I grabbed the cans he had saved for me and I put my stuff in the Escape and got ready to go. I wanted to get to the park before all of the good camping places were gone. I told Wilmarth I appreciated him letting me stay and visit with them even though it was a quick trip. He said come on over anytime, he'll be there.
I got in the Escape and started my drive east on I-84 towards Pasco. I received updates from Bev as I drove. They had just gotten into Naches as I was in Sunnyside. They are about 40 miles behind me. I was so thankful not to have any car trouble on this trip...unlike last year. I went up the hill and got off at the junction I needed and into the hub of the TriCities I went. I followed my Nuvi right to the entrance to Sacajawea State Park. I got there around 12:30.
I parked the Escape and wandered over to a group of people who looked like they knew what was going on. I asked a gentleman, Mike, what I was suppose to do. He guided me over to the structure to pay my one night stay with a very nice lady who volunteered at the park. When I was done I found Mike again and asked where I needed to put my tent. That turned into a big thing because no one knew. Eventually the park ranger came and gave us some guidance. It took me about a half hour to put up my tent and my bedding. By then Bob and Bev arrived.
Before I left for the TriCities, I looked at the map for something that we could do that Friday while we waited for the event to start. I found a series of 50ish caches along the Snake River 01 (GC5JQ8Z) that we could do. I asked Bev if she was interested in doing that. She said yeah, Bob always enjoys finding a million caches in an outing. We were invited to dinner by Mike once Ray and Brenda got there. I texted them and they said they would be here around 4ish. Dinner was going to be at 5.
We piled into the Escape just because I knew the terrain was going to be rough along a river bank. Which was a great choice in the end. We put in the coords and Nuvi tried to take us to the caches. She ended up taking us to the wrong side of the river and she assumed there was a crossing to the other side. Dang it! We followed the directions on the cache page and we finally got there. Of course the segment of caches were divided up into two pieces. We started with the left side and worked our way towards McNary Dam. I drove and Bob and Bev got out. I got out a few times too. It was hot. The road bumped, dipped and was very craggy at some parts. It was very dusty and gritty. When we got to the end of the first part, we ended meeting up with three different cars and all were getting the same caches we had just done.
We started back to where we came in to do the other side of the trail. There were less on this side but still was going to take an hour or so to do. I don't think we were going to make the 5:00 dinner time. It was 4:15 and we still had to get the rest, drive out of here and head over to Richland...not going to happen unfortunately. We all felt bad.
We drove back to Sacajawea Sate Park and I dropped them off at their car so they could check into their hotel in Kennewick. I told them I would see them at the event. They drove off. I had about an hour to kill so I went and looked for the state park cache (GC4BC14) since I haven't been here before. This turned out to be so far the most eastern state park cache I have gotten. I saw a group of people wander off in the same direction so I followed them. Turned out to to be Winos_Seattle and BB00941(a boy-girl combo from Georgia).
We got back and I chatted with them for a while. I traded pathtags and by that time we needed to think about heading to Richland for the event. I ran over to my Escape and headed out to Richland. I found out my query did not reach all the way to Richland so I had to find the coordinates from the phone. It took a few tries but I managed to get them and put them on the Nuvi. I got almost to my turn off of George Washington Way and I got stuck in traffic. I didn't realize they were having a car parade right in the middle of town. I found a turn off and the back street took me right to the building I needed. I parked and ran into the building because it was so hot outside. I signed in and found Brenda and Ray at a table near the snacks. I was hungry so I was a fan of the snacks. I got some popcorn, oatmeal cookies and a fruit leather and something to drink and sat down. I said hi to several people they said hi to me, we visited and listened to some of the updates to the coin challenge. I discovered some of the trackables that were being passed around including an old walking stick. None of us won any of the raffle items. We didn't stay the entire time because we needed some actual food.
We said goodbye to everyone and I followed Bob and Bev to the Applebee's by their hotel. I didn't really want something really heavy but wanted something other than the snacks I had earlier. We all ordered salads and drinks. The salad hit the spot. We went over to their hotel room and got ice for my cooler from the ice machine. I told them bye and headed back to the state park. I talked to the winos again for about a half hour and decided I really needed a shower before I got into my warm tent. I am so glad I had that container full of quarters because it cost basically a quarter a min. I put 7 quarters in for 7 minutes. That seemed like enough time and it was. It felt soooo good to be clean!
I crawled into my tent and laid on my sleeping area, which consisted of a sleeping pad, three unzipped sleeping bags and a blanket to put over the top of me. It was very comfy. It was warm but not awful. My only problem was keeping my phone charged over night. I brought my power pack stick but it died around 4 a.m. so my alarm didn't go off at 6 when I wanted it to. I managed to get up by myself around 7 when I started hearing people drive up and people getting up out of their tents.
Next Adventure: TriCities Geocoin Challenge: Day 2 (#tcgchallenge)
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