Johnny's Island Throne Room and All Aboard Farewell Dinner Event

Bev mentioned the other day, after our FTF in Tenino, that there was an event in Centralia at the Country Cousin hosted by Ohjoy and Frisbee'r on Saturday...yes!  An event I could actually go to on a Saturday after work!  Of course I wanted to go.

After work today, I got gas and went home as quick as I could to change into normal clothes, made sure I had my GPS and my wallet and went to go pick up Bev.  We stopped by grandma's house to give her a few things and then we were on our way to Centralia for the evening. 

We went the back road through Bucoda on Hwy 507 and made our way to the first cache, Johnny's Island Throne Room (GC57ZJR), one that Bev had already been to many weeks ago, she said we had to stop by and get it.  The place, Pioneer West, closed at 6 so we had plenty of time before the event to get it.  We parked along side the road and I could see it from my car.  Bev said not to forget a card and a pen.

We walked in, around the fence and right to the cache.  No one was around so we had the place to ourselves.  I put the card in...I chose my Petco card, waited until it read it and then pressed the button up top that opened the door.  I looked inside.  It was so COOL!  Goblindust definitely put some work into this thing.

Once we were inside, we had to watch a 21 second video and to start it we had to flush the toilet.  Haha.  While the video was playing, we had to watch the screen for six numbers.  Those six numbers we had to punch in to the number pad underneath.  After inputting the numbers we had to push the panic button and the porta potty lid would open revealing the cache underneath.  We grabbed the log and I signed my name and the date.

We put everything back and closed the door behind us for the next cachers to enjoy it.  We went back to the car and drove to the Country Cousin.

http://countrycousinrestaurant.com/

We couldn't believe we were the first people there.  We found a seat and ordered our food.  About ten minutes later everyone started to arrive for Ohjoy's event, All Aboard for Little Ella's Farewell Dinner (GC59EA4).  This event was put together because the bridge caches her and Frisbee'r put out back in 2006 are now on stat park land...at least the trail corridor and instead of permitting them, which would take a lot of time, they decided to archive them.  Saturday was picking up Ohjoy's caches and Sunday was picking up Frisbee's caches.

Ohjoy's caches followed a storyline with Little Ella.  They are the series of caches placed on former train bridges starting in Chehalis, going west to the Lewis County line. They tell the journey of Little Ella's adventures while traveling from home in Chehalis to visit her uncle and aunt in Raymond.

We sat next to Da2Svedes (Wayne and Pat) the entire time we were there, it was nice chatting with them again.  Everyone got something at the raffle because there were only about 15 of us in attendance.  My name was drawn first...which was weird, because my name never gets drawn first.  I picked a pathtag.  When Bev was chosen she picked a geocaching logo pin she stuck on her lanyard.

After the event I tried to deposit my paycheck but the drive thru ATM didn't have any deposit envelops so we bagged that and went home.  I helped Bev put chickens away and a dropped her off at her house.  I went home and logged my caches, folded clothes and got ready for work and then went to bed.

Next Adventure: My Pathtag Journey

Longview, Pure Insanity and Freda's Potluck Event

I was so excited to hear that Freda was going to have an event on one of my day's off.  Because I work on the weekends, when most events are, it's hard to go to events.  I wrote it on the calender as soon as I found out and started arranging how and when we were going to go down.

Days before, I talked to Bev to see when they wanted to go.  It depended on Bob.  Then I found out they had an appointment that day so we would be leaving around 11.  They've been down to Longview a lot over the past year so there really weren't that many caches to get with them.  So Bev wrote down a few that they still needed to get plus #50 Pure Insanity (GC2B1YB), one that has been on my list to do for a couple of years. Bev decided that it would be safer for someone to go with Bob up the ladder.  We planned accordingly.

The day of, Ben and I got ready, made breakfast and headed over to their house.  Bev wanted to see my new car so we drove it on over.  We packed the car up, loaded ourselves in and hit the road.  We got onto I-5 south towards Longview.  It was weird to drive by the Toutle rest stop...I guess no one had to go potty.

When we got into Longview we immediately went towards Lake Sacajawea.  There were three new ones in the area and we decided to start there.  We drove up to the first one, Somewhere You Should Assume Nothing #1 (GC5BTTQ).  We read a little bit about it.  It wasn't going to be easy.  We must have spent a good 30 minutes looking for it, trying to not assume anything.  I'm sure we touched it a few times without realizing it.  Oh well, we will have to try again another time.

