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)
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