Another Trip to Eatonville

It was a beautiful day in the Pacific Northwest and I got a phone call from Bev just after I finished my lunch asking me if I wanted to go get a few of the new caches that published last night.  I said sure.  We would be going to Eatonville again.

I got my query ready and my clothes on.  It was nice enough to wear shorts!  I was excited.  I drove over to Bev's house and decided to drive my car because it would have been in the way when everyone got home from work.  Bev was the navigator.

The first one she told us to go to was out by Camp Arnold and Webster road.  It was called Mooooo! (GC5J8N5) and we could see why it was called that when we drove up to it and parked.  There was a giant rock painted like a black and white cow.  We looked around the rock and didn't see anything then I looked at the fence and there it was, a micro attached to the fence.

Since we were over near Camp Arnold, I wanted to try and look for Camp Cook (GC20E1B) again.  I've had this cache solved for many years and attempted to go get it about the same time but when I arrived I didn't think my coords were right. I went into the brush and was only 40 feet from the cache. I decided to turn around and try again another day. Bev said she doesn't remember if she came out here with Bob when they found it. So I went in and searched around a bit. There were sooo many things to look through. I found ground zero and looked everywhere...high, low, under, over. Then something caught my eye. A piece of the container was showing. YES! There it was! I signed it, put it back as I found it and swam back through the brush to the car.  It was nice to finally get this one off the list.

There were a couple more caches outside of Eatonville to grab.  The first one was one of the newer caches that published last night.  We've been to Dogwood Park so many times to get caches.  This visit makes it three.  We got out of my car and we immediately took pictures of Mount Rainier in the distance.  This park was also a great stop for the mountain viewpoint.  In fact, two other sets of cars stopped to take pictures.

Bev and I looked for Dogwood Park (GC5Q23W) and found it quickly behind one of the signs.  It was a magnetic reflector with the cache inside of it.  The tape didn't do it justice.  They really needed to glue down the magnets and tape.  We signed it and put it back where we found it.

The next one took us on a one-lane unlined Ohop-Valley Extension Road.  We took the wrong road and had to turn around.  Neither of us have been down this road before.  As we got closer to Hole-y G-rail (GC55VBK), we noticed that the valley would flood really bad if this area got a lot of rain.  The small creeks were already as high as they could go without flooding the road.  We arrived at the guard rail over one of the creeks, got out and knew exactly where it was.  Bev added a trackable to it as I signed the logbook.  We all returned to the car and followed it through back onto Hwy 161.

We drove up the hill into the town of Eatonville.  Everyone was preparing to get out of school.  The buses were on their way to the school, parents were in their cars waiting...traffic at the four way intersection was even busy.  We put in the coordinates into Nuvi because we could not figure out what road to turn down.  It redirected us to some back alley roads and then onto the Alder Cutoff.  We then turned down a dirt road that led us to a trail head.  The Bud Blancher Trail  is a 2.3 mile non-motorized gravel trail that connects Eatonville to the Pack Forest.  We parked and followed the gravel path to the river.  We walked across a very nice bridge and started looking for Mossy Nook (GC5H20P).

From the look of the logs everyone has had trouble locating the cache because the coordinates were off by about 30 feet.  That didn't say which direction.  We looked at the huge stump first and did not see anything. We looked in every nook and cranny and did not find it.  We probably spent a good 30 minutes looking for the darn thing.  It was quite warm and Bev was getting tired and thirsty.  She said to give it one more look and then we will walk back up.  I looked at that stump one more time and I saw tiny plastic corner sticking out of the moss.  "Are you serious!?"  I pulled it out of its hiding spot and yelled at Bev that I found it.  She was also amazed.  We signed the book, put it back and walked back up the hill.

We got back up to the car and was very glad to have drinks waiting for us in the car.  We got back on the road and followed Hwy161 to Hwy 7 near the Pack Forest.  Target Practice (GC5Q24Q) was near one we spent a lot of time looking for a few years ago.  It has since been archived.  This one was found pretty quickly.  It was a film canister stuffed in one of the sign holes.  We signed it and walked back to the car.

We followed Hwy 7 to the turn towards McKenna.  It was such a nice day I didn't want it to end.  Because if it ended I knew I would have to go back to work the next day.  Ugh.  I took Bev back to her house and then went home.  I logged caches, started a blog, watched some basketball with mom and got ready for work the next day.

