Freaker's Ball, Haunted House in Bucoda and Trick or Treating

October 25

Last year we had such a great time at Freaker's Ball we were going to go again.  This time Celeste wanted to have group costumes, specifically from the Rocky Horror Picture Show.  She wanted to win the costume contest this year.  About six months ago Celeste planned it all out.  She assigned roles and people had to choose which character they wanted to be.  She said I would be fit for Eddy, the role played by Meatloaf.  I said sure, let's do it.  Of course we all procrastinated.  Some people who said they would do it couldn't because of work, personal reasons or they lived too far away and couldn't make it.  I didn't start getting ready until basically the night before.  After work on Friday i went to the Goodwill and found everything I needed, except for the wig, the shoes and the jewelry...those I got at Walmart.  A few weeks back I got a scrape makeup for my character's gash on his head.  I was now prepared for Saturday.

We all arrived at Celeste's house around 6, ate pizza and started putting our costumes on.  Mine didn't take that long except for the gash, it had to be glued on with some foundation on it to blend it in. Our costumes looked good. Of course the picture would have been more awesome if we had all the characters.

We took a dozen more pictures and Jim loaded us up in the car.  He volunteered to drop us all off at the Lake Lawrence Lodge because of the storm that rolled in.  Lots of wind and rain.  We went in and gave them our tickets with our first and last name on it (for prizes later on) and went and grabbed a table.  Since I had to work the next day I only brought two beers for the night.  The rest of them brought some gluten free apple ale, Fireball and other liquor.  We walked around and looked at the random costumes we were all up against.  We took a picture with some bacon and ate some of the food.  We did some dancing and even took shots from the 3 Musketeer dildos, haha.

None of us won the raffle prizes but we did get third place in the group costume contest with a prize package of $25.  It wasn't as crazy as it was last year and it started to die down way before 11 p.m.  We ended up calling it a night around 11:30.  We had to walk home and thanked the storm Gods that it wasn't raining.  We all spent some time in the hot tub, took showers and made nachos before we all went to bed.  That was about 2 a.m.  I knew I would regret staying up that late when I went to work the next day.

October 29

Ben and I wanted to go do something Halloweenie together since he couldn't do Freaker's Ball or dress up on Halloween and go trick or treating with me.  That next Wednesday we drove out to a haunted house in Bucoda.  The guy who owned Scary-Nights, has been doing it since 1995 and established himself up by Lake Stevens.  That property fell through and he had an opportunity to get the property in Bucoda with help from the town.  We parked in the designated parking area and walked to the old building.  There used to be a cache behind it but it was archived before I could find it.  We paid our money, we got two dollars off because we went to Rutledge a few weeks back and talked to the guy who was at the booth.  He got very interested because Ben is a part of the haunted house industry.

We went through the haunted house and this one had many different rooms and I was startled a few times.  Other than that, it was a typical haunted house.  I know they aren't going to touch me so there really wasn't any reason to freak out.  They took our picture at the end and we got to meet the owner, who gave us a private tour.

We went home afterwards and watched a movie before Ben had to be back at the station.  I hope we get to spend more time together next Halloween.

October 31

Trick or treating to me is more than just the candy.  It's a tradition of mine, regardless of age, to dress up and go trick or treating at my grandparent's houses.  A few years ago I started going to my great aunt and uncles to go visit and take some pics.  I usually would go to Grandma Karen's house next followed by Grammie and Grandpa's last.  This year I dressed up as my sister Erika, who is is the US Army.  I went to the Goodwill and gathered the necessary camo gear.  I had her name patches and all I needed was shoes, a hat and the other patch that said US Army.  I ran out of time for those but I managed.

It was a fun Halloween this year but it would have been more fun to hang out with Ben.  Until next year!

Next Adventure:  TBA

Farm Fresh Breakfast, Hiking, Waterfalls, Caching, Buffalo Wild Wings and the Trip Back Home

I really enjoyed The Hood River BnB.  The bed was comfortable and I slept really well.  I felt kind of bad that I snuggled up to Ben so much he almost fell off the bed.  We got up around the same time as yesterday so we could meet up with our hosts to have breakfast with them at 9.  We went downstairs and they explained how breakfast was going to happen.  We got to choose our ingredients for our omelet and Jim made them for us.  We had toast, fresh fruit and juice.  We got the side of the table with the view of the Columbia.  While we all ate our farm fresh breakfast, we talked about an array of items.  Who we were, where we were from, what we did for a living, the world series, San Fransisco, earthquakes and other random information.

