Spanaway Lake CITO (GC52MQ2)

Today I gave back to the geocaching community.  Hoovers69 planned a CITO for us at Spanaway Lake Park and I was so happy to see it was on a Thursday instead of a Saturday, a day I actually had off.  I knew Ben had a shift at REI but some stuff happened and now he didn't.  We went and picked up Bev and while en route towards Spanaway Ben got a call back from REI.  They wanted him to come into work after all.  I turned around and dropped him off at the house.  I had to turn my car off to let him in the house to get his stuff.  He had about 45 min to get to the Westside from my house.  And my car wouldn't start.

We called Grandma to come get us and take us back to Bev's house to use her car.  Sometimes I hate my car.  I've had car problems since I could drive.  I always get the hand-me-downs.  I can't wait until I can afford to buy a new car.  We were off to Spanaway.

We arrived at the cannon and talked to the cachers while we waited for everyone to arrive.  Bev and I were there as well as Hoovers69, Adammack75, Verteron, Tysapper73 and his two kids.  We shared some TB's and he decided that it was time to start so he handed us some bags and we were off.  Bev and I picked up a ton of garbage just in the first ten minutes or so.

As we got closer to the lake, a woman who said she wasn't from the area, asked what we were doing and if we were a part of a club.  I told her we were part of a community club and we were giving back by picking up garbage at the local park.  She genuinely said thank you to me and that she really appreciated it.  A few minutes later a couple were having a small BBQ down by the creek and she asked me if I was a part of a group picking up trash and I told her the same thing I told the other lady.  Before I left, they told me thank you as well.  People do still notice when others do something good.

I followed everyone up across the bridge and up towards Muzzle Loader Medium Range (GC50PXZ), a cache Ben and I could not find a few weeks ago.  Ben and I spent at least a half hour looking everywhere.  Today, the clean up crew spent at least that much time on it until Bev called Frisbee'r.  He gave us some hints and what do ya know, Adam pulled it out of its hiding spot.  Yes!  We turned that frown upside down!

We followed Hoover69 to Muzzle Loader Short Range (GC4ZMCK) on the back side of the park along the fence line.  Adam also came up with that one.  It was a fence cap hide.  We tried looking for the Muzzle Loader Long Range (GC4ZMDF) but came up short.  There was way too many spots to look in the woods without a decent hint and jumpy coords.

We threw our garbage away in the nearest dumpster, used the restroom and made our way back to the car.  We talked to Hoover69 and Verteron before heading into the south side of the park to find Muzzle Loader Backfire (GC50F62).  We thought it would be easy but we didn't find that one either.  We would have to come back another time.

We ate dinner at Little Park Restaurant, off of Pacific Highway.  It's been there for more than fifty years.  She had a french dip and I had a burger and fries.  It really hit the spot after a hot walk around the park.

On the way home Bev stopped and let me grab Log That Log (GC4M83H), a puzzle off of Hart's Lake Road.  It was one of the coolest puzzles I've done.  Tysapper73, one of the cachers who attended the event with his kids, is going to be moving soon and possibly taking his cache with him so I thought why not get it?

You had to pop the tool out and use that to push in a spring that allowed the other knot in the log to pull out and the logbook was inside ready to be signed.  We assembled it back the way it was and headed home.

We worked on my car the next day. We suspected the alternator, battery or the starter. It was the starter and $120 later my car runs again.

Next Adventure:  Mariners Game and Feather Boas