Next Adventure: Easter Fun

Paint Night in Federal Way

About a month ago mom got an idea for those paint nights you keep on seeing others do on Facebook.  There are several in the area, we did ours through Wine and Canvas-Seattle.  We tried to find the one closet south to us.  It was Grandma's birthday so we wanted to take her out to do something fun and this was right up her alley.  She painted on her own at home.  We got a hold of my aunt and asked her if she wanted to do this with us.  She said sure but she couldn't do it on the day we wanted to.  So we looked for another painting of the one we liked.  That one was in March on a Monday.  We asked Grandma if she had any appointments and she said no.  We asked Angela if she could go on that day and she said yes.  I asked my boss if I could leave around 4 and she said sure.  I had Grandma drive to the dentist office and that's where I went after work.  Mostly to change and to get everyone because we were driving my car.

Of course we didn't get out of there until after 4:30 and I expected traffic on I-5.  When we finally got to I-5 there wasn't any traffic at all.  I was really surprised.  We got to Billy McHale's in Federal way in about an hour.  So because it was dinner time, we ordered food and it hit the spot.  We all ordered burgers.

We had about a half hour to eat it before we had to be in the other room, checked in and in front of our canvas.  Since there were six of us we had to grab some spots before they were all gone.  The event was sold out.  Mom texted Angela and I texted Trish to see if they were on their way yet.  It was getting closer to paint time.

Trish and Amy arrived just as we finished our food and Trish got her some wine.  We moved into the other room, checked in and found a pod of six spots four our group.  Angela arrived shortly after.  We put our canvases on our easels and put our stylish aprons on.  We looked fabulous.

I used the bathroom one last time before we started.  I didn't know if it had a "half time" or "intermission" without missing any of the directions.  We began several minutes later.  On my blank canvas we were to paint the horizon line and then came our mountain.  Everyone took a different perspective on their mountains.  It was fun to see what everyone did.

I learned a lot about water based acrylics that night too.  Your paint brushes must always be in the water cup and use as much water as you can with your paints because it makes the paint last longer and your paint will dry faster.  After the mountain, we worked on the wind swirls and then the moon and stars.  We learned another technique to save paint.  I can't remember what she said but it involves painting long dashes and short dashes and then letting the dry and then adding white to give it the wave, swirl look.

Next we filled in our sky with a dark blue color and used some yellows and white around the moon and stars.  I had to wait for the sky to dry so I could blend in the areas better.  Then we picked up the one paint brush we haven't used yet and dipped it into the water and then our blues, blacks and purples to swipe the bottom for our water.  Then we added our Space Needle line and some buildings on the edge of our harbor.

We added harbor lights, reflections and finished our Space Needle.  For fun I added a 12th Man flag to the top of my needle and we signed our names at the bottom.  Here is our finished products.

I would definitely do this again.  It was something different than my normal hobbies that I like to do.  I really need to finish my acrylic painting I started in 10th grade.  Maybe some day.  Haha.  Everyone had a great time except for Grandma, I asked her if she had fun and she said I wouldn't call it fun.  Well then what would you call it?  Haha.  I think she did enjoy herself so did Trish and Amy.  I'm glad they got to come out and paint with us.

We got home late and we all had to work the next day but it was worth it.

Next Adventure: Another Trip to Eatonville

Pi Day Event

I saw that there were several Pi Day events all over western Washington on Saturday.  Of course Pi Day was on a Saturday...a day I have to be at work.  And it was a freaking busy day at work.  I was tired for days after.

I found one, PI Event at the Park (GC5NFZ2) that was in Lakewood at Dawson Playfields and it was at 6 p.m. hosted by Hoovers69, one of my caching buddies who also works on Saturdays.  He tries to make events as later as possible on days like that.  I thanked him later for having one I could go to.  You got a Pi day souvenir for attending an event.

I got off of work as quick as I could...which was around 4ish.  We had a lot of stays that day for some reason.  My boss told me this weekend wouldn't be that bad but it was.  We were severely understaffed and there was a lot to do.  I hope a weekend like that never happens again.  I changed really quickly in the bathroom and I was on my way.  My nuvi told me I would arrive in about 35 minutes without traffic.  I expected to be there just before 6...I expected a little bit of traffic.