We thanked them for their hospitality and Ben paid off our room before we went upstairs to pack.  We gathered up all of our stuff and spent some time hanging out in our bed internetting.  I uploaded pictures onto Facebook and he played Clash of Clans.  Just before noon, we took all of our stuff downstairs, put on our shoes and loaded up the car.  Soon after we hit the road.

We wanted to do a little hiking and see some waterfalls along the way.  I found a perfect hike for us along the gorge.  We weren't sure how the weather would hold up or how far we wanted to hike, so we decided on the short two mile hike in Starvation Creek State Park.  However, we would have to drive past it and turn around at the small area of Wyeth because it is only accessible from I-84 eastbound.  We did what we were suppose to and made our way to the parking area of the recreation area.  There was an earthcache and two traditionals we had to do while we were there.

There wasn't a parking fee, which was a relief, in Washington we have to pay $30 a year to have a Discover Pass, which gets you into state parks without being ticketed.  It's just another way to tax you but on the bright side, it keeps the state parks open for people to enjoy.  We read the hiking trail page to see what way we needed to go.  I got the backpack out, put water in it, my camera, grabbed my walking pole and we were on our way down the lower part of Mt. Defiance/Historic Columbia River Highway State Trail. Ben also found a walking stick which came in handy later on.

The first waterfall we came to was Cabin Creek.  There was a giant boulder next to it and you could go up to it and walk behind it.  It was probably the coolest one of the day.  We took several pictures, some videos and had a great time exploring the area.  We even climbed up on top of the boulder and found out people used to actually climb this giant rock.  It had hookups for ropes and carabiners.  It was muddy so it was interesting getting down from it.

We walked the next quarter of a mile or so to the next falls.  Along the way we saw this giant ant pile.  I went over and stood next to it just to give it scale.  So far it is the biggest one I've ever seen!

We followed the trail and it took us around a corner, we could hear the next waterfall, Hole in the Wall Falls (Warren Falls).  I guess it flooded the road and had to be diverted so they blasted a hole in the neighboring cliff side and bam, new falls, new direction, no flooded roads.  I set up the tripod and took a few pictures of us with the falls and a couple of us on the bridge with the creek flowing behind us.

We tried looking for the cache that was nearby but we took the wrong trail.  We have to come back this way so we would get it on the way back to the car.  We started up the steeper part of the trail on our way up to the last falls, Lancaster.  We admired it for a few minutes and just as we stepped out of the tree cover it started pouring down rain.  I had a hat and a hood on.  Ben decided to leave his hat in the car.  We had a small banter about why I should give him my hat.  I told him I had an extra one in my backpack but it was a Coug hat.  He wasn't about to wear that one.  I felt that I shouldn't have to take my hat off in the pouring rain to trade the Coug hat with the Seattle hat and give him the Seattle hat.  He wore the Coug hat for a while and then I traded him when it stopped raining because I didn't want to hear him complain about the Coug hat.  He asked me if I was in his situation and it was a Husky hat what I would have done.  I would have went without.  We had decided to go a little bit further to get a cache called Final Fall (GCHRQQ).  That one was a doosey.  Looking for it was similar to Pure Insanity back in Longview, Wash.  It took us a while to locate it because the coords jumped really bad.  We read logs and even found a few pictures on the cache page.  After about a half hour or more of looking I knew exactly where it was.

We started our journey back down after we put the cache back where we found it.  On the way down we admired Lancaster Falls again while talking about how cool this hike was.  We put Truly Gorgeous (GCG9H8) onto the GPS and made it back down where the trail followed the creek.  We read the hint a few times because the GPS really didn't like the tree cover.  After some looking around we found the fern against the maple tree and pulled out the ammo can.

We walked past the other two falls again and out towards the car.  We were both soaked.  I gave him the keys and told him I was going to use go get the information for the earthcache, Columbia River Basalt at Starvation Creek (GC4TD9X) at Starvation Creek Falls.  I answered all the questions and headed back.  I used the bathroom really quickly because I wanted to get out of my soaked clothes.  I was starting to get cold.  Ben had already changed.  I got in the back and got my clothes and brought them to my seat.  I peeled off my wet layer of clothes and tried getting my dry jeans on.  Ben touched me and I slid and my knee hit the horn.  We almost peed ourselves.  We got the rest of the information for the earthcache and headed into Hood River again for some gas.

When we got to Hood River, which was only 5 miles down the road, we got gas at the first station we saw.  It was the Shell.  Then it hit me, crap...we're still in Oregon.  They have to pump it for us.  Lame.  Ben handed me the $40 and the gas attendant filled it up.  We got back on I-84 and drove back towards the Bridge of the Gods.  We figure we'd better go this way.  If we tried to go towards Portland at this time we would be stuck in horrible traffic.  We stopped one more time, in Cascade Locks, to get one more earthcache, Bridge of the Gods (GC25DMZ).  That one taught us about the bridge and the huge landslide that happened many years ago.

