We left about 9:15 after packing all of our stuff into the Escape and saying thanks to Jen and Doug for letting us stay. Traffic wasn't that bad and it only took us 15 minutes to get to Fremont and park in the alley near the troll. We made sure we had everything with us and yes, I know we should have made a sandwich to take with us. I had a grumpy Ben around lunch time.
We got down to the event and already saw a ton of people walking around. I wouldn't be surprised if I didn't see a lot of people I knew just from the size of the crowd.
I saw WatchDOGSMike first at the WSGA tent. He had a copy of FTF Magazine he found for me with my milestone inside of it. I told him I would trade one of my pathtags for the copy. He insisted it was free but he accepted my offer since he didn't have one of mine yet. He had to go get it from his car, in the meantime, we wandered around vendor row looking at everything. We made our way towards Bev, who was waiting in line for block party swag at the tent. We chatted for a bit and then went back over to Mike. He handed me my copy and I thanked him.
Ben mentioned if this is really the last block party we should go stand in line and get a shirt. I told him sure, let's go. We didn't have to wait too long but got to talk to a bunch of people also waiting in line. I must have that face that screams I know stuff ask me. At least a dozen people asked me questions about the block party. Then I told them I was a local and their face lit up with joy. Then they asked me more questions, lol. We got our swag, Kenny gave me some money to get all of them shirts. We went back up to the plaza, signed our name on the giant blow up 15, took a few pictures and found our group among the sea of people.
We waited almost 20 minutes to take the group photo. This year they had a drone, similar to the TriCities Geocoin challenge picture. I assumed they had to wait for the drone to get ready.
After the group picture, me, Ben, Brenda, Ray, Bev, Kenny, Shari and Lars all did the geocaching adventure lab caches together. There were a few caches that were either new or ones we've been ignoring for several years that we had time to do as well. We started with the furthest one east and worked our way west and then back around to the event.
We did a couple of fun lab caches. One was we had to look through goggles while the other one is blowing into the end of a straw. It was hooked up in such a way that the code pops up with the air inside the device. It was pretty cool. Kenny and Shari did this one for our group.
We walked west along the Burke-Gilman Trail and had very unhappy inconvenienced bikers who were warned about the heavy traffic on the trail due to the event. Bev even exchanged some words with one of the bikers who was being very impatient. We saw the shrubs that were carved into dinosaurs, the rocket where we picked up This is Ground Control to Major Tom (GC5CXJV) which was placed after the block party last year. It was nice to actually get a few caches in Fremont instead of just lab caches.
We circled our way back and made our way up towards the troll. There were some stationary bikes you had to get on a pedal as fast as you could to find the code word. We just waited until we saw the word and then Ben took some GoPro shots with him and the troll. Of course it isn't lab cache fun without stopping by the Fremont Library, where we dug through a treasure chest to find a ball with Signal and a word on it. We were there for a while until I found the ball we were looking for.
Brenda had made some cookies for the trip and shared some with Ben. He was in cookie heaven. We walked down towards Evo and Brooks, on the eastern side of Fremont. When we got there and saw the line of cachers waiting for their turn to get the code