I got there just after 5:45 and noticed some people walking around.  I wasn't sure if they were cachers or not.  Then I saw crystalcrypter pull up and get out of her car.  I grabbed my stuff and joined in under the covered area.  I talked to a bunch of cachers I've never seen before but have seen some of their names on caches.  There was a cache in the park but had not been found by the last two people so that kind of sent up a red flag.  I decided not to look for it.  However, when I got to the table, everyone was looking for Bag of Chips Let's Have a Picnic (GC48381) and found the nano stuck underneath the table.  I signed it and left it on the table for the others to sign.

I talked to Hoovers69, BobKai and finally got to meet Tightluv, a local girl I started following on Instagram.  I gave her one of my pathtags.  Frisbee'r, PioneerWoman and OhJoy were also there.  I talked to them for a little bit too.  Someone brought a pie and I am not sure if anyone actually ate it because I was engrossed with talking to people.  I picked up a few trackables while I finished talking to Goingup and Hoovers69.  I stayed until almost 7:30.

To get the other souvenir, you had to find a puzzle/unknown cache.  I had several solved but had limited daylight since I stayed at the event too long.  I knew I had one close by to grab and I solved it eons ago.  The Movie:  Al Pachino (redux) (GC1M5TM) was on my way home.  I found its hidey place, made my mark and looked for something to eat. I was very limited in what I could eat at this point and in this area so I decided on the newly remodeled Dairy Queen.  I got the chicken strips basket and ate it on the way back home. It hit the spot.  When I did get home I logged my finds, grabbed a shower, got ready for work the next day and passed out.  This weekend sucked.

Next Adventure:  Paint Night in Federal Way

St. Patrick's Day Game Night

Me and my friends have been having a game night once a month if we can for a few years now.  For March, we decided to have an early St. Patrick's day celebration.  Ben's days off changed to Friday and Saturdays so we all decided to have a game night on a Friday so he could come.  Lindsay wanted to host this time so we let her.

I wanted to make dessert and it had to be green.  Since Nicole is gluten free and we always make foods and desserts not gluten free and I started to feel bad about it.  I made green gluten free cupcakes.  I learned that gluten free cakes were made with really weird ingredients and that the batter is very gritty.  Once the cupcakes baked, they were very dense.  Don't get me wrong they were pretty good. I also made some watermelon cupcakes as well because I've never seen them before and I wanted to try them.  Sort of an experiment.

The watermelon one was even tasty.  I was a fan.

Friday arrived and I knew I wouldn't have that much time to get ready.  I immediately went home and took a shower while Ben drove to my house.  I decided to look somewhat nice since I got a shower in.  I did my hair and put on a little make up.  I had him pick up some more beer and chips.  When he got here he helped me grab the cooler, the games and the cupcakes.  We took his car over to Lindsay's.

The gate was open when we got there and we decided not to park behind anyone.  Auki greeted us as we walked into the house.  And we saw the Christmas tree.  I can not believe their Christmas tree was still up.  Christmas was months ago and that tree is a huge fire hazard.  We all sat at the table and started playing some games.  One was Heads Up, made famous by Ellen DeGeneres and the other one was called Anomia, that one got your mind thinking quick.  We ate our food prepared by everyone.  Megan made gluten free potato soup, Lindsay made cabbage rolls, Celeste made some sort of potato salmon thing and Nicole made some dip.  There was plenty of food for the night.  Lindsay and Justin also had a giant container of gummy worms.  Ben and I drank green beer and everyone else drank soda or green wine.

Megan told everyone she and Matt were expecting their second kid sometime in July. We all congratulated them.

At about 10 is when everyone decided to go home.  Most of us worked the next day.

Happy St. Patrick's Day everyone!  Go drink some green beer.  :)

Next Adventure:  Pi Day Event

My Geocaching Story: Meeting Ben

I’ve been geocaching since July 2010 and I became addicted instantly.  I’ve always enjoyed traveling, learning about new places, history, geography and this hobby has definitely enhanced every aspect of my said interests.  It gave me a reason to be outside more than just the occasional hike or walk in the park.  It has allowed me to go to places I never thought I would ever go to. I've been to 10 states, Route 66, Area 51 and various local landmarks and hotspots.  I live in a small rural Pacific Northwest town and have seen just about ever square inch of the area (and beyond) because of geocaching.