We went over the bridge again and into Washington.  We followed Hwy 14 into Vancouver and found the Buffalo Wild Wings in Hazel Dell.  That place was packed.  We forgot it was Thursday night football, Broncos and Chargers.  They did manage to get us in pretty quickly.  We watched the game, played trivia, ate our food and just chilled.  We left Vancouver around 8 and arrived in Lacey about 9:15.  We had to stop at his bank to deposit the money he got a few days ago.  We stopped into the Fred Meyer to go potty and to get some drinks.  Then we drove back to Rochester and I helped him unpack his stuff.  It was pouring down rain.  We said our goodbyes and I headed home.  I was exhausted.  It poured down rain as I unpacked the car. I took a shower and got my stuff ready for work the next day.  It was a great trip and I was sad to see it go by so fast.  I can't believe its already been a year.  Here's to many more trips and years together!

Next Adventure:  Freaker's Ball, Haunted House in Bucoda and Trick or Treating

The Fruit Loop, Caching, Hwy 35, Shopping, BnB and More Breweries

We woke up around 8:30 so we could be downstairs for breakfast at 9.  When we did walk downstairs, we had the choice of what kind of eggs we wanted.  Ben got the scrambled and I wanted runny fried eggs.  Coffee, juice, tea, apples, oranges and muffins were provided.  We she was done with our eggs, peach cobbler and a side of tomatoes were on our plates.  It was almost too fancy for me.  Haha.

We ate our food and hoped that it would last until the next time we ate...especially Ben, my fat kid.  We thanked the gal and went upstairs to shower and pack up all of our stuff.  We made sure not to leave anything behind.

Once we had everything packed up, Ben left the key on the desk and we loaded up the car as best as we could...especially with my flowers inside the vase, we had to keep it upright.  During breakfast we decided to check into our next bed and breakfast just so we knew where it was and we didn't know where the day would take us (we really didn't want to check in really late at night.)

The first time we drove by we missed it mostly because we didn't know where to park plus traffic kinda hindered us from slowing down properly.  Ben called to make sure we had the right house, she stood outside to let us know where to park.  We got out and introduced ourselves.  She took us inside and explained all the rules, showed us around the house and took us up to our room.  She had to run to a meeting so she handed us our key and told her thank you.  Soon after we got into the car and headed on our own journey.

We stopped by the sports store in town there, Ben found a pair of hiking pants since he didn't own anything like that...plus he dripped tacos on his jeans the day before.  He found some nice gray colored ones that showed off his butt.  Haha.  After purchasing pants, we got back onto Oak Street.

We followed Oak Street until it turned into an interchange to Hwy 35.  We thought, why not?  Let's see where this goes.  We knew part of this road was the fruit loop.  We stopped several times along the way to get caches.  Majority of them were a series by Team ALE, a group of Oregon cachers who put out hundreds along the roads to Mount Hood.  About a year ago, I was going to come out here with Uncle Bob to grab a bunch of them...it didn't work out with our schedule.  We did about ten of the LV (Lower Valley) series (GC34BQE).

We stopped at the FoxTail Cider to try some cider event though we were there to find a cache we couldn't find.  The cider was pretty good.

We grabbed a few more before we entered a small town called Odell.  There, we found one called William's Place (GC1YHV1) and Ben enjoyed it because it was a firefighter themed one.  It honored fallen brothers at a really nicely taken care of memorial.  

We drove around town a bit trying to figure something out for a late lunch/early dinner but the town was so small it hardly had anything but a grocery store, a school and a couple of run down gas stations.  We found a couple more before trying to head back to Hood River.

I told Ben that we would find one more, that one more took us to a cluster of Pine Trees, to a cache called Pine Needles (GC5DZ7A).  At first my GPS took me to the wrong tree I soon corrected my direction which led us to the correct tree and found it right away.

Ben noticed the sticker inside the lid, Sawtooth Roadhouse.  Hmm, maybe we should go there for food?  Let's do it!  We plugged in the address and off we went...the wrong way!  Haha.  We were soon back on the right track and headed south on Hwy 35.  If it wasn't raining and clear outside we would have had a great view of Mount Hood in front of us.

We arrived at our destination and pulled into the parking lot of the restaurant.  From the outside it looked like the normal dive bar motif and once we went inside...same.  We were the only people inside besides the workers and maybe one or two locals.  We looked at the menu and decided we wanted pizza.  Ben ordered a beer and I got a soda.  We wanted meat on our pizza so we went with the All-star.  We talked about some random things and it arrived!