We walked to the next one along the lake.  It was a beautiful sunny early afternoon and I soaked up as much sun as I could.  Bev mentioned that last time they were here was for a flash mob and a few of them found a puzzle cache nearby on a wooden structure.  She told us where it was.  Later I found out I actually solved it two years ago getting ready for the cache machine that I couldn't attend.  This one was called Konichiwa (GC1MMK6) and it was a black nano on the hinge of the wooden structure.  Ben and I signed the log.

We made our way further down the lake shore to one Bob and Bev could not find the last time they were here, Flying to the Rainbow Umbrella Event-Meet U There (GC56ETE).  The coords took us underneath a bunch of Rhododendrons with a homeless sleeping bag campsite nearby.  We were a little creeped out.  I reread the cache information and found it right away.  It was hanging in the Rhodie furthest from the homeless camp.

We walked across the bridge to the next cache, Somewhere Where You Won't Believe What Happened (GC5C1VQ) and apparently we didn't get the memo on how we were suppose to log it.  I guess instead of what we were actually doing we were suppose to make up this huge elaborate story on how we found this cache.  It was your basic, we were in town for an event thanks for the cache.

We all got back into the car and headed down Hwy 4 towards Pure Insanity.  First we stopped at the Safeway to use the bathroom and to grab some snacks and drinks...I didn't bring enough I guess.  We got a few lunchables, bananas and a few drinks and called it good.  Bob and Bev couldn't help themselves and bought some doughnuts.  We were now on our way towards the cache we came down for.  But first, we stopped for another one Bob and Bev couldn't find the last time they were here, Skating Down Ocean Beach Highway (GC4M6DD).  I found it after about ten minutes of searching.  It was right in front of the car, lol.

And now to the main event, Pure Insanity!

"This cache has been on my to do list for a few years. The weather was great and we were going to Freda's event so why not do this one today? We did a little research and looked at people's logs and pictures just to see what we were in for. Bob, Ben and I aren't afraid of heights so that was settled quickly. We all are pretty hardcore and will climb a rickety old ladder if it meant we were going to find a cache out of the deal. We parked the car in the tiny space, grabbed what we needed and headed down the trail towards the waterfall. We took turns taking pictures of us with the falls and prepared to climb the ladder. Bob went up first, then me and then Ben. We took pictures along the way.

 We got up to the cache and immediately started looking underneath rocks. We weren't even close but we kept at it. The GPS did not help us so we might as well not look at it anymore. We could hear Bev down below asking us if we had found it yet...about fifteen minutes into our search. We continued looking. I know we all overlapped places we've all looked and re-looked at places we already searched. This was getting frustrating. I didn't want to come up here empty handed. We continued looking.

Eventually I needed more of a hint on where on the hillside we were suppose to be looking. There were a bunch of rocks and places you could tell people have walked through and found nothing. I had somewhat of a cell signal so I opened the cache page and tried to find something that would help us out. We did find a pretty good hint that helped us tremendously. In about five minutes I finally found the elusive container we were looking for. "I FOUND IT!" Everyone came up the hill in relief and with giant smiles on their faces. We signed the log and took a few pictures and headed back down the ladder and out of the area to the car."

It was nice to go out on an adventure like this one.  I've really missed doing stuff like this.  It's sad that summer is on its way out and the cold rainy dark weather is on its way in.  I wish summer lasted longer.

We stopped along Hwy 4 to grab Fishing Hole (GC1N52K), was down a steep cliff, surrounded by sticker bushes and poison oak...we let Bob grab that one since he was dressed for the occasion.  He found it inside a stump buried with at least 4.5 inches of debris on the top of it, plus it was wet.  We all managed to get back up the hill to the car and we took Bob's layers off of him to avoid the spread of the poison oak just in case any got on him.

We drove back towards town but decided to take a detour before going to Freda's house.  We've been out here before but didn't find one and quite a few of them were archived and replaced so we had to go out to Willow Grove.  It was a park that lies up against the Columbia River.  Get Me to the River (GC3PBJ0) was one we DNF'd back in May 2013.  I guess it was missing when we looked but we were looking in the wrong places.  I decided to broaden my horizon by looking on the other side and I found it very quickly and everyone was like "wow Val, you're on a roll today!"

We got into the car and drove to the other one on the other side of the park.  Drifting Along at the Beach, Hiding in Plain Sight (GC59Z10), was a bit tricky.  We've come across others like it in the past...it was whether or not you found the correct one right away.  We immediately started looking at every piece of wood on the ground.  We had to have touched every single piece of wood except for the one I picked up because I saw glue on it....found it!

