Techically Vancouver

Bev talked to Bob about our caching habits.  We never seem to get to our destination caches when we are always stopping along the way to pick up everything and some of those caches we need to get to fill in certain grids or complete certain challenges.  It's one of those instances where, "we drove all the way down here might as well get them."

I got all of my stuff ready the night before.  I was so tired from the weekend it took a lot to get out of my bed at 7.  I got all of my stuff and made sure I had my lunch box and headed out the door when I saw their headlights.

On the way down we stopped at the traditional bathroom stop and shared funny stories the rest of the way towards Vancouver.  Our first stop was off of the first Mill Plain exit.  We grabbed four of them pretty quickly.  One of those four included a multi.  We rarely do multis unless they are simple.  The reason is, one part or many parts are missing or very vague.  For example, if you are looking for certain numbers on a sign and they tell you to count lines and many of them could be part of the solution and you pick the wrong numbers, it could be a long frustrating day.  This one was easy and simple. We found the cache before we even go to the tree it was hiding under.

The next three or four took us down a road that didn't show up on our GPS's.  That included a few guardrail caches, one hiding inside of a tree and one at the Northwood Park Cemetery.  All were easy grabs and were in great condition.

The next one took us to a small park off the side of a road near several housing developments.  We found the cache inside of a hollowed tree with a pair of jean shorts wrapped around it.  Of course I made a few jokes about it and weirded out Bev.

Whipple Creek Hollow was the next cache according to the GPS's.  We drove down a road where several new houses were being built.  Due to the call of nature, we stopped and used one of the porta potties before making our way to the trail head to the creek.  Once again, we should have read the logs before we walked all the way down there.  We didn't find it after looking for about a half hour.  At least the walk was pretty.

We got back onto the main road in the area and saw the fenced in area.  How in the world do we get in there?  We found a parking spot at a nearby apartment complex, Bev opted to stay.  I saw an opening in the fence so Bob and I walked over to the "Tiny Forest" to get the cache.  It was situated very tactfully inside the ivy on the old oak tree.  It took us a few seconds to zero in on the correct side of the tree.

We had a few more DNF's that we think the cache was actually not there but we did give a few minutes of extensive searching.  We moved on towards the hospital and found a few around the large parking lot.  Bob and Bev had been here once before and found one of them because on their way home from Mount Hood earlier this summer, they needed one on the way home to keep their streak going.

We found a few more before calling for a lunch break.  Of course we went to McBob's.  Before going in, we noticed there was a cache nearby.  They said they've been here before to look for it but never could find it.  I walked right up to it while a bunch of ladies were chatting and having a great time with their Starbucks while getting into their car.  I put it back without them seeing me.

After lunch we made our way east away from I-5.  We found many caches by Geek&Gopher.  The first one took us to the Heritage Historical Farm, a extension part of WSU, where Brenda works.  I found the nano on an old rusted piece of farm equipment.

We went to Luke Jenson's Sports Park to pick up a few.  This place really made me miss playing sports, especially soccer and fastpitch.    The one took us a while to find because the hint was terrible.  Bob ended up finding it in some random spot that didn't make sense.  We found two Geek&Gopher caches, one was a bison tube on a tree and the other was a baseball, it was very clever in its placement.

The next fifteen or so caches were micros in trees and bushes.  There were a few series that we've picked up before in this area, one was the Clark County Cache Run, Crossing Jordan, Pull Over for some Cache and the Black Cherry caches.  I really hate getting out of the car and digging through trees.

We grabbed one at the Costco, one called Watch Out for Sharks!, inside a park behind an elementary school, there I almost fell in a hole taking a picture of Bev with the cache and one so far up a tree I had to jump up and grab the branch.

At this point we had about 45 caches and now we were desperate to grab 50 of them before it got too late and started getting dark.

The last six caches were all unique.  The first one was on a guardrail, okay, that one really wasn't that unique but they were all different.  The next one was a magnetic key holder and we had no trouble making the find on this one.  There was a bird house near a church that contained the cache container.  Bev stayed in the car while we grabbed it.  The cache that came up next on our GPS's was a tricky one.  They let me out of the car and I walked to where the coords put me.  It was a key holder on the homeowner's side of the fence but you had to retrieve it from the sidewalk.  I was almost too short to grab this one but some how I managed to pull it out of its hidey spot and put it back without looking suspicious.  We found a micro in the brush and completed a cache challenge.  It was called 50 in a Day and we've done this task multiple times already.   The last people to find this cache was Ben and Jayme.

