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
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