I got my stuff ready the night before. I knew it was going to be cold so I put out all of my warm clothes. I set my alarm for 7:30 because they were going to be here around 8. That night around 3:30 I woke up to my room smelling like smoke. I got up really fast and checked to see if it was coming from my room...it wasn't. Then I heard mom walk down the hallway because she smelt it from their room. I got out and wandered the house with mom holding flashlights. We could not find anything that would suggest the amount of smoke that was in the house except for the pellet stove. It had to be coming from there. Dad got up and aired out the house. Of course it was 20 degrees outside so the whole house was colder but it got the smoke out and some of the smell. They turned the stove off and we all went back to bed. I had to sleep with my window open because of the smell. It was cold.
My alarm went off at 7:30 and I immediately turned my heater on and started putting my clothes on. My room was probably 25 degrees. I was freezing. I made sure I had everything and they rolled down the driveway at exactly 8:00. I hopped in the car and we drove to Denny's for breakfast. We all ordered the $4 everyday Grand Slam. We chatted and enjoyed our food.
The first one we had on the list took us to the RAC for a cache called Trapped in a Bottle (GC5D1XF). We were not prepared for this cache. We parked and walked towards the patch of trees on the north side of the park. We searched for a brown 4 foot long PVC pipe and Bev spotted it first. It took us a while to get the top of the PVC pipe apart because it was frozen. We got the lid off and saw the thing we had to get the log out of. It was a plastic bottle that contained the bison tube log book but we had to take the stick, nuts and bolts off of it before we could get the log book.
But how do we access the nuts and bolts? We had to phone a friend.
After talking to our source, we had an idea on how we were going to tackle this cache. Since it was really cold out that morning we took the bottle to the car to do. We needed a strip of paper to stick up to wrap around the nut and turn it until it fell off. It took a little trial and error to actually get the nut off. Once I did, pulled the bolt out and the stick I celebrated in the back of the car! I handed Bev the log book. Now putting it back together...
It was really frustrating. It was a good thing that they bottle was plastic or it would have been impossible. I had to get the bolt sideways, pinch it and some how get the bolt through the stick. That took a couple of tries to do. Once I did, getting the nut on it was even harder. When I did get it on and pressed up against the bottle to keep it on. I found out by using friction on the nut and bottle I could screw it on. Once I got it threaded on, I stuck the strip of paper back up, wrapped it around the nut and tightened it so it wouldn't come off for the next set of cachers. We returned it to its hiding place.
The next cache was a multi on the other side of I-5 called BQCSD ZOXBS VLVNU QWTYD RSZ (GC4FMH5). It was an enigma based cache using ciphers. We parked the car and got out. It started warming up a bit but still cold. Someone had cut a bunch of trees down for surveying. We had hoped they didn't disturb the cache. We looked and looked and upon further investigation, after I had walked past it twice, Bev found the log with the pull bottle inside of it.
We moved onto the next one, Pythagorean Theorem (GC316F8) but chose the wrong side of the trail. We ended up walking a half a mile to the other block to retrieve it. Meanwhile during the walk, I grabbed A Christmas Cache (GC43N9H) and Where the Heck is Wall Drug? (GC3P2C3) since Bob and Bev already have both of them.
And then Bev took a tumble on a sheet of ice. The side of her foot barely touched the ice, she slipped, fell and rolled onto her side. At first I didn't know what happened becasue it happened so quickly. We helped her out and she walked it off. She is a really tough lady.
We got to the end of the trail and Bob decided to send us to the cache while he walked back to the car to meet us at the corner where the rock wall was. Bev and I got to the rock wall that contained the cache and found it within seconds. Some rock walls take a bit while others do not. I pulled out the container and we celebrated with a high five.
We waited for Bob to show up in the car. He did after a few minutes and then went to the next closest one, Ganoderma (GC2ZFKZ), another multi cache. We had help with this one too so we just walked ourselves across this grassy field and through a hold in the fence into the woods. We followed Bob through the brush. We reached a broken tree and ground zero. We looked for a film canister and based on the hint it was suppose to be hanging from the broken tree. I looked down for a few seconds and spotted the film canister. "Found it! But I don't think it's suppose to be here." We had Bev sign it and Bob and I put it back into the broken tree.
We walked back to the car and headed over to Cabela's. Bob had to exchange some binoculars and they had to get a present for their in-law Will. Bev and I walked around the store for a bit while Bob stood in the customer service line. Bev mentioned some sort of device that takes deer's buttholes out of the carcass. I laughed. She said that it was real so we went looking for it. Several helpers and minutes later, we found it in the archery accessories. Low and behold...a deer butthole ripper outer!
They found a gift for Will and I found a Christmas present for my dad. We paid and started heading home but stopped at Taco Time because there is always time for tacos. They dropped me off at home and they had to get ready for a birthday party at Red Robin later on. It was a fun chilly day and I was so glad to get some caching in.
Next Adventure: Thanksgiving, Seahawks vs. 49ers and a Go Pro
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