For our last cache of the day, which ended up being 51, we finished off with a letterbox, since there really aren't anymore around our area and now there are a bunch of challenges that require you to find 50 or more letterboxes.  This one would make number 26 for me and I still have a long ways to go for my 50 letterboxes. 

We made our way to the freeway and made it to the Sizzler in Longview for dinner.  We were all starving.  I had chicken fingers and fries and they had their senior meals complete with a salad bar.  We got home around 9 and I logged some of the finds before I got tired and went to bed.

Next Adventure:  Geocaching in Space

Haunted House, Freaker's Ball and My First Sounders Game

Megan had invited me to go to the Haunted House, My Morbid Mind, on the Friday before Halloween.  I haven't been to a haunted house since 2006, when we went to the Haunted Palouse while at WSU.  I rallied and got a text message out to everyone I thought would be interested.  I invited Ben, someone I had gone out on a date with a few days ago.  I thought he would like to meet my friends and enjoy a haunted house as well.  What I didn't know is how interested he was in me and I wasn't sure how to handle it in front of my friends who know me in a certain way.  Eventually I got more used to it as the night went on.  Everyone got there and we had to wait for Lindsay because she worked until 9:30.  We all had beers and chatted for a bit.

Megan, Erin, Lindsay, Curtis, Nicole, me and Ben all made it to the haunted house in two cars.  We paid and stood in line for our turn.

The haunted house wasn't all that scary but more creepier than I had envisioned it.  It had a creepy doll room, a really cool black light paint room, a poo room and other random crazy rooms.  At the end was a guy with a chain saw, a lot of people screamed.

We went back to Megan's for more beer and to chill for a while and visit.  We watched some SNL videos, Megan showed us some wedding pictures and talked about Halloween.  I thanked everyone for coming out and I chatted with Ben out in the driveway for a bit.

The next day we met at Celeste's house to get ready to go to the Freaker's Ball at the Lake Lawrence Lodge.  I waited too long to get a costume so I was frantically trying to find one at the last minute.  I had some great ideas for costumes back in August but time just caught up to me.  I finally found one a few days before at Target.  I was going to be Leonardo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  A few years back I was Michaelangelo while in college.  I arrived at 5, after mom helped me get into my costume, it was made for a kid about an inch shorter than I was.  I had to be safety pinned in.  We chatted with Celeste's mom and dad and took a few pictures before being dropped off at the lodge.

We got there and immediately found what tables we were going to call home base.  We found Charlie and his family.  I found out he was related to people I had no idea he was related to.  Very small world.  There were some really creative costumes including Garth and Wayne from Wayne's World, Clark Kent, many pirates, zombies, nuns, clowns and others.  I was the only ninja turtle.  We ate food before all of it disappeared and we mingled and danced.  Eventually it got weird.  Nicole had way too much wine and we ended up taking care of her because she fell down a lot.  It wasn't even midnight yet and we all walked home, holding Nicole up.  It was very hard since she wore her costume.  She said many strange things that made us laugh and we both ended up with kisses just before we got her back to Celeste's house.  We took care of her and put her to bed.  Then Celeste and I chatted for a while.  It was a nice visit.  I drove home and went to bed.

Ben had asked me if I wanted to go to a Sounder's game with him and his best friend Mike Sunday evening.  I had never been to one so I was very stoked to attend one.  I met them at the train station in Puyallup but the train never came. Ben wore a Where's Waldo outfit because it was almost Halloween and just to see how many people would notice.  Ben gave me a Sounders scarf to wear to the game.  I smiled.  We jumped into Mike's car and headed to the Tukwila station.  We got out tickets and waited for the Link.  According to Mike, we would have about a half hour before the game and we may or may not make it to the march.  The march is several thousand Sounder's fans meet at Occidental Park and Drew Carey gets them pumped up.  Then they all head towards the stadium chanting Sounder's songs.  There are signs, scarfs, banners, beer and lots of excitement.  Sadly, we did not make the march this time.

We went to Temple Billiards for some beer before the game.  We ordered two pitchers of Mack and Jacks and had less than a half hour to drink them.  I have never drank that much that fast ever.  I ended up having three pints of beer, Ben and Mike had about six.  It hit me when we were in line to get into the game.  I was officially drunk.  We got inside and we sat in the 253 Defiance section which was behind the south end goals.  They had chats, flags and songs, we were clapping and I don't think we even sat down.  Technically we weren't suppose to be in that area but Mike and Ben knew most of the people around us.  I learned the songs fairly quickly.  It wasn't just a soccer game it was epic!  We played the LA Galaxy and the game ended up in a tie.  That was our third date and I knew I definitely liked him.

