. My small group decided to head west for the other two before going back to the trail head. Ray and I drove over to a cache that has given them a hard time. I couldn't find it either.
We went back to their place and had sandwiches for lunch. Brenda decided to stay at home while Ray and I grabbed GC12...one of the oldest caches in Oregon. We stopped at the Fred Meyer down the road to get some gas. We headed south on I-205 to I-84 east and got off just before Troutdale. We got on to Hwy 26 or the Mount Hood Hwy and made our way towards Sandy. I noticed the gas price...it was $3.39! The cheapest I have seen it since my trip to Yakima months ago. We followed Nuvi's directions and made our way to Wildcat Mountain Drive and then to the NF roads. That lead us to the parking lot and the trail head.
There were many stenciled rocks with the phrase "NO SHOOTING". Apparently the people who come up here, to not hike, can't read. There were bullet casings, shot gun shells and garbage everywhere. I really hate people. This is probably the very reason why they closed Weyerhaeuser about a month ago to everyone unless you buy a $150 recreation pass. We can barely afford the almost $120 it costs to geocache (Premium Membership, Discovery Pass and NW Forest Pass).
We gathered our stuff, hiking sticks, trackables, pens, gps's and started walking up the very weird landscape. We're not sure what happened exactly but our best guess is they brought a cat or something up here to destroy the road that was once here to keep people from driving up to the rock pit. There were downed trees, large rocks, very big dips and steep hills, some brush, gravel and hay mixed in. One of the downed trees got me across the back of the leg. It left a gash and a bruise behind.
We got to the rock pit and really didn't know where to go from there. We walked up on top of the pit and picked the most likely spot to go in, along the ridge...kinda looked like a trail. We took a few pictures before we went down. Great views.
We found a trail head sign, that was shot many times, and made our way down to GC12. This was kind of unusual for me. Usually we go up the trail to get the cache...this time we walked down. It still counted for the elevation challenge. This was hike #2. The terrain was not bad. It was a very quick walk down. When you think of the Pacific Northwest, these type of trails is what I think of. This area remained a little damp after the rain we received the past two weeks. The tree cover was so thick the sunlight had no chance to dry it out. Our shorts, socks and shoes touched the wet leaves, brush and plants.
We arrived at the cache and saw the stepping stones people wrote about in their logs. We saw the 13 year old geotrail and knew exactly where the Clout bucket was. Ray jumped behind the rotting log and pulled out our prize.
It was so cool finding a 13 year old cache and logbook. We opened it up and there was a huge bag of trackables inside. We took them all and left two behind. I left a few trinkets just because it was a large cache. We put everything back, took pictures and left it for the next cachers to find. We made it up the trail fairly quickly. I was surprised. We took a few more pictures of the rock pit and made our way back to the car. Another oldie off the list.
We got back to their place around 5. I got my computer out and was going to log the cache but of course got distracted with other stuff on the internet. We had dinner shortly after. We ate grilled chicken, rice and steamed veggies. It was delicious. I really liked the way she made the rice. We talked a little bit more about geocaching as we ate.
I got my stuff together because I thought I should go home so I could help with the rental the next day. We still had a lot of stuff to get done. I thanked them for letting me come down and stay with them, feeding me and taking me to GC12. We hoped that the Bend cache machine in a few weeks would work with our schedules and that we could go down and do it as a group.
On the way home I wanted to get two more towns for the towns and cities challenge. I grabbed an easy micro in a tree in Ridgefield and a small tube near a tree in a small park in LaCenter. Only 47 more to go! I remembered that WSU was at USC and I turned on the radio. Last time I heard it was scoreless at the end of the first quarter. It was almost the end of the fourth and tied 7-7, WSU had the ball. We didn't get a TD but made our field goal. We were up by three with less than two minutes to go. USC threw an interception and it was ours for the taking. In victory formation we actually beat USC, who was ranked #25 this week, first time since I was a freshman in college ('02-'03).
I was so jazzed up after that win it was hard to go to bed when I got home. I unpacked the car, relaxed and fell asleep.
Next Adventure: Lake St. Clair Boat Caches
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