Point Defiance, Milestones and Engine House No. 9

Ben and I had discussed doing our milestones (100th and 7500th) together somewhere memorable or with a great view.  We've thought of many places but kinda ran out of time due to the weather, work schedules and that I was doing a coin challenge the next day, which meant at least 30 or more caches.  We came up with a plan that supported the amount of time we would have on Friday.

I got done with work at 12:15 and had to wait around for another half hour/45 minutes while mom and Amy messed around with the x-ray machine.  I just wanted to go because I knew we had to go do a few chores around town before we went home.  Once home, I had to grab a few things, change and get gas before I left town.  Ben had just gotten his taxes done just north of Parkland/Tacoma.  He texted me the address of the LA Fitness I was suppose to meet him at in Tacoma.  From home, I went until I got there.  I had to use the bathroom really bad.  I found a Petco and found out they didn't have any restrooms for the public so I ran over to Subway.  Ben watched me do this from his car and he laughed.

I made sure we had all the stuff we needed from my car and put it in the back seat of Ben's.  I locked it and hoped no one would break into it...this is Tacoma ya know.  We headed off to Point Defiance Park.

http://www.metroparkstacoma.org/point-defiance-park/

I haven't been here in at least 20 years.  The last time was a elementary school field trip.  I don't even remember which teacher it was...I wanna say Mr. Pitts and our fourth grade class.  We found a place to park and got out.  The wind hit with such fierce!  It was soo cold.

We walked to an Asian place near the Pagoda and took some cool pictures together celebrating our milestones.

We walked around the area and made it to the huge pond near the entrance where lots of ducks were swimming.  There were several signs telling us not to feed the wildlife.  We took a few pictures in this area and noticed across the pond at something we thought was a little weird.  We noticed a half dressed girl (bra and underwear) and another girl with a camera taking pictures of her.  It was freezing and it seemed a little strange this was happening.  We continued doing what we were doing.

 

It was getting dark and colder so we decided to grab the closest cache, Wilkes View (GCM1T6).  This is the one we used for our 100th and 7500th cache.  We tried accessing it from the bottom from the pier/boardwalk.  Our calculations were off and discovered they were above us instead.  Dang it.  We did enjoy our time walking along the boardwalk.  The water was very choppy this evening.

We walked back up there. The coords took us to a gazebo so we started looking there.  I read the hints after coming up short and saw that the coords were off.  I checked one tree and then the other tree nearby.  I knew exactly where it was but I was too short to grab it.  I got onto Ben's shoulders and using teamwork, we retrieved the cache with ease.  We took it over to the gazebo and documented our find.

We put it back and decided to hop in Ben's car and drive to the next one.  We didn't get the right road so we continued on to A Beautiful Engagement (GCHBF8).  We pulled over and parked the car on a wide spot along the side of the road and got out and bushwhacked/walked to it.  We made the opposite mistake...came at it from the top and it was down below along the boardwalk.  Lame!

We walked to the There's Fungus Amongus, (GC3V7QF).  When we didn't find it right away, we looked at the logs and the last ten were DNF's so we just moved on.  We walked back down the one-way road towards the car and found there was one less than 200 feet away called Point Guilt (GCQ8Q6).  I knew it was in that tree but could not manage to get it.  It was getting dark and my phone was in the car.  I started reaching inside the holes and finally pulled it out.

We drove down to Owen's Beach, parked the car and went and got A Beautiful Engagement.  It was on the embankment behind the bench.  Apparently, a couple got engaged here on July 1, 2011.  I took a couple pictures and walked back to the car.

It got darker and darker.  We thought about getting a few more but decided to wait another day.  We went and had dinner at Engine House No. 9.

http://ehouse9.com/ 

It was very busy but we got in right away because there was only two of us.  He had the turkey pesto and I had the french dip.  We both had beers, I had the E-9 Rowdy Dick Amber and he had the Orkney Skull Splitter (Scotland).   Both were pretty good.  We played some BuzzTime Trivia as we waited and ate our food.  We had to stop because our phones died.  Haha.

After we ate, we played two rounds of shuffleboard.  I won the first game and Ben won the second game.  It definitely took a few tries to learn the board and how hard to push it.  We got back in the car and he took me back to LA Fitness where he dropped me off.  He left his frozen dinner for shift the next day at my house so he drove back home with me.  We hung our for about an hour and he had to go.

It was a great date night and looking forward to many more.

Next Adventure:  St. Helens Geocoin Challenge

**SNOW**

Today we got our first real snow storm of the season.  We were visiting Grammie for a few hours when it started.  We decided to head home before it got bad and the roads got slippery.  It came down hard.  It piled up really fast.  We got home after we stopped and grabbed the mail.  We checked on the chickens and ducks, who have been out in the snow most of the day.  Then we decided to make our own snowman and run it over with Ben's car.  Haha.

It took us an hour to roll out all the snowballs, shape and put a face on it.  I turned my mom's car around so we had headlights shining on it so the camera could see it.  He ran it over and I filmed it.  It was hilarious.