It was the best pizza ever!  It was homemade and fresh out of the oven.  Our waiter/owner was a little weird but we made his day by coming into the restaurant and having pizza.  We took the rest to go and headed back up Hwy 35 to go back to town.  We really didn't have a plan on what we were going to do but decided to go with the flow.

We stopped at Mark Hatfield State Park Mosier Twin Tunnels State Park to grab one.  We didn't want to pay the $5 fee so we hurried to grab the ammo can (GC1YHVX) underneath the tree.  Then we did some goofy pictures.

When we did get back to town we decided to park the car and walk around to all the shops that were still open.  Yep, some of them were closed.  With a small town like this it really didn't surprise me.  We went into a book store and looked at all the weird stickers and such, then we walked across the street to a place called Doug's Hood River, a more outdoor sporting good store.  We learned a bit more about snowboarding and the gear.

Then it started getting dark and that meant it was time for more breweries!  We walked down to Columbia, found a cache that was nearby, 4th Street is Awesome! (GC48ZKT).  Indeed...because beer is awesome!

Our first stop was the Double Mountain Brewery.  I ordered the Hop Lava and Ben ordered the Morder Weiz.  Both were really good.  Our bartender messed up so he gave one of our beers to us for free.  Instead of a $10.50 bill we only paid $5.  There were lots of people in an out of this brewery...similar to the Full Sail brewery down the street.  We hung out for about an hour and decided to move onto the next one across the freeway near the water.

Pfriem Family Brewers, was the other popular local brewery in the area.  We got seated and our waitress came by to ask us our drink order.  We decided to do the flights.  The core flight and the seasonal flight for a total of 24 sample beers to try.  It comes to about 2 1/2 pints each. As we tried them, Ben got hungry so we ordered the mac and cheese and fries just to soak up some of the beer.  We did have to drive back to our bead and breakfast still.  Once we finished our food and flights he wanted dessert for us to share, to top off our time spent in the Hood River together.

We paid, made our way outside and Ben had to play on the climbing wall.  We found the nearest cache (GC35AGC) just because we could and went back to our car.  We decided to go to Walmart down the road to get a case of water.  Between being buzzed, had to use the bathroom and our phones being dead, we were in the store way too long.  We figured ourselves out and went back to our place for the evening.  Of course we used the jetted tub.  It felt nice after being out in the cold all day.  This is why I want a hot tub.  We got all situated and fell asleep in our comfy bed.

Next Adventure:  Farm Fresh Breakfast, Hiking, Waterfalls, Caching, Buffalo Wild Wings and the Trip Back Home

Trip to the Hood River, Caching, Breweries and BnB

I met Ben a year ago today.  We met up at the Woodland Creek Park, played disc golf, cached, had sub sandwiches and finally froyo for dessert to end the night.  A year later, we are celebrating our anniversary in the Hood River.

About a month ago, Ben mentioned we should go somewhere for our year and he kinda wanted to go down to the Columbia Gorge and I said, let's go!  I told him the biggest town down that was was probably going to be the Oregon side in Hood River.  There was more to do there than the rest of the smaller towns, Washington or Oregon side.  Personally, I have never stopped at the Hood River only through it on my many trips along I-84.  Our only gamble with this trip during this time of year is the weather.  I really hoped that it didn't rain.

We did our research on the bed and breakfasts, breweries, activities, hiking, food options etc., weeks before our trip.  Within a few days of our trip, we knew exactly where we were staying and what breweries we were going to hit up. The rest of the time we would fill with geocaching and other random activities...maybe even a hike.

The oil was due in October so I thought I should get it changed before our trip.  Dad helped me change it since I had never done it for this vehicle yet.

I got gas the night before so we wouldn't have to stop anywhere.

I got all of my stuff packed and put some of it in the car.  The rest of it I packed in the morning on my way out the door towards work.  I wanted to immediately leave after work around noon to drive out to Rochester.

I got to work and had a list that kept me busy enough beyond noon but I got as much done as I could.  I think I got through five rooms before I asked Kathy for a break.  I ate my home made chicken noodle soup as quick as I could as I got my stuff ready out of my locker.  I told everyone bye, clocked out and headed west towards Rochester.  I called Ben to make sure he was up and got his stuff ready to go.

I got there about a half hour-forty minutes later and he had all of his stuff ready.  We packed it in the car.  I got paid and so did he.  We stopped at Key Bank in Grand Mound so he could cash the check and we drove into Chehalis to deposit mine at WSECU.  He didn't eat anything so we stopped at Taco Del Mar so he could feed his face.  Lol.

We were on the road again and he ate his tacos, sang songs and talked about weird stuff.  We both decided to take Hwy 14 and then cross over to Oregon at Bridge of the Gods.  Along Hwy 14, we stopped a few times to grab caches.  The first one,  A Stone of Testimony (GC1Q0NV) kinda kept us searching for a few minutes.  I wasn't sure what a cubit was but Ben found it a few seconds later.

A few miles more down the road we picked up A Gorgeous View (GC2EE79) and a Gorgeous View 2 (GC2EE7F).  Both were duct tape wallets attached to the guardrails by a small magnet.  When we find duct tape wallets, we know we're near Oregon.

We even got a cool pic of our geomobile along Hwy 14.

Tunnel to the Happy Tree (GC47X7E) was the next one down the road.  It sounded fun.  We got to the road and turned down a small "park n' ride"/trail head parking.  The GPS took us to a huge mangled tree and we started looking.  Turns out we were looking at the wrong tree and Ben found some snails (slugs with a camper).  I re-read the cache information and found out we were at the wrong tree.  I found it as soon as we got to the right area.

 It was really nice not to have to be at work but with Ben geocaching and traveling with him to our destination.  It felt so nice.  I decided to get one more cache before we drove over the Bridge of the Gods.  Since we were driving past another portion of the PCT I had to stop and get it.  We had about 19 miles of swirly Hwy 14 to go until we got there.  When we did arrive, we had to do a U-turn so we could park safely onto the pull out near the trail head.  This one was more defined than the one I visited up by White Pass a few weeks back.  It's probably because it's welcoming you to Washington.

We followed the path up the hill to Are You Up For the Crest? Start of the PCT Washington (GC1018H) and found the tree the ammo can was laying next to.  We signed the log and put it back better than we found it.

We walked back down to the car and flipped back around eastbound towards the beginning of the bridge.  I've been past this bridge so many times in the last four years it was now time to cross it.  We stopped at the entrance for less than ten seconds to take a picture and the car behind us honked.  Like I said, we were there for less than ten seconds.  The guy behind us was being a jerk.

We crossed the bridge and made it to the toll at the other side.  It cost us $1.00.  It varies depending on the size of your vehicle.  We made our way into Cascades Locks and parked in a small parking lot to check out the bridge.  We took a few pictures of us with the bridge and found a really funny mural of a surprised cougar.

After a bunch of laughs, we got back in the car and drove through Cascade Locks and found our way onto I-84 eastbound.  It was about a 20 mile drive to Hood River.  We took exit 63 onto the main drag in town.  We drove up the roads blindly until we found Oak Street.  We parked the car in the back of the building and went to check in.  It didn't occur to me that this was the bed and breakfast that Ben had the surprise for me.  We checked in with the front desk person and received our key to room 7.  We walked in and it was a really cute room.  More hotel like than a bed and breakfast and Ben's surprise was a bouquet of flowers, heart shaped cakes and grape sparkling cider.  I am really not a flower person but it was the thought that counted.

After scoping out our room, we went back down to the car to bring out stuff up so we didn't have to do it later.  It was dinner time so we wandered the town by foot.  Coming up the hill when we got here, we saw an awesome building on top of the hill and we wanted to see what it was.  It was one of the breweries on our list, Big Horse Brew Pub.  We stat down and ordered our drinks and food.  Because our weekends are during the week there weren't very many people inside the restaurant/bar.  I ordered the Pale Rider IPA and the burger.  Ben had the Strictly Rude and then the Nightmare along with his BBQ brisket plate.  We watched part of the World Series game San Francisco Giants and the Kansas City Royals battling it out.  And then we had a great conversation with the people sitting next to us.

They were roughly our age who had met in the peace corp about ten years ago.  She was from Melbourn, Australia, who had just finished up her Master's degree and he was from Duluth, Minnesota in between jobs.  They decided to meet up and travel the western US.  They had just gotten into The Hood River from hanging out in Canada the previous night.  We talked about several other topics as we ate our food.  We told them we were going to hit up another brewery in town and if they wanted to join us.  We paid and walked down the hill to Full Sail Ale.

We all sat down together at a table and looked at the beer menu.  I ordered the Full Sail IPA on Nitro, Ben ordered the Oktoberfest and then the Pilsner.  We learned each others names, her name was Sarah and his Sean.  We spent the rest of the night with them asking her questions about Australian creatures and lingo.  We paid, told them it was a pleasure to meet them and safe travels and went our separate ways.  We walked back up to Oak Street and got ready for bed.  The bed was very comfy.

Next Adventure:  Shopping, the Fruit Loop, Caching, Hwy 35, BnB and More Breweries