That morning I packed up all my stuff and headed to the fire station in Rochester, all before 10:00. I got there and got him motivated to get his stuff into his car and off to Olympia we went. We stopped by the mall to get a black short-sleeved shirt for the wedding. He was the best man so we had to make him look good. We found one right away, he tried it on and found a register to pay. Off to the freeway we go!
Neither of us ate anything so we talked about where we wanted to stop for food. I told him let's get some miles behind us and stop in CleElum somewhere. He said sounds good. We got off I-5 onto Hwy 18 and traffic wasn't that bad, in fact we made up some time. We merged onto I-90 and when we got closer to North Bend I thought to myself, I should have put Olallie State Park onto my query so we could get this stamp. I decided, eh...we could get it in August when we come up for the Ape event. He continued on the road and I asked where we were going. He said to Ben's Disneyland. Oh, we're going to the Washington State Fire Training Academy. I've driven past the signs hundreds of times and have always wondered where it was and what it looked like.
We couldn't really get that close because there were people training and we didn't want to interrupt. So he pointed out what everything was and told me a few stories when he was training here. The tallest building has coating on it to prevent it from burning down. It was cool visiting finally. We headed back down the hill to I-90.
We made some good time when we arrived in CleElum for food. Ben wanted breakfast and I wanted lunch. We stopped by the Cottage Cafe. Ben and Josh stopped at a few months back. I ordered a burger and fries and Ben ordered pancakes, eggs, bacon, hashbrowns, etc. It was a lot of food and he finished all of it but a few bites of pancake. We went back out to the car and it started getting hotter. The night before I had made a small query of caches to get along the way since we really weren't in a hurry and we have daylight until about 9 p.m.
We got onto the 970 and stopped for one called, Teanaway Ghost Stop (GC4TVW0), which used to be a very frequented rest stop. I remember stopping here back in 2011 on our way to the Methow Valley Cache Machine for the cache that used to be here, now there is a new one. The Jackalope is still there except it has a red nose. Ben found the cache after the GPS led us astray. We signed the log and hid the bison tube back where we found it.
We stopped for one more before heading up the Blewett Pass grade, Weary Traveler Cache-Intersection (GCWYKT) was an easy guard rail cache near the turn off to Ellensburg. We parked along side the road and grabbed it before a lot of traffic came rumbling through there. It got windy. We watched the wind blow the tall grass like waves. We got back into the car and took on the pass. We stopped at A Holey Place (GC2AF8D) hoping to find the cache that I couldn't find back in 2011. The coords are bad so we gave up and took some picture with the cave.
There really wasn't that much traffic going north, which was nice for us, when we got up and over, Ben was doing 70 mph and as our luck would have it, we got stopped by a cop. Second time since Ben had the car. We pulled over, turned the radio down and waited to hear what the cop had to say. He said we would be getting another warning as he took down Ben's information off his license. He said since we were also doing a steady 70 and didn't slam on our breaks he really wasn't too concerned. He just asked us to go 60 from now on since it is a highway. We said okay and thanks.
Our next stop was Only One Thing More Beautiful (GCRQXE) along the river. We parked and walked to the spot. I remember stopping here for another cache that used to be here about four years ago. We looked for it and couldn't find it. We would try again after playing in the river for a bit. It was getting hot and the cool crisp river felt really nice.
We walked back up to the guard rail and Ben found it. The coords were way off. We signed the log and walked back to the car. We entered Dryden at the intersection of US 97 and Hwy 2. The next stop we had on our agenda was Peshastin Pinnacles State Park (GC4B588). I wanted to get the state park and the earthcache that were there and definitely do some rock climbing. When we got there we were the only ones there. It was pretty hot so we made sure we had some water. We used the restroom and got our shoes and passport together. A car drove up and dropped some kids off to go hiking. We went up to the gate and went to the state park cache first.
When I was in middle school my family had stopped here for lunch along our travels, that was around 1997 when the camper was still in one piece. I remember stopping to use the restroom and sitting in the camper while mom made us a ham and cheese sandwich. Shortly after we made our way up to Chelan for the evening to use the jet boat. I also remember a lightning storm that scared us while we tried to sleep.
We followed the path that lead us directly to the cache. It was in a small outcrop of rocks and Ben spotted it before I did.
We logged our names, got our stamp and put it back as we found it. We walked to the climbing pinnacle and found an easy side to boulder since we did not have ropes and harnesses with us. We kept it as safe as we could. Ben attempted to climb the west side...it was a little more than we were prepared for so we went over to the east side of the rock.
I went up first and climbed about half way. I didn't trust my new climbing skills to go beyond that without a rope and harness.
Then Ben took a turn on that side of the rock. He made it beyond the mark I had stopped at. Then I saw the bees nest and told him to come down as quick as he could. He had a plan to climb to the top and come down on the south part of the rock. I had saved his life seeing that nest. If he would have gotten stung it would have been a very bad day. We need to bring his pen with us and not just leave it in the car. That would have been a long run and back if he would have gotten stung.
We all made it down safe and sound, got our shoes back on and answered the Peshastin Pinnacles (GC1CH2P) earthcache questions before going back to the car. We needed some more water. In Cashmere, we stopped at the gas station and bought a gallon jug of water and some ice for our cooler. That waster was delicious after being in the heat with dust everywhere.
We stopped again inside the small town of Entiat. Last time we were here, in May, I wanted to stop to get one for the towns and cities challenge but we ran out of time. This time we had some time to stop and grab one called, Calling All Geocachers (GC1PJTN), indeed it was in a phone booth. This one was less creative than the last one I found at a phone booth. I had Ben search for it and he found it quickly.
Earthquake Point, is another place I have stopped at in the past with my family. At the time there weren't any geocaches or earthcaches. We found The Night the Mountain Fell (GCJG35) and Ribbon Cliff Landslide (GC1F5PW). I learned more about the area and the event that took place here back in the late 1800's. It is quite an interesting read.
Ribbon Cliff Earthquake of 1872.
I had two more caches loaded just before the hill into Chelan but we needed to check in to our hotel before 8 p.m., so we just stopped at one of them. Frankenstein Rock (GC1B50Z) was the coolest rock formation I had ever seen before. With the spray paint it really did look like Frankenstein. Ben found the cache and we took a few pictures just because we could.
We rolled down the hill into Chelan and immediately drove to the hotel. We were staying in the Riverwalk Inn. We got there just before 8. He gave us our keys, we parked and unloaded our stuff into our room. It was literally a bed and a bathroom. We had a fridge and two end tables. We had maybe 3-5 feet of room from the bed to the wall. We hung up our wedding clothes and put our liquids into the fridge. The cafe attached to our hotel only served breakfast so we had to go find some dinner. The pizza place across the way was still open, Local Myth Pizza. We ordered it to go, while we waited Ben ordered a beer, Raging Ditch Dry-Hopped Blonde by Bale Breaker Brewing out of Yakima.
We paid for the pizza and went and ate it in the park while we watched the sun go down. We brought our own beer with us and enjoyed our dinner next to the lake. It was so warm outside for June. We sat there and chatted for a bit before going back to the room. We weren't sure what tomorrow would bring.
Next Adventure: Manson and the Wedding Rehearsal
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