The 7 Souviners of August (#7SofA)

Our challenge for this August was to find the different types of geocaches and we had 31 days to complete it.  Since I have a job now, it was a bit trickier.  I had cleaned up most of the caches in my area so it made it more challenging than a cacher who hasn't.

They were divided up into six categories:  The Explorer (traditional), The Puzzler (mystery cache), The Sightseer (multi-cache), The Nature Lover (Earthcache or attending a CITO), The Socializer (attending an event whether it's a normal event, a mega or a giga) and The Collector (virtual, wherigo, letterbox hybrid or a webcam).  Once you complete the six you would unlock a special souvenir, The Achiever.

My difficulty was going to be the earthcache or CITO.  I had gotten all the earthcaches in the area and my closest was inside Mount Rainier National Park.  Attending a CITO would be really hard for me because I work on the weekends, when most events are.

I started my journey on August 4th.  After work I was invited to hang out with my friend Shauna at her house for burgers and to chill for a few hours.  It was getting late and she needed to get up early the next day for work so I headed over to a few caches I've been ignoring for a few months.  I'm glad I did.  My traditional cache, Itsy Bitsy Spider (GC4PCMC) gave me a GPS runaround.  It took me to a tree with a birdhouse on it.  The description said not anywhere near the bird house.  I was like, okay?  Where do I go now?  Hmmm...  I saw a small geotrail off to the left of me.  I'll try it.  Sure enough, there it was...that little bison tube bugger.

Since I was in the area, I went and grabbed another one nearby along a paved trail.  Heron the Trail (GC4PKYP).  It was hidden about seven feet off the trail beside a huge tree.  It was glued to a piece of bark.

I walked back to the car and saw a lovely view of Mount Rainier and the Coug Mobile.

I drove further up the road to grab my puzzle cache, Critter Challenge-25 Critters You've Found! (GC4PCM8).  I made the critter list a few weeks before I went to find the cache so I would be legit.  We had to find 25 caches with different critters in the names.  For example:  Tortoise Island, BBQ Chicken, Ape Cache, It's Raining Cats and Dogs, etc.  I parked as close as I could in a nearby drive way, followed the GPS to a green box with a cement platform in front of it.  I was thinking of their typical hides.  Itty bitty tiny things attached to some sort of bark, pinecone or rock.  I was looking for a tiny nut attached to a nano.  Turns out it was inside the green box and it was a mixed nut jar.

As of August 4th I had two of my seven achievements unlocked.

The next time I had a chance to go out was the next evening after work.  Ben and I were going out to dinner to Buffalo Wild Wings but I had to wait until he got off of work at 7:30.  I used the extra time to grab caches out near the Black Lake area.  Mostly because there was a letterbox I have ignored for about two years.  I knew eventually it would come in handy.

It took me out to a walking loop near South Puget Sound CC called Black Lake Meadows.  I have been here before in the past grabbing caches.  There were two out here, the letterbox and a traditional that was part of the leap day caches...one of the 28 published that February morning.  This one had to be replaced with DDS 13.1:  The Replacement (GC3E8XA).  It was an easy find.

When I finally figured out the letterbox hybrid, Curious George Celebrates St. Patrick's Day (GC3E8KC), (it was standard letterbox instructions or figure out a puzzle to give you coords) and I figured this out after the fact but once I figured it out it was easy.  I had to count types of trees.  When I got to the said maple tree I found the faded geotrail and made the grab.

I decided to add to my total so I would be that much closer to my 10k for the Block Party in a few weeks.  I stopped and got Holy Locked Rocks, Batman! (GC4X0K0).  I have now unlocked three of the seven achievements.

I went over to the Capitol Mall and bought some shorts from Old Navy and then met Ben at BWW for dinner.