We had about a half hour to get to Freda's potluck event so we drove back into Longview and up the steep hill to their house.  The last time I was here it was dark so Ben and I got out and enjoyed her huge ammo can in the daylight (GC4RPG8).

And now onto the festivities with Summer's Gone, Potluck Event in the Country (GC5A8Z6).  We talked to many people we knew, met people we didn't know, shared stories, ate food, watched dogs fuss with each other and lost at a raffle.  It was just nice to be able to go to an event since I've missed so many since April.  It was getting late so we decided to use the restroom, grab out stuff and hit the road.  We said by to Freda and to thank her for having us over.  We piled into the car and found three more on the way out, Honey I Shrunk It (GC4Y1J9) which was a tiny ammo can, Take a Smile with you Wherever you Go (GC4D8H3) and Somewhere Screaming Find Me (GC5BW13), both were guard rail caches.  We found the last one with a guy named thecatdaddy.

We got onto I-5 and headed north to exit 88.  We got back to Bob and Bev's around 9.  Ben needed some sleep so I sent him back to Rochester to go to bed.  Another crazy adventure down and thousands more to go.

Next Adventure: Johnny's Island Throne Room and All Aboard Farewell Dinner Event

Doing the Puyallup

I haven't been to the Puyallup Fair since Bill Clinton came through Rainier and Yelm back in September 1996.  I had just started 7th grade.  We went with one of mom's co-workers and her kids.  I remember seeing the presidential motorcade on Hwy 512.  From there, I could never find the time to go back or I didn't live in the area (Pullman and McMinnville) for a few years.

This year we found some time to go on our days off.

Ben got to my house around 10:45 and I tried to get him to go get ready to go.  We finally got out of here just after noon.  My mom's schedule at work fell apart so she wanted to go with us.  We picked her up and drove to Puyallup to meet up with Ben's mom for lunch.

We got there around 1:30 due to traffic.  Trish insisted we go to Mongolian Grill off of River Road.  We enjoyed our food and talked about an array of stuff.  We finished, paid and she had to go back to work and then pick up Amy around 3.  We drove up the hill so Ben could deposit some money.  We drove back down the hill and tried to find a parking spot near the fairgrounds.  We ended up paying $10 to park at the nearby church.  We figured it was a safe place to leave the Escape.

We made our way to the Red Gate and I treated everyone to their entrance fee into the fair.  We grabbed a program and found some restrooms before we started walking around.  I got onto my phone and looked up the lab caches and circled them on the map.  Now we knew where they were when we walked near them.  We started with Extreme Scream.  We had to find out how tall it was.

We stopped by the Army tent because mom wanted a bag.  We talked to one of the girls for a bit and told her that Erika was in the Army and stationed in Germany.  They also gave us stickers and some pens.  Meanwhile Ben was wandering around the Celtic tent across the way.  He bought a shamrock stamp.

We continued our rounds through the fair.  We stopped at the Fair View Club, which was by the State Patrol and they had a vehicle on display of what it looks like to get in an accident and total your car when you are texting and driving...or distracted and driving.  We had to get a number off the building for our second lab cache.

We went inside the Pavillion and looked at some art work.  It included art drawn by kids, photos taken by kids and various collections by children and adults.  It made me want to submit a collection of mine into the fair next year.  I will have to look into it.

We went back outside and saw they had camel rides and the back of their shirts said "What Day is it?"  Of course we had to be at the fair on a Wednesday, lol.

We continued walking around the concourse.  We went into the Milking Parlour to get our third lab cache code off of the horse diagram and to get some free chocolate milk.  Yum! 

We checked our map to see where all the animals were.  I was mostly here to see animals.  We walked over to the small farm animals...goats, llamas, ducks, geese and sheep.  Ben kept trying to pet them.  I told him that we can't pet these ones and that they may kick us out of the fair if they catch us.  Then when we got to the actual area where we could pet animals he didn't want to.  Mom noticed the word on the floor for the code we were looking for.

From the small animals we moved to the pigs at the Pig Palace.  There were two giant pigs inside seperated into two pens.  One had just had babies and the other one was due at the end of September.  It was fun watching all the little piggys run around.  We found the plaque and found the word we were looking for.  We walked into Sillyville to find out what color the bell was on the sign.  Our 4H Lab Caches Adventure was over.  It was fun wandering around the fair looking at various animals, rides and signs.  I hope there will be more lab cache adventures in the future.

From there, we walked over to the Showplex Center and spent a good hour or so wandering around the various booths and exhibitions.  Ben sat in a massage chair that basically massaged everything once you sat it in.  I know that sounds dirty but get your mind out of the gutter.  Haha!

I got a massive headache while walking around.  I needed some IB Profin and mom didn't have any and I didn't bring my bag with me.  I decided to tough it out.  Mom got talked into letting someone straighten her hair, Ben used the restroom and I sat down at a table and waited for them.

It started getting darker and people started to thin out.  Ben wanted our caricatures drawn so we found the guy at the booth.  We talked about what we wanted and we decided on Ben dressed up as a fireman saving me from a burning building.  I sat down first and then Ben.  We paid, got a frame to put it in and enjoyed it.

We wanted to go on a few rides and play a few games with the remaining time we had left.  We got a bunch of tickets and rode the rollercoaster, the spaceship, one of the octopus rides, two the the rides Ben wanted to go on were closed due to maintenance. We raced down the slide twice and I won both times...the last time Ben cheated by trying to pull my burlap out from underneath me.  It was fun.

We convinced my mom to ride the ferris wheel with us.  We made fun of a lot of people wandering around, especially the dumb high school kids. 

It was almost 9 and we got hungry so we walked over to Pete's BBQ for some chicken, fries and a pulled pork sandwich.  I inhaled my food.  I didn't realize how much we walked without eating dinner...or how easy it was to lose track of time.  We tried to play a few games but Ben couldn't find the one he wanted to play and the whack a mole wasn't working.  We went and got a bunch of scones and made our way to the gate because it was late and the fair was shutting down.

It's been almost 20 years since the last time I went to the fair and I definitely had a great time.  I hope I get to go again next year.

Next Adventure:  Longview, Pure Insanity and Freda's Potluck Event

My New Car and Seahawks Opening Night!

I got up in the morning really excited.  Ben came over after he got off work, we hung out, ate lunch and got cleaned up and ready to go for our day.  We left after noon and got to the Ford dealership as quick as we could.  Traffic was a little heavier than it usually was because school had started and the Puyallup Fair opened tomorrow.

We told Trish we were here and we met her up in her office upstairs.  She was so excited.  She was texting me the night before until almost midnight.  She had all the paperwork inside a folder with a red bow on it.  It was adorable.  We went downstairs and I got into my new car.

We drove it to the DOL and she had them transfer the title over to me.  To save money she gifted it to me and it only cost $37.50 instead of some ungodly amount.  We signed a few papers and off we went.  I had Ben walk next door and grab us a few drinks for the ride back to their house in Bonney Lake.  We had to pick up Amy from work and when we got up the hill and on our way to the house, we actually forgot about Amy for a few minutes.  Whoops.  We turned around and she was ready in the parking lot.

We got to the house and saw Trish's new car, a blue Hyundai Tucson, she was really excited and proud to show it off.  I went and sat inside to look at what it offered.  It was a pretty nice car.  She had to go back to work so we let her go.  Ben and I got a hold of Josh to tell him the new plan.  We wanted to hang out with him and his girlfriend Sam, but also hang out with Trish and Amy so we had everyone come to the house for pizza and the Seahawks. 

We drove back down to Puyallup to pick up Ben's truck, came back up the hill to get his haircut and then stood in a ridiculous line at Papa Murphy's for two pizza's for dinner.  Traffic was getting full retarded so we drove a back way to his house.  We had Amy start the oven so it would be ready by the time we got there.  Josh and Sam arrived, then just before halftime Trish got home.  We all had pizza, beer and watched the Seahawks destroy the Packers.  What a great day!

Next Adventure:  Doing the Puyallup

New Vehicle and My Own Insurance

Finally the day has come...I am able to afford a new vehicle and my own insurance.  Today I purchased insurance from Progressive and tomorrow I shall go pick up my used new 2008 Ford Escape.

I have needed a new vehicle since 2011-2012 when my Taurus started acting up.  I really didn't want to drive it that far just in fear that it would strand me somewhere or injure the passengers or whatever else could potentially happen.

Ben and his mom talked about possibly selling her vehicle and gave me a choice if I wanted to buy it from her or not.  For the next two weeks we talked about it.  I decided to go for it.  She drew up paperwork and found out some information on how much to sell it to me.  She came up with $8500 and I would pay her monthly.  The perks are she works at a Ford dealership and I could have discounts if something were to happened to it or it needed some maintenance.

Last Saturday after my half day at work, me and my dad drove out to Puyallup for him to see if it was worth purchasing it from her or not.  He drove it, looked at some of the important parts and he gave it the okay as well.

Tomorrow afternoon after the title is turned over to me I will have a vehicle I can trust driving around.

Next Adventure:  My New Car and Seahawks Opening Night!