We got back on the train and Mike drove us back to the train station.  I told Ben I had a great time and if I had to give back the scarf or not.  He said no, that is yours to have because we will be going to more in the future.  I thanked him for inviting me and he and Mike drove off.  I went home as well.  It was quite the weekend and I look forward to hang out with him some more in the future.

Next Adventure:  Caching in Vancouver, Wash.

Ridgefield, Battle Ground and La Center

We planned on heading down to the Vancouver area again but we never seem to actually make it to the place we plan on going to.  Bob always has to stop along the way to grab them as we go to our final destination.  Because we stop at all of them, we never seem to make it to where we're going.  Instead of Vancouver, we ended up caching in Ridgefield, Battle Ground and La Center.  Which isn't a bad thing, we did end up getting 50 caches, but it is tough because they've been down here more than I have and our queries are different and he won't stop at ones he's already gotten.

I got up around 7 because they were going to be here around 7:30.  They meet with their kids in the morning for coffee before they head to work.  I got all my stuff together and made sure I had some snacks for the trip down because we never know when we'll have time for food.

They arrived just after 7:30 and I got in the car with all my bags and lunch box.  We were on our way to the Vancouver area.  I actually wasn't as tired as I thought I would be.  On the way down, we talked about several different things and even stopped at the Toutle Lake Rest Area, one of our traditions on our way down.

We got to our first one on the list.  It took us towards Ridgefield right off of I-5.  It was a bearsnme cache called Bee Careful, one of the many I-5 series she has put out in the last year or so.  There was another one not too far down the road we grabbed quickly.  We saw a crane standing in the middle of the field just doing its crane thing.  From there, we went west towards downtown Ridgefield but made a few stops along the highway.  We grabbed many guardrails, tons of micros hanging in trees (we knew better coming down to Cowlitz/Clark county, they are riddled in them), and some actually hidden near bottoms of trees and stumps.

We got into town and tried looking for this park and ended up driving in circles because Bob got frustrated with our directions.  We've never been here before Bob, chill.  We parked to grab one that wasn't there.  Go figure and found the road that lead to Abrams Park.  All of them but one was missing and we barely found that one.

We went back into town to grab one more before we got hungry.  Instead of having lunch like normal people, we each bought a bag of chips and when we went to pay for it, I found a unscratched lotto ticket left in the tray so we took it with us.  We didn't win.

Next on the list was Old Carty Place, one of the remaining oldies in Washington State.  I thought about grabbing it the last time I was near here but it got dark and I know it's a small hike.  We tried stopping for two along the way but they were missing...we really need to check logs before we stop.

We followed the GPS to the refuge.  We parked the car and made our way to the trail head.  There were a bunch of little kids with their moms.  We were hoping they weren't going to be on the trail with us.  We walked up over the train tracks, we got to see a train go by, and onto the paved trail.  The cache was .60 away from where we were.  It took us a lot to convince Bob to come get this one since it was out of the way.  But we told him this was the only one up here and we know he doesn't like leaving ones, so we had a good case.  We took a few pictures along the way, the weather was beautiful.  The high was around 71 and sunny.  It was t shirt and shorts weather.  I should have brought shorts with me.

We admired the 300 year old oak tree and the fall foliage as we made our way down the neatly groomed nature trail.  Bev led the way towards one of the oldest ammo boxes in Washington State.  We chatted about the history challenge to pass the time while we walked.  I still had quite a few more before I was finished.  I may or may not get to finish it next year.

After a short hike we finally got to the grassy knoll where we found the uprooted tree and Bob found the ammo can hidden in its twisted roots.  We got to sign a 12 year-old log book.  Pretty epic.  We took turns taking pictures of ourselves with the cache and placed it back where we found it.  Another one done and many more to go.

We made the walk back to the car.  The warm wind blew softly from the river and reminded me again on how much I missed summer already.  We moved onto the next couple along the refuge, Refuge Entrance and Turn Around Cache.  One of those wasn't found in a while and had several DNF's, but we found it.  Haha.

We went to a really cool one inside a cemetery dedicated to the pioneers who settled on this land back in the 1800's.