The video of Ben running the snowman over.

Next Adventure: Point Defiance, Milestones and Engine House No. 9

Seattle Seahawks XLVII Champions and the Superbowl Parade

The Seahawks finally won the Super Bowl.  It's been 38 years since we've been waiting for this and it actually happened in my lifetime.  I was stoked and still a little blown away on how we got there.  The season was full of ups and downs, mostly ups and we were all there for the epic ride.

We stopped by the Tehaleh graffiti wall that Sunday for some Seahawk pictures.  I had seen the wall on the Komo News 4 fan website and had to go.  Ben and I had fun with our pictures.  We even found two caches before we left.

We went over to Ben's friends, Walt and Wendy's house for the big game.  They were huge fans so their house was decked out in everything Seahawk.  There was tons of food, Skittles and Pepsi products.  It was the most decorated Super Bowl party I had ever been to regardless of who was playing.  I wore my divisional championship shirt, my Seahawks sweatshirt and a pair of Seattle Skyline socks I have had in my room for two years waiting for the day to be worn.  I promised myself I would wear them when the Seahawks were in the Super Bowl and that day finally arrived.

I did not expect us to blow out the Denver Broncos.  I honestly thought it would come down to the very end and the team who won would win by at least three to seven points.  We were all surprised to watch the game unfold for the Broncos, the so-called number one offense in the NFL, who showed a pretty pathetic performance that night.  I mean the Seahawks just came out and crushed them.  It was insane.  We all had a great time watching us play well and hoist the Lombardi Trophy above our heads while a sea of blue and green confetti swirled through the air.  It was the perfect end to a long football season.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_Bowl_XLVIII

Since we were Super Bowl 48 champions, the city of Seattle was going to hold a parade on Wednesday.  We had planned on going.  We were very excited to be a part of history.  We had no idea how insane it was actually going to be.

Of course we went to bed late trying to get everything ready for the morning and then got up way to early when the alarm went off at 5 a.m.  Ugh, it was time to get up for our extremely long, cold and tiring day.  The high for Seattle was going to be around 32 and the low was 21.

We rushed because Wendy, Walt and Walt's sister Wendy, told us to meet them at the Puyallup train station before 6 because we were going to get on that train.  We got there a little late, we had to look for parking, ended up at the overflow parking a few blocks away and our travel buddies were running late.  We finally got a hold of them and they apologized for the lateness and that they would be there as soon as possible.  Ben asked that they let us know when they are there so we can meet them there or walk over to the train station together.  They agreed.  We waited to hear from them.  We saw a train come and go and we got worried.  We were going to be on the 7 a.m. train as far as we knew.  We didn't hear from them so we got our stuff and started walking to the station.  Ben was kinda upset because the communication wasn't going so well and we had a very long day ahead of us.

We got to the train station and we got a hold of them again.  They told us they were grabbing tickets for everyone and everything was smoothed out.  We stood in line to get on the Sounder.  It arrived shortly and we got on the top floor, found seats and waited until we got to King Street.  We talked to many people who were sitting or standing around us.  Ben and I sat at a table with a guy from the Silverdale area and a little girl who liked to talk to strangers (her dad was standing right beside us).  In fact, her dad was one of the lucky ones who actually got to go to the Super Bowl.  He got back on Monday and looked like he got maybe 2 hours of sleep since the game got over.

We got to King Street and got off the train.  There were already thousands of people wandering around the area.  We thought we would find ourselves a spot and go find something to eat and drink...along with thousands of other people who thought the same thing.  I'm glad we brought snacks so we really didn't have to wait in god-awful lines.  I decided to wait in the line at Zeitgeist Coffee so we could stay warm for a while.  Walt's sister Wendy needed some coffee and some snacks to keep her going.  We said why not and decided on hot chocolate.  We were in line for at least an hour and fifteen before we actually got to the counter to order.

Out of the million people outside waiting for the parade I never thought I would actually see someone I knew.  And there he was.  I saw Seth, Sean and his family finding spots to watch the parade.  I was shocked that with everyone I knew who was going I would run into Sean.  I stood out there for about fifteen minutes or so chatting.  Then I returned inside to hang out with Ben and Wendy and to continue waiting in line for our drinks.

http://zeitgeistcoffee.com/

When we got to the counter, the barista explained that some guy came in this morning and paid for everyone's coffee, drinks or food up to $500.00.  So we didn't owe anything except a tip for the workers behind the counter.  Ben and I ordered a white hot chocolate, Wendy ordered coffee and a scone and got hot chocolates for both Walt and Wendy, who were outside guarding our spots.  I've never had white hot chocolate before.  It was very tasty and Ben had a great suggestion.

We got them ready, put them in a carrier and headed back outside into the cold.  It was really hard to keep occupied for several more hours.  We talked to the people near us, we sat in other people's chairs because our legs got tired, Ben put me on his shoulders so I could see what it looked like from that point of view and we ate a couple of snacks.  Overall I was fine until my feet got cold, then it was agonizing.  My feet actually hurt....bad.  I tried to stay off of them as much as I could.  It just got colder as the day went on.  I think with all the buildings that surrounded us we got maybe a half hour to an hour of sunshine.

I heard the parade got a late start so they were not going to get to where we were like they estimated.  In fact, they got there an hour or so later than anticipated.  It was hard waiting in the sea of people everywhere.  We had an altercation with some high school/college aged guys who wanted to be let through our area so they could go meet a friend in the street.  There was absolutely no room what-so-ever but they insisted.  We kept telling them to find some other means of getting through to the street and the resisted.  Eventually one of them just dove their way through and almost knocked me over.  I was very close to punching him in the face.  He fell on top of a woman sitting in her chair and tried to punch a guy who was standing in front of me.  The guy basically just threw him in the street and told him to eff off.  People were starting to become douchebags.

After reflecting on the day to this point, I was cold, there were a million people in Seattle shoving, being greedy and I was getting irritated.  I think the thing that bothered me the most was all of the high school and college kids who were ruining it for everyone.  They didn't come for the celebration, they came so they could get out of school for the entire day. Don't get me wrong, there were those few kids who were here for the Seahawks but not many.  I just wanted people to stop being awful.

Time wore on and I got cold.  The wind picked up more.  I got the blanket out and wrapped Ben and I up in it.  We had this plan once the parade got to us Ben was going to put me on his shoulders so I could take pictures without everyone's arms and heads in the way.  My feet were so cold so I started jogging in place.  And then it happened.  We were out in the cold since 7 a.m. and it finally caught up to Walt's wife Wendy.  She had a few health issues and being out there just got to her.  She fainted and landed on my left leg.  Ben immediately responded with his EMT training.  I was still shocked of what was happening.  It sure stirred everyone up and restored my faith in humanity today at that point.  Everyone was willing to help out someone in need.  Someone got a hold of a cop and the paramedics were contacted. Just then, the parade arrived and people became nutty.  She eventually responded to Ben's questions and they got her up and into the coffee house to get warm, some food and liquids into her.  The other Wendy and I stayed out at the parade.

Inside the coffee house, Ben said that there was a very helpful lady and her daughter who had a bunch of hand warmers and pads and just smothered Wendy with them to help get her warm.  They gave her some food and some liquids.  There, they waited until the paramedics arrived.

Outside in the chaos, I was a little unhappy that I wasn't going to experience this with Ben and that it was going to be hard to see over everyone when the parade got here.  And I also thought about how long we waited for this moment out in the cold for that long and they weren't there to enjoy it.  The buses came through first, mostly with the players fans and family on top of them.  I couldn't see so I got the chair out and stood on top of it.  I could see way better.  The owners/coaches and other personnel of the team came through next.  One of them was holding the Lombardi trophy.  This was the first time I got to see it in real life.  It was epic.

Then Lynch and the SeaGals came through on one of the Ducks.

http://www.ridetheducksofseattle.com/

He was throwing Skittles from the front of the vehicle.

After Lynch, was a dozen military vehicles with the rest of the team on them.  They were separated by their positions, for example, special teams, offensive line, Legion of Boom, quarterbacks, etc.  It was awesome.

After the parade went through, everyone who had tickets could go inside Century Link for a presentation.  We had tickets but because Wendy took a fall we had to miss the opportunity.  Wendy and I swam through people and made our way to the coffee house where everyone else was.  The coffee shop owner let us in while he shooed everyone else out because he was closing.  I used the restroom and we continued waiting for the paramedics.  When the arrived they asked questions and used Ben's vitals he took.  Since the coffee shop was closing we had to take her to the antiques store next door.  When she was ready to walk, we got her up and off we went.  The lady inside was nice and let us use her facilities, electricity and chairs.  We were there for about an hour or so waiting for her to get well enough to walk to the trains.

I was so disappointed in people when I saw all the garbage left behind in the streets.  I wished Seattle would have had garbage cans for this event.

Around 3:15 we started walking back to the train station to hop on one of the many southbound trains everyone and their dogs were waiting for.  We stood in line for a long time.

Finally we got on a train and headed back towards Puyallup.  I could actually feel my feet again.  I helped Ben work on anatomy flashcards on our way back.

We got off the train and walked the few blocks to his vehicle.  Wendy, Walt and Wendy were going to meet us at the South Hill Mall for dinner at Famous Dave's, a place I've never been to.  I don't even remember eating my food I was so hungry.

http://www.famousdaves.com/

We visited for a bit and drove back to Ben's house.  We were cold and physically tired.  I could not wait to pass out.  I don't think I will ever do this again when the Seahawks win another Superbowl.  Been there done that.  For all that it was worth, it was worth going even though so many unfortunate things happened.  Until next time.

GO SEAHAWKS!!

Next Adventure: **SNOW**