The next time I was able to go out for the souvenirs was after work on August 8th.   Luckily I didn't have to go too far.  There were still some in Yelm left to go grab.  I started with the ones over by the golf course.  Lost my Tee (GC4XEG3) and Well...Well...Well! (GC4PA8V).  Both were very accessible and easy to get to.  And now for the one I needed to get, my multi-cache, Don't Post Me In - just handing you a line?  (GC4TPFE).  I walked where the coordinates took me.  I found the old cache that used to be there.  The only logical spot was the fence cap in the corner.  I took it down and studied it for a bit.  There were knots tied in the string.  There were 15 numbers so I knew I was doing it right.  I wrote the coords on my leg, plugged it into the GPS and off I went.  I was roughly 300 feet from the first waypoint and people have been having trouble finding the final.  I was determined.  After a quick search and a cut finger I had the cache in hand.

I finished off the day with one more down the road, Horses and Heros (GC51HET).  It took me a while to zero in on the cache and I even knew what I was looking for.  I tried to avoid more owies with the sticker bushes and dry tree limbs.

Four of the seven achievements were now unlocked with most of August to go.

August 12th, I went to my favorite restaurant (Buffalo Wild Wings) for wings and a geocaching event, New Friends Meet & Greet (GC58T50) put on by Dirtyface, a cacher from Waterbury, Connecticut.  He was in town for the Block Party/Ape event weekend.  Mom and Bev came along with me so I wouldn't have to go by myself.  Ben couldn't come with this time because he was on shift.  We talked to a bunch of local cachers, ate food and watched some baseball.

I grabbed one at the theater nearby before driving back home.  I was now one more away from unlocking my seventh achievement souvenir.

All I needed now was an earthcache or a CITO.  I wasn't going to be able to make the local CITO in Tacoma on the Thursday so I was going to have to find an earthcache that didn't require me to drive to Mount Rainier and pay $15.00.  Sean (Phatbldguy) mentioned the one up near Seattle at Discovery Park while we were at the Block Party this next weekend.  I considered it.  It really depended on the time I had.

My boss ended up giving me my weekend off so I could go to the Block Party and the APE event I was both volunteering at as a WSGA member.  I needed about 13 more caches for my 10k milestone.  I rode my bike around Green Lake for eight of them, went to the World's Collide event at the troll and had some time afterwards to head on out to Discovery park for the earthcache, Green Top Series #5:  It's a Cliff (GC2WVHP).  I walked down the trail, found the cliff and answered the questions and topped it off with a pic of me at the cliff.  I walked to the lighthouse and walked back up grabbing the three more caches to set me up for my 10k milestone for the Block Party the next day.

I got my sixth achievement souvenir and unlocked the special The Achiever souvenir.

I finished the seven souvenirs of August on August 15th and are looking forward to see what's in store for us all next August.

Next Adventure: New Vehicle and My Own Insurance

Mount Rainier Day Trip

Mom had  a few days off from work and wanted to go somewhere for at least a day.  She originally wanted to go to Sumpter, Oregon for two days but I had to work on one of my days off.  So that was a no go.  I asked her where else she would like to go that was relatively close.  She said, "I haven't been to Mount Rainier in a while."

Looks like we were going to Mount Rainier for the day.

I told Ben what the plan was and he decided he wanted to go with us even though he would be functioning on maybe 3 hours of sleep.  He needed to be at our house around 9 a.m.  We had one problem, mom's car was broken and mine would blow up if we drove it that far.  We asked Grandma if she wanted to go on a day trip to Mount Rainier.  We also mentioned that we would need to drive her van.  She didn't sound certain at first so we gave her a few hours to think about it.  A little while later she called back and was on board.  I assured her we would pay for gas and the entrance fee.  I left off with she needed to be ready by 9 with some food for the day.

I set my alarm for 8 and slowly got out of bed.  I was tired.  I made some sandwiches for everyone, grabbed my bag of chips and popcorn and some drinks and threw them in the cooler.  We didn't have any ice so we used some temporary ice packs until we stopped for gas.  I put my clothes on, made sure I had the passes and GPS's and my camera just in case.  Ben arrived just after 9, we loaded my car with everything and drove to Grandma's house.

We put everything in the van, made everyone comfortable and drove off towards Yelm to get gas and ice.  Mom got the gas while Ben and I went into the store to grab ice and some energy shots.  He bought a muffin too.  I could tell he was tired.  We dumped the ice into the cooler and we were now on our way to the mountain.

The drive up went pretty fast.  We decided to go through Eatonville just to avoid the swirly part of Hwy 7, mostly for Grandma's sake.  We got back onto Hwy 7, through Elbe and on towards Ashford.  I really wanted to stop at the sculpture place but bypassed it for another day.  We got to the entrance and paid our $15 fee.  And then we got stuck in construction.  They were making improvements on the road.  Luckily, we didn't have to wait too long.

Our first stop was in Longmire.  We pulled off the road into the parking lot and we all used the restroom.  We walked around a bit and then went to the visitor's center.  I tried to eat Mount Rainier.

We went back outside and decided to walk around the Trail of Shadows, a one mile loop with various mineral water wells.  We enjoyed our short walk through the forest and the meadow.  For more info: http://www.wta.org/go-hiking/hikes/trail-of-the-shadows

We went back to the van, ate some snacks along the way and moved onto the next attraction.  That was up the road at Christine Falls.  It  is a tiered 69 foot waterfall with a bridge spanning across its lower section.  There is a pull off we parked the van into and walked down to the view point.  We took several pictures but the shadows were too dark for selfies.

We walked back up to the van and decided to walk the road to the rock bridge to peer over the side.  We saw lots of sweet views of the waterfall.  We walked back and moved onto the next waterfall, Narada.

Narada Falls is a 188 foot horsetail waterfall that is the most popular in the park because the highway crosses between the two tiers.  It also flows from an inactive glacier which is why the water is clear.  We walked the short hike down to the viewpoint.

We wandered around for a while.  Ben and I explored underneath the bridge and he slipped and fell.  Luckily he didn't fall into the river.  Grandma and mom used the restroom and we all got into the van had drove the long windy road up to Paradise.  About half way there, I noticed the giant cloud settling over the mountain.  I was outraged.  It was a beautiful clear day and the one cloud in the sky was in front of Mount Rainier!!  Lame!

When we got up to Paradise, we had to park in one of the lower lots because there were a butt ton of people at the mountain today.  Everyone must be getting in that last trip before school starts.  We walked up to the lodge and yep, Mount Rainier had a huge cloud of dumb covering it up.  That was the point of coming up here in the first place, to see the view!  I grumbled some more.  We went into the visitor's center and into the gift shop just to see what they had.  I bought some stickers and a reusable grocery bag for mom to match her Joshua Tree bag I got her back in April.

We walked up the Skyline Trail towards Myrtle Falls.  This trip we were more concerned about quick and or car access waterfalls.  Someday maybe more adventurous ones.  We hiked the quarter of a mile to see Myrtle Falls.

We were getting hungry so we walked back to the van.  I got out our sandwiches and chips.  My bag of Doritos blew up like a balloon because of the high elevation.

We drove to the junction and drove towards Ohanapecosh and Reflection Lake.  Reflection Lake was pretty disappointing because the mountain was covered up by the only giant cloud in the sky.  We stopped for a few minutes but no one was really interested in getting out.  We drove further and got out at Box Canyon.  The muddy Cowlitz River carved out a really deep slot-canyon over 180 feet down below from where we stood.  It was incredible.  Also nearby were polished rocks from retreating glaciers over thousands of years ago.

We made one more stop before exiting the National Park, a place I have not been to, Grove of the Patriarchs.  It was a 1.5 round trip loop around giant old growth trees and paralleled the Ohanapecosh River.  We walked it as fast as Grandma could go.  We saw some giant trees.

We reached the suspension bridge.  We had to cross it one at a time.

Once on the other side, we followed the wooden boardwalk filled with information of many giant trees.  We stopped and took a generation picture.

Then finished the rest of the loop, back over the bridge and towards the van.  We all used the bathroom, got in the van and left the park via Hwy 123.  I really wanted to go up to Tipsoo Lake but the cloud still covered the money shot of the mountain.  Hwy 123 eventually merged onto Hwy 12 near the Ohanapecosh camping area.  We followed it into Packwood and got out to find a cache that was missing.  Everyone else in town were getting ready for the Labor Day flea market.  I really wanted to go...maybe someday.

We stopped in Randle to grab a cache called Silverbrook Falls (GC287BD).  The creek was really called Hopkins Creek that eventually ran into the Cowlitz River.  We found the cache and admired the waterfall nearby.  Two local residents were using the creek to funnel water to their houses.

From there, we continued on Hwy 12 through Morton and Mossyrock.  We took it to I-5 and north towards Centralia because mom wanted Papa Pete's Pizza for dinner.  That is where we stopped for the evening.  We stuffed ourselves with pizza and then took Grandma home, traded vehicles and went home.  We got home just after 9 p.m.  It was a good day filled with family, fun, sunshine and an experience.

Next Adventure:  The 7 Souvenirs of August (#7SoA)

Project APE and Volunteering (#apeadventures)

I got up around 8:15 and started getting ready to drive up to Hyak.  I did my bathroom stuff, gathered up all my things, got dressed, made sure I had my bike and packed everything in the car.  I prayed that nothing happened to my car while going up the Snoqualmie grade.  I got onto I-5 south and merged onto I-90 east.  I always enjoyed going over the Lake Washington Bridge and through the Mercer Island tunnel with no traffic.

I am so glad I did GCD last year.  This year it would have been tougher due to work, my car and other unforeseen situations.

So far my car was cooperating as I got into Issaquah.  I just needed it to get me there without overheating.  I drove into North Bend and still the car was doing alright.  I still had about 25 miles to go and a lot of time for something to go wrong.  I started up the grade and my poor car felt it.  I had to pull over into the furthest right lane...yes, the one with oversized vehicles and trucks pulling trailers lane, just so I wouldn't be in the way.  I saw my thermometer start to rise.  Crap.  I got off at exit 42, Tinkham and found a pullout near the river.  I got to it before it overheated.  I shut my car off, ate my lunchable and talked to mom for about a half hour, mostly to let my car cool down.  Lame.

I got back onto I-90 and finished the 13 miles to the Snoqualmie Summit and to Hyak.  My car made it!  I got off at the exit and followed the Ape event signs.  I got to the main entrance and AndrewRJ (Andrew) told me to go to the overflow lot because I was one of the volunteers.  I followed the overflow signs, parked, got my stuff and my bike ready and headed over to the main event.

I saw some people I knew, talked to April and Mike for a bit and made my way over to the tents.  I picked up Bev's Ape coin, asked if anyone needed help, found Andrew again for my volunteer shirt, signed the Ape and just wandered around.  I had about an hour and a half until my parking lot shift started.

I rode my bike over to the tunnel and hung out with FenChurchE (Fen), her husband NepoKarma (Mitch) and CaptCosmic (John).  I helped cachers take pictures in front of the tunnel.

About a half hour later, Team Noltex (Jeff and Kristie) arrived for their shift and told us the bad news.  They said someone had died on their way up to GCD.  They suspected a heart attack.  That cacher was ECM41, Eric McDoinald.  I was just at an event the other day where I actually talked to him and Hoovers69 (Brian).  They had asked me about GCD.  They were really looking forward to the hike.  I was just floored at the news.  Almost unbelievable.  Someone died while geocaching...

This event will never be the same even though GCD is not really a part of the Ape Event.

I got back on my bike and did some of the lab caches nearby.  I saw Mr. Gadget #2's (Gene) bird house and watched some international cachers try to get to the codeword.  I talked to him for a bit and he sent me over to his wife Mrs. Gadget #2 (Kathy) to talk to her about the Crandall's and how I knew them.  They used to snowmobile with them back in the day.

I reported to AndrewRJ (Andrew) my lead to see where he wanted me to go.  He kept me in the main parking lot and because I had my bike, my job was to circle the lot to find places for people to park.  I got to talk to Hazard (Steve) and ended up hanging out with GrnXnham (Staci) for most of the afternoon. I thought it was weird that they didn't give me a walkie talkie. Oh well.  Hydnsek (Abby) came over for a bit to talk to us and give out information for the cachers attending the event.

April and Mike came back from the tunnel and was about ready to head up to GCD before they started their way south.  I asked if they wanted to meet me at the table to take a picture before they left.  They agreed and met me.

We ended up selling all of our Discovery Passes.  I helped them pack up and they made sure everything (tables, chairs, tents) went back to their owners.  I used the restroom and then saw if I was needed anywhere else before I went back to my car.  Everything was pretty much taken care of and if anymore people helped it would have gotten too crowded.  I hung out with a bunch of lackey's for a bit before I got really hungry, rode my bike to the car, secured it and made my way to North Bend.  I was really hoping my car would not give me any trouble on the way home.

I stopped in North Bend, along with everyone else traveling, and decided instead of fast food to grab a sandwich at Safeway.  The guy who made it was very slow.  You could tell he hadn't been there that long and a line started to form.  He finished my sandwich and I grabbed some chips, a couple of drinks and a candy bar.  I was starving.  Every time I go to these events I never have time for food or I forget to eat because of everything going on.  I got back onto I-90 and inhaled my food.  It hit the spot.

I had to stop as soon as I got off of I-90 because my thermometer was rising.  I pulled over on Hwy 18 at one of the gated dirt roads and waited it out.  I ate the other part of my sandwich called Bev, Ben and mom because I would have to wait at least a half hour for it to cool down.  I continued on.

I made it to Puyallup and had to pull over off of the Pioneer exit and find a place for my car to cool again.  I did some internetting and texting.  My mom called me and asked if I could bring pizza home.  I wasn't sure how long it would take me.  I cautiously drove up the long hill on 512 and had to pull over again in Spanaway at a bank parking lot.  This was getting ridiculous.  I was suppose to be home an hour ago according to Nuvi.  In between Spanaway and Roy my car finally gave up, overheated and erupted all over the gravel turn out off of 507.  I was 15 miles from home.  Lame.

I let it cool down, took the cap off, it fell inside the car and I was getting frustrated.  I got it out, put a container and a half of anti-freeze back into the car and drove to Yelm to pick up pizza by 7:00.  I was exhausted.  I took the pizza over to the rental and Ben met us over there.  I washed clothes, took a shower when we got back to my house.

Next Adventure:  Mount Rainier

Geocaching Block Party and My 10,000th Cache (#GBP2014)

I got up around 8:30 and got all my stuff for the day all ready to go.  I tried not to be too loud because everyone was still sleeping.  I made sure I had some food because it was going to be a long day.  I put everything into the car and headed on down to Fremont.  I had hoped my spot would be available when I got there.  I drove past the troll and down the little alley way.  There was a spot!  I took it!

I gathered the things I would need and made sure my car was locked.  I walked down the hill, across the street and into the block party.  I got there around 9 and watched what happened before all the chaos started.  I walked around for a few minutes and then decided to eat my lunchable on the stairs.  As I finished, I saw April (The Fae) and Mike (MCL1080) walking towards me to get in the registration line.  We were both very happy to finally meet in person and we gave each other a hug.  I knew they had other places to be so I kept it very short.  We would definitely meet up later on.  About half of a year ago I met April on Instagram and became friends through there.  She told me she was coming to Washington for the Block Party and Ape event with her boyfriend.

Bev called and was on her way with Kenny, Shari and Carson.  She said she would let me know when they got here.  In the meantime, I logged my name on the giant wall, hung out a bit at the WSGA tent, got my registration card/event booklet from Jayme and waited in the unregistered line with Melisa Ward (Tankgirlz) and chatted for about 45 minutes.  It was nice catching up with her.  We received our Block Party tag and a Founding Father's tag just for being in the right place at the right time.

While waiting for the group picture I logged my find on my phone:  "This is my 10,000th cache and I wanted the block party to be the big milestone. Thank you so much for making this possible and for enhancing my adventures with geocaching. Thanks for the fun and the event. Also thank you for all the hard work you guys put into making this run as smooth as possible! :)"

We took the picture and I wandered around until I heard from Bev again.

I went down stairs and checked out all of the vendors.  She called me back and told me they would meet me at the food trucks.  I walked over there and found them chowing down on some hot dogs.  We all agreed we wanted to do the Adventure Time Challenge.  And then there were those lab caches again.  As we did the challenge we figured out there was also another one going on, A Kid's Fun Adventure.  They were also lab caches we were suppose to find codes for.  We started out doing one and ended up blending them together depending on which one was closest.  Both were six stages each with a total of 12.  I had Bev take a picture of my shirt, front and back.

The Adventure Time had us take a picture with the characters, dig through ball pit balls, sort through pieces of wood, dig through a pool of slime for a key with the secret word on it, look for a keyword on a map and find a secret word through a hologram.  It was pretty cool.  In the meantime, we had Carson jump through a rocket ship bouncy house, we got temporary tattoos, had a mini boat race, make a Signal hat, lawn bowling, the fun was endless!

 After our adventures, Kenny, Shari and Bev decided to do the brewery tour.  I didn't have time because I volunteered at the WSGA booth from 3-5.  I did have time to hang out and talk to some people.  I talked to Lynette and Glen for a while.  I saw Chris and Shelly (Black5150 and Cuppycake26) wandering around.  I had several people congratulate me on my 10,000th cache and even some from other countries.  It was awesome.

Just before my shift at the tent I was hungry and needed food.  I wandered over to the food trucks to see what was available. I chose pizza at the old fire truck that was turned into a brick oven rolling restaurant.  I ordered one with cheese, olives and onions.  I only had to wait about five minutes.  I received my pizza, walked over to one of the other trucks for a Coke and walked back to the WSGA tent.  I inhaled my pizza.

I did my two hour shift with Hippychick1620 (Kristine), Lizzy (Lisa), PhatBldGuy's Wife (Audeane) and the newest chapter rep ClayArtist.  I got to know them as the hours went on.  We sold out of just about everything except for coins, pathtags and one very large sweatshirt...I think it was a XXL.  We got many people to sign up to be a part of the WSGA and several people stopped by to ask about the Ape event that was scheduled for the next day.  When my shift was over, I helped them pack up everything and take the tent down.  We helped the woman next door for the Lane County GeoTourism take down her tent as well.

I texted April to see if she wanted to hang out for a few hours.  I met them up at the Blue Moon Burgers.  They were hungry.  I came to visit since I had pizza not too long ago.  We talked about all kinds of things, from geocaching to hometowns, California to Washington, how we got into geocaching, milestones, favorite caches, events, youtube videos, Instagram, what we did for a living, travel, etc.  It was a nice chat and fun to finally meet her in person.  They had an event to go to in Marysville and I didn't want to make them late.  We said goodbye and that we would run into each other at the Ape event.

I walked to my car and plugged the address to Dick's into the Nuvi.  I shimmied my way through Fremont and up to 45th.  I pulled in, found a parking spot and stood in line for about five minutes.  I ordered two cheeseburgers and fries.  I had a drink with me plus I was just going to take it home with me and eat it there.  I got back to Doug's place but he had gone home for the weekend already so I just chilled in his room for the night.  I logged my finds, posted pictures, worked on my blog.  I showered, got my stuff ready and packed for tomorrow and went to bed after midnight.  I set my alarm for 8:15 hoping I would make it to Hyak about 9:30-9:45 without any car troubles.

Until next year!

Next Adventure:  Project Ape and Volunteering (#apeadventures)