We went to several skirt lifters, many small parks and found tons of micro caches in bushes and trees.  We were almost tired of it but Bob loves his numbers.  We found ourselves near Battle Ground once again and managed to turn a few DNF's we had last July into finds.  The two were D'Anjou #9 and Kellen's Cache on Daybreak Park/Trail near the East Fork Lewis River.  We completely looked in the wrong spot and I finally moved my way towards the river and found it with a stick.  Go glad that one's off the list.

We continued up the 503 picking up a ton of guardrail caches, specifically a series called Woodland to Coug to BG, most of them were easy and some of them we actually all had to get out of the car and look.  We should almost have this series done unless they add more.  When we got to Fargher Pond area that's where we turned around and started heading west towards I-5.

We grabbed two off the the 503 at a cemetery and a grocery store.  The sun started to set.

We stopped at a small business connected to a cranberry farm to look for a cache near an old boat along the road.  It was funny trying to remember which side was starboard and which side was port.  We eventually got it right because we found the cache.  We took a few pictures of the area because I thought it was a great view.

 

 Once we were going towards the freeway, we found a couple others along some side roads.  Several of the caches had recent DNF's.  We were going to prove them wrong.  Bev and I found them on the ground and tucked away in places not helpful by the hint.  We made it to La Center and we managed to find our fifty caches before it got too dark.  One of our last short hikes took us down the Breezy Creek Trail.

On the way home we verified our caches on the lists we wrote down along the way.  For some reason they didn't match up.  We found our error and was happy with the results.  We stopped in Kelso and had some Taco Time because like Bev always says, "there's always time for tacos."

Next Adventure:  Haunted House, Freakers Ball and My First Sounders Game

Carving Pumpkins and Game Night

We wanted to have a holiday themed game night.  We all met at Celeste's house and carved pumpkins with her mom and dad.  Nicole, Charlie and I showed up.  We carved pumpkins, ate snacks and then played a rousing game of Telestrations.  Later on that evening Lindsay and Simon showed up after a long day of hiking in the Olympics.  It was a fun night. 

My lovely pumpkin.  I ended up stabbing myself with the knife by accident.

Nicole and I acting goofy before we carved our pumpkins.

The finished products!

Next Adventure:  Ridgefield, Battle Ground and La Center

Caching in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest

Last of the Mochicans and Bear's Den were on the list last October but along the way, after finding several caches already, we got towards the park along Riffe Lake and saw the gate and the sign.  Closed for fire danger.  Ughhh.  I was so disappointed.  You can read up on our plan B from last year: 

http://cougval.blogspot.com/2012/10/center-of-geocaching-triad.html

They came and got me around 7:50 and I had all of my stuff ready from the night before.  I had to wait for a bit because their kids stayed longer than anticipated at their house while they had coffee.  I stood out on the porch ready and waiting.  They rolled up around 7:50.  We all knew this would be a short day because Bob had to go bowling around 5.  I put my stuff in the car and we were on our way.

We drove down I-5 trying to avoid back tracking.  I turned my GPS on and my query failed.  We had to go by their GPS's.  This was the second time my query has failed to load.  Last time was when I was in Mossyrock with our new caching friends last spring.  I wasn't too bent out of shape because I knew we would not stop for the ones I needed.

We got to the first available one and found out we couldn't access it from Hwy 12 but through Mossyrock and Swofford Pond.  We had to bail on that.  However, I got an excellent shot of the dam.

Bob was kind of irritated because we were wasting precious geocaching time.   We've never been here, how were we suppose to know?  We moved onto the next closest according to their GPS.  We drove past several of them I didn't have yet.  It made me sad a little on the inside.

Andy's Birthday Cache (GC2GA79) has hurt our feelings once.  We drove up there and found out the gate was closed about a year ago.  We were hoping it didn't disappoint us again.  This time the gate was open so we continued on.  We got up to the top and BAM, Mount Rainier right in your face! I took a few pictures and went to find the cache.  Ugh, we couldn't find it.  We checked every root ball and every stump.  We failed and the cache beat us yet again.  It was disappointing driving all the way up this hill and it wasn't there.  However it wasn't a total bust, we got to see Mount Rainier and a side we don't normally see.

We made our way towards Bear's Den and Last of the Mochicans.  We grabbed a few caches along that road before we arrived at the Goat Creek Trailhead.  That included a strangely named one, Windows Up, Windows Down, no window's were actually involved in retrieving the cache, Riffe Lake Deep Woods, which was not correctly rated and one more cache by the Tupp's family.

