TriCities Geocoin Challenge Day 1

We woke up around 9:20 with the intention of getting ready and heading towards Richland before noon.  That didn't happen.  We ended up watching the world cup game, the US against the Germans.  We lost 1-0 but because of another game, we get to move on even though we lost.  Willmarth went to a dentist appointment and wanted to go to breakfast before we left.  We hung out with Shannon and the dogs for a bit and then started packing the car to get ready to go.  He got done with his appointment, picked up Shannon and we went down the hill and ate breakfast at the Powerhouse Grill.  Willmarth and I had the blueberry pancakes with a side of bacon, Ben had the skillet with pancakes and Shannon had a salad.  Of course we made fun of her.

http://www.powerhousegrillyakima.com/

We got on the road around 1:00 and we knew Bob and Bev were patiently waiting for us.  As we drove along I-82, my temperature gauge started rising.  Luckily one of the Zillah exits were coming up because we had to pull over, my car was smoking.  We got off the freeway and found a boat area next to the river to park in.  We lucked out and had more water with us plus Willmarth bought us some antifreeze when he was at Albertson's this morning.  We dumped all the antifreeze we could inside the reservoir.  About a half hour later we were back on the freeway heading to where Bob and Bev were.  The car did not overheat during this leg of the trip.  We got to Richland without any problems.

We met Bob and Bev at the first cache, R07-Tri-Cities 2013 Geocoin Challenge (GC4AGAZ).  It was inside the Chamna Natural Preserve.  We found it pretty quickly.

We continued to find the next closest one to where we were and got all of the Richland ones.  There were three that were missing or gone.  The code was given to us on the cache page.  We got this third done because this is the only town we had time for.  Most of them were inside parks, lots of bird houses and green water meter circle holes.

After we finished with the seven caches, we had to go to the Richland Parks & Rec department to pick up our first third of our coin.  We were lucky it was open until 10 p.m. that day.  We totally forgot to make two copies, one for me and one for Ben.  I let Ben have the coin since I had one from 2012. 

Since it was getting late and Bob and Bev still had to check-in to their hotel, we decided to part ways until tomorrow morning.  Ben and I found a Fred Meyer nearby for gas and ice.  I got a three cent discount with my card while Ben bought ice for our cooler.  We grabbed two caches in the area, Big Foot (GC1806F) and Goodwill Hunting (GC4XDDM).

We needed to eat dinner before we went to the campsite.  Along the way we saw this place called the Atomic Ale Brew Pub and Eatery.

http://www.atomicalebrewpub.com/

I had the bratwurst sandwich, chips and a side salad and Ben had the pasta special, salad and garlic bread.  I felt like a Sierra Mist while he had Ionizing Irish Red Ale (Richland).  The food was tasty and not badly priced.  We took some of the coasters before we left.

We drove to Horn Rapids County Park and wanted to get our tent set up.  After a minor mistake of missing the driveway, two ladies approached us...you need to see the ranger about letting you guys in.  The boyscouts were here the past few days and they told us to close the gate when we were done.  We drove up to the ranger's house and knocked on the door, no answer.  We got back in the car and drove to the gate.  Ben opened it, we drove in and he kinda closed it behind him.  We found RV site #22 and parked the car.  We set up the tent, our beds and chairs. 

We still had daylight so I thought we should do part of the Horn Rapids Trail Series (GC4BAZ6) until it got too dark to see.  I didn't realize you could drive the entire series.  We brought bikes to do it but we really couldn't do bikes because one of the bikes we brought had a permanent flat tire...lame.  We took them off the car and chained them up to our campsite.  We got through about 15 of the series plus a few non series caches sprinkled along the way.

Our favorite one along this section of trail was called GeoStation Research Post (GC2X098).  It required you to open a lock (the code was on the bottom of the box) and a container was inside.  It was great to find a regular sized one amongst all the micros we've been finding.

We stopped at Horn Rapids #15, found a turn around and drove back to the campsite.  Along the way we forgot #30, #31 and an extra one called Camporee (GC2GV5T)...we had to find that one by flashlight.

We got all settled in, did our bathroom things and watched half of Hot Tub Time Machine before calling it quits.  We had to get up to meet Bob and Bev by 8:00 a.m. at their hotel in Kennewick to finish the 2013 coin challenge from last year.

All together we found 29 for the day.

Next Adventure:  TriCities Geocoin Challenge Day 2