We loaded up and got gas at the Circle K down the street. The price was okay but not the best. We saw worse gas prices throughout the week and tried to avoid them with our gas buddy app. On our way to Yermo and the mini power trail, Ray discovered that he left the logs back at the hotel, so we had our first epic fail just after 7 a.m. We were just going to have to hope that all the caches had log books inside. If we got really desperate I had lined notebook paper with me.
We started the power trail on Yermo Road at about 7:45. Both Brenda and I got out for these ones with the stamp. This probably hindered us in a way later on that day but we managed to find them all as quick as we could. There were close to 80 of them plus extras along the way. Jim had gotten most of these a few years back when he came to do the Route 66 caches. He was our navigator and Ray drove. The road was absolutely the worst road I have ever seen. There were large chunks missing, potholes, the lines cracked underneath the scorching sun, it was just terrible looking. No wonder a lot of these roads are non existent now, they've got I-40 and I-15.
One thing we did notice was all the trash. There was a lot of garbage on the side of the road, mixed in between the trees and stuck against the fence. It was horrible to see. Some of it you knew someone had come out here with a pick-up and just dumped it off. In fact we even found some of the caches underneath neatly placed trash. We finished the Yermo trail series around 10:10 that morning. We found a few fun ones including Tired of Looking? (GC13AND).
We used the bathroom at Jack n the Box before we started Route 66. At 10:30 we made our way into Dagget, where we started some caches along Route 66 before we actually started the 800 on this power trail. We stopped for a dozen caches, stopped for a train in the middle of nowhere and dropped off a few travel bugs at a TB hotel just off of the route. We decided to make another stop off the route to a cache called The Little Red Caboose (GC2T6JE). We pulled in and the manager of the RV site asked if we were here to find the cache. We collectively said yes. She got excited, went inside and called the cache owner. The cache owner was here? We went inside the caboose and grabbed the cache.
Ray checked to see who owned the cache and it was Tumbleweed2, a WSGA member from the Tri-Cities area who we actually knew! We went over to her trailer and chatted for a bit.
We were at 100 caches for the day just before lunch time.
We took a few pictures, one at the Route 66 sign and one at the actual beginning of the Route 66 power trail. From there, the weather got warmer and warmer. We all had to shed sweatshirts and our light jackets. At Route 66 (000), we stopped for lunch on the side of the road at around 12:15. We made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, had some chips, cookies and drinks. We all needed the energy to finish half of the trail today.
After lunch and putting stuff away, we started the first part of Route 66 around 12:56 at 001. We each took turns driving, stamping, navigating and jumping. We all got into a routine then it was time to change jobs. So we all switched.
We reached 200 caches for the day around 2:30 and at Route 66 114 we found the first ET Highway log with our stamp on it. Some cacher must have brought them down to this series after doing the ET Highway. It was actually pretty cool seeing our stamp on that log. We saw several others throughout our time out here on the road.
The temperature got around 82 degrees and that was roughly around 3-4:00 that afternoon. That was pretty warm for us considering we're from the Pacific Northwest with an average temperature reaching maybe the upper 50's during this time of year. This was the coolest day we had out in the desert.
While Jim drove, he did the last 200 caches while we all took turns jumping, had his first epic blow by around 3:00...we kinda paired that with Brenda's navigating skills. In fact, about a half hour later she marked a DNF on a cache we found and messed up the GPS. Lol!
We made it to Ludlow round 3:30 and got out at an earthcache called Project Plowshare Nuclear Earthcache (GC2J47VB). It requested us to take a picture of our group with the iconic cafe in the background and then read up on how they laid I-40 back in the 1960's. Plus the traditional that was hidden on one of the mining carts.
From there, it was just cache to cache, every tenth or so of a mile. We knew we should have plugged in some music but really didn't want to dig out anything. I didn't know if my Ipod was charged enough to last and I wasn't sure where Ray's Kindle was as far as downloaded music.
Because we got such a late start on Route 66, mostly because of the Yermo trail, we reached 300 at around 4:00 and we really wanted to get halfway done through Route 66. We still had 200 more to go and it was getting late and we were all getting hungry. Ray, Brenda and I shared the last grouping of caches and we powered them out as fast as we could. Jim drove most of this leg. Around 7:00 we hit our 500 caches for the day and we made it to our Route 66 halfway point by stopping at 400-Route 66.
We were stoked getting this far along. We drove the hour back to Barstow and all agreed on Denny's for dinner. I ordered a burger and fries and literally inhaled it.
We all went back to our hotel, showered, used the internet for a while, packed up our stuff to check out tomorrow and went to bed.
I hit my 8,000th milestone on Route 66 with a total of 8,087.
Next Adventure: The California Desert and Route 66 Caching: Day 3
No comments:
Post a Comment