And now the part we've been waiting for...for a year!  No fire warnings!  Yes!  We followed NF2750 and came across a large black truck in the middle of the road.  Luckily, there was a spot to manuver around him because he wasn't going to move for anyone. We drove around him slowly with the window down, just to find out why he was in the middle of the road and clearly saw us behind him and he didn't move, "excuse me, is there something in the road?" Bev asked. He looked down, then looked at us and said, "nah, just eating my candy."  Really!?  You wouldn't move out of the way because you're too busy eating candy in the middle of nowhere?  Okay?

From the Gifford Pinchot National Forest website:

"Goat Creek Trail is 5.5 miles long and begins in old growth Douglas Fir and Western Red Cedar.  After 0.5 miles the trail passes underneath spectacular waterfalls, then follows Goat Creek.  It crosses a small creek twice as it climbs to views of the forest below. The trail wanders near open meadows and rock cliffs before it meets with Goat Mountain Trail #217 south of Vanson Peak."

 
We got to the end of the road and parked in the tiny area designated for vehicles.  We put on our orange, you never know during hunting season, our walking poles, cameras and GPS's.  It was a short hike to Bear's Den, Kenny's cache.  He had told Bev a little bit about it before we went this morning.  We got to the den and started looking around.  We sorta started looking in the wrong area but eventually figured it out by process of elimination...the GPS's weren't going to help us, too much bouncing around.  I retrieved it from the "ledge" and threw it down towards Bev, I thought it would stop rolling once it got to the trail but it kept going, and going, so glad it stopped on the log.  We dug through it and signed the log.  We got a picture at the bear's den.

We had a half a mile to go until we got to the Goat Creek waterfall.  I was pretty excited about this.  We crossed over two small creeks along the way, over several roots and had to step around several muddy areas.

We went up the last hill and around the corner...there it was, a waterfall you can walk behind.  I was stoked.  The area was so pretty.  I took a few pictures and then we went and found the cache.  Then we took more pictures.  It's not everyday you get to see something this awesome.

It was quicker on our way back to the car.  I'm pretty sure I will probably come back here and bring some others to see this.  I may even continue on towards Vanson Peak and or Deadman's Lake to grab those ones and make a day out of it.

We didn't have a lot of time to venture towards Randle so we drove west to Morton and stopped by Bev's hamburger place.  We found out that it was also called Spiffy's and the famous one along I-5 at exit 68 owns the one in Morton.  The food was pretty good and I would probably come here again.

After a late lunch, early dinner, we grabbed four more along Hwy 7 towards Elbe.  They were all pretty easy and the last one, Plunderous Porkers gave us a runaround.  I eventually got the GPS to settle down and tell me where it was.  It was part of the Angry Bird series by K2D2.

From there, we just went home.  Bob had to get ready for bowling.  They dropped me off and I ate dinner and logged my finds.  Until the next adventure!

Next Adventure:  Carving Pumpkins and Game Night

Life Improvements: Things to Think About

1.  Make peace with your past so it won't screw up the present.

2.  What others think of you is none of your business.

3.  Time heals almost everything so give it time.

4.  Don't compare your life to others and don't judge them.  You have no idea what their journey is all about.

5.  Stop thinking too much it's alright not to know the answers.  They will come to you when you least expect it.

6.  No one is in charge of your happiness, except you.

Football Fever, Geocaching and Tieton Surplus

I got up to the sound of Shannon cleaning the house for Marie to come over and watch the Seahawks game with us.  We were playing the 10 a.m. game against the Colts.  The game was very win-able.   Willmarth made popcorn and we had apples as we watched the first quarter of the game.  From my point of view, we played not to lose.  Everything seemed like we were playing careful so we didn't lose our first game of the season.  Every quarter killed us slowly.  Half time was too close for comfort with a score of 19-17.

We got more upset and disappointed as the game wore on.  It was hard to watch it.  We ended up losing to the Colts after almost making it down the field to go ahead.  However, Wilson threw an interception to make it official.  They handed us our first loss, 34-28.

We ate chili for lunch.

The rest of the day we watched football, checked our fantasy leagues and wished we could have had that game back.  The refs were really inconsistent.

Dinner was pizza from Papa Murphy's while we watched a special late game with the Chargers and Raiders.

The next morning I got up around 10 and got ready to go outside in the sunshine.  I had a few caches downloaded and found an area to hit up for a few hours.  I started by heading down 40th towards Hwy 12 and grabbed one along the way, It Takes a Village.  That was an easy park and grab and a great way to start the late morning.