Every adventure needs a caching buddy right?  Of course!  I’ve always wanted someone I could go geocaching with; plus it is safer in numbers.  I spent most of my “newbie” experiences by myself learning as much as I could about the game.  As I became more educated about finding them, hiding them, using a GPS, making queries, cache machines and events, it was time to find someone to create memories with.  After a few years I considered myself a seasoned geocacher.

My area was really hard to find someone my age to geocache with.  Everyone was married with kids, retired military, people who had no interest in the hobby, etc.  Since this is the technology age, I decided to try my luck with online dating.  One night while I was searching the interest geocaching, a few profiles popped up near and far.  I looked at them all.  I engaged in a few conversations about geocaching but none really went anywhere and sort of just trailed off.  One of those profiles was interested but they lived on the east coast and I knew that would never happen.  A couple of months to a year went by and I was looking again just for fun.  I noticed a profile that really stood out.  He enjoyed geocaching, sports, outdoors, was around my age, lived locally but I didn’t respond because I didn’t think they would be interested in me.  The next day I received this message, “I think I found myself a geocaching buddy!”

I was beyond excited.  I could not wait to meet him in person.

We started texting and tried to figure out when we should meet and where.  About a week later, we met at one of the local parks.  I showed up wearing my geocaching gear…sweatshirt, cargo pants, hiking boots and he showed up wearing the exact some thing.  I swear this wasn’t planned.  We introduced ourselves, shared a little bit about our lives and went right into geocaching.  I had already found the ones inside the park so I had him find them.  Instead of it being awkwardly uncomfortable when meeting new people for the first time, we actually got along great and I enjoyed his company.  We also engaged in another hobby of ours after we found all the caches in the park, our love of disc golf.  It was a 9-hole course and I managed to throw my disc over the fence into the neighborhood’s yard.  I was mortified.  He just laughed.  We ended up getting it back after I used him as a ladder to get up and over the fence to retrieve the disc.  We still joke about it to this day.

We started dating about a week later after several conversations and geocaching adventures here and there.  It was so great to be able to share the experiences with him.

Six months later we did the exact same thing we did when we first met.  That park will always be a special place in both of our lives.  We will continue to frequent that park as long as we live in the area.  We plan on spending our future together.

I wouldn’t have found him without geocaching.

"Extraordinary things are always hiding in places people never think to look."  -Jodi Picoult

Valerie Larson (cougarcach24)

Rainier, Washington

The Lamprey Challenge and the Satsop Nuclear Power Plants

The U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife put out a geotour.  Instead of a coin we would get a pathtag upon completion.  There were six puzzle caches ranging from Montesano all the way to Chehalis.  This geocaching challenge was created with the intent to educate the public about the Chehalis River Basin and the Pacific Lamprey within.  The Pacific Lamprey is a relatively unknown, often underappreciated and declining species of fish that is a critical contributor to ecosystems of the Pacific Northwest and is culturally important to many tribes.

We were to correctly answer two trivia questions per cache to obtain the corrected coordinates, print out the passport, locate the cache and use the stamp within to mark the appropriate box on the passport, mail the completed passport to claim your pathtag.  There were only 75 pathtags so first come first served.

This challenge was published February 23.  I couldn't do it until a week day so I chose Wednesday and I saw it was going to be a nice day.  I knew I couldn't ask Bob and Bev to go because they already completed it.  I knew Ben worked Wednesday night and I felt bad for asking him to go with me but I didn't want to go by myself.  I gave him the choice and he said he would go.  I told him I would be there by noon.

The night before I solved all of the puzzles and learned a lot about the lamprey.  I made a query and got my clothes, trackables and some of the the food together for the trip.  I liked getting ready the night before to make the day of easier.  

I got up, put my clothes on, made some sandwiches, grabbed some drinks and put everything in the car and headed out to Rochester.  He was still in his bed when I knocked on the door.  I knew he would be but I didn't know about the story from work that early morning.  Apparently, two cocktail waitresses got into a cat fight just before he was done with his shift and he and another co-worker had to break them up.  He came home with scratches on his back and side and he had to stay after to fill out reports.  He didn't go to bed until about 8 a.m.  I felt bad getting him out of his bed but he wanted to come with me.  He zombied out of bed, put some clothes on and his shoes and we left around 12:20.

I decided to go out to the furthest one and work our way towards Chehalis.  The furthest one was Friends Landing (GC5KZWJ) and for some reason Nuvi hated its directions.  It was so close to Hwy 107 it actually thought you could access it from the highway.  In reality, you had to drive to Montesano and take a well used road out towards the river.  Luckily, I read all of the logs and the driving instructions before we embarked on this journey.  We parked less than 200 feet from the cache hiding in the log.

We got back in the car and plugged the next one into the Nuvi.  We got back onto the freeway and got off at the Hwy 107 exit towards Preacher's Slough (GC5KZWH).  We had to wait for some construction at the bridge.  We didn't have to wait that long.  Then we accidently drove past the parking area to the cache.  We turned around, parked and found out this was one of the two we had to walk to.  It was a chilly yet nice walk in the woods along the slough.  When we approached the cache, we had a slight hiccup while looking.  This one was actually hidden pretty good.  Then I saw the piece of wood hiding it.  Here it is!

On the way back towards the car we stopped to look at the slough.  On our way back to Hwy 12 via Hwy 107, we had to stop again at the bridge for a few minutes.  We also ate our sandwiches and chips as we drove.  It was roughly 1:30.

Our next stop was the Satsop River (GC5KZWK) with the giant power plants looming over us in the distance.  We followed Nuvi and she didn't quite know where to go once we got to the bridge.  She wanted us to drive off into the river from the bridge but I knew better.  We found the road the lead us underneath the bridge over to a parking lot for boat trailers.  A lot of these places were going to were used for fishing.  We parked as close as we could.  We just had to walk the 80 feet into the trees, where again, we found the cache hidden inside some logs.

Since we were so close to the Satsop power plants I had to go see them.  I spend most of my childhood driving back and forth from Ocean Shores and Westport we would always see these structures in the distance.  They always reminded us of The Simpsons.  I always wanted to go see them up close but we never had the time or we had to be somewhere else when we were in the area.  We drove up the hill and followed the roads.  There they were...the landmarks of Grays Harbor county!

If we had the time I would have found the other caches up here.  I will have to save them for another time when we're not in a hurry to get back.  We drove through the back roads towards Porter.  The fourth cache on our adventure today was literally at a fishing hole right off the road next to Porter Creek (GC5KZWM).  This time I pulled up beside it.  We only had to walk about 30 feet.  You could almost follow it without a GPS...everyone before us had left behind an obvious geotrail.  I had Ben stamp the passports and I wrote our caching names on the log book.

We got back onto Hwy 12 and made our way to Centralia the back way through Grand Mound.  The next one was along a trail I've heard of but have never gone to yet.  I know there are caches along the trail but those will have to wait for another day.  Discovery Trail (GC5KZWN) was the furthest one we had to walk to.  We pulled up to the parking lot and it was over a quarter of a mile just to get to the actual trail.  Once on the trail, it was another ways to walk.  It was a nice day so there were a bunch of people walking their dogs.  We hurried out to it and hurried back.

On our way to I-5, we stopped at Safeway to use the restroom.  Grandma called me while I waited for Ben.  So I talked to her for a bit.  Now we were on I-5 heading south towards Chehalis and to our last challenge cache.  I've been to this park once before many years ago.  I celebrated one of my earlier milestones just before dusk.  Alexander Park (GC5KZWP) was off of Hwy 6 just after the bridge but before Adna.  This was the area that was destroyed in the 2007 and 2008 flooding when the Chehalis River's dike system failed.  Everything was covered in flood water and I-5 was closed for nearly a week.  You can still see the devastation in certain areas.  We parked and I had to change the batteries in the GPS.  It led us near the banks of the Chehalis and again the cache was hidden inside of a log-stump like tree.

I asked Ben if he wanted an early dinner he said no.  I knew he just wanted me to take him home so he could have a couple hours of sleep before he went to work.  I told him that was fine.  We got onto the freeway and headed towards the Rochester fire house.  When we got there, he grabbed his stuff and we said our goodbyes.  He went inside and went to bed.  I stayed out in the parking lot and filled out the rest of the passports to mail.  He came out in shorts to give me one more kiss.  Isn't he sweet?  He ran back inside to get maximum sleep time.  I put the stamps on the envelopes and mailed them on my way out of town.  

Until the next challenge!

Next Adventure:  St. Patrick's Day Game Night