I made it down to Fruitvale Blvd and found the entrance to Myron Lake.  There were three I could get from here since the Yakima Greenway Trail was accessible from this area.  I took a few pictures of the walk around Lake Myron.

The views were beautiful.  I really enjoyed the walk.  I kinda wished there were more around this area.  I got to the first cache along the trail, it was called Copy Cat 3.  It didn't fool me.

The next one was a little further down the trail.  I found Foggy Eagles as soon as I stepped off the trail.  Everyone driving down Hwy 12 could see me.

I walked back to the van and found the one inside the parking lot before I left the area.  It was a film canister laying next to a tree.  When I put it back I made sure it was covered a little better than I found it.  I found the one in the parking lot near the Sharis before I stopped at the Fred Meyer to look for the cache near the bus stop. Apparently it's hard and even harder when there is a muggle sitting there waiting for the bus.  I'm sure I weirded him out after spending a few minutes looking before I moved on.

I stopped at one just to see if it was there.  There were several DNF logs but the area they brought me to was pretty awesome.  It was an area called Painted Rocks.  I looked for a while and came up with nothing but enjoyed the views.

I moved onto Powerhouse Rock Wall, one placed by Yakimacacher, a guy I've known for a few years.  I'm glad there was a spot to park off the road because it was a strange little intersection of roads.

I made my way halfway up Naches Heights to grab a cache called Juice Me if You Can, the name came from the fact that there were batteries inside the container.  I went after it because the previous finder said they had fun looking for it and they were right.  I had a great time looking for this one.  I got to climb around boulders.  It was a bit windy.

I found the next closest one on the GPS and made my way up Cowiche Canyon Road and near Summitview.  (The next time I am here I think I may do the ones on the Cowiche Canyon trail.)  I grabbed six more before I made my way back to the house.  One was pretty memorable.  Westside's London Bridge was pretty unique.  Without the hint I don't think I would have figured out how to get to it as quickly as I did.  I knew the cache was underneath the bridge but how to get to it?  The slats moved.  I had to move each one before the cache peaked its way out of its hidey hole.

The two final caches I grabbed were on Tieton Drive, one was at a pizza place and the other was at a building called Glenwood Square.  It was a nice building full of restaurants and shops.  I used the bathroom before I went back.

I got back and the dogs went nuts.  I ate a very late lunch and logged my finds.  He walked in about a half hour later.  We watched TV before we got ready for basketball practice at Kennewick High School.  I haven't seen the girls since April.  We stopped for dinner at the Zillah McDonald's and then chatted the rest of the way down on I-82.  We arrived and I pumped up the basketballs the girls got to keep.  Practice went very well and it was fun working with them again.

We left and made it back to Yakima around 10:30 and Shannon was already in bed.  We watched TV for a while and then went to bed.  The couch was very comfy.

I got up the next morning and he had just walked though the door.  He did some grocery shopping, got his oil changed and had to fix his glasses because Fletcher ate part of it.  We had Burger King for breakfast.  Between TV and the next thing on the list I started packing my stuff in the van.

He asked if I wanted to go with him to a place in Tieton.  His brother wanted some end tables from a surplus store he saw on Craigslist. Willmarth shared some of his knowledge about the area because I have never been to this area before.  We found the surplus building and the guy met us outside.  I was kinda excited I got to go into this old warehouse to look through stuff.

We ended up talking to the guy for about an hour while we looked through all of his surplus.  We took two end tables, a desk and a flag made out of old barn wood and milk paint home with us. I helped him unload it.  I put the rest of my stuff in the van including the cans he saved for me, the t shirts we're going to make quilts out of and a box of honey crisp apples from the Union Gap fruit stand.  I gave him a hug and thanked him for letting me stay with him for the weekend and the pirate plunder race.

I put my home coords onto the Nuvi and she said I would be home by 6ish.  The drive over the pass was pretty pleasant and I didn't have to wait at the spot that got wrecked by the weather about a two weeks ago.  We did get stuck behind a slow vehicle as we entered the ski area on top of White Pass.  Luckily, they moved over.  There was a light dusting of snow and it was pretty.  I got this shot on the way down.

I got home around 6 and unloaded the van before I took it back to grandma and drove my car home.  I took a shower and ate some dinner before relaxing and putting stuff away.  It was a fun weekend and I hope to go back over soon.

Next Adventure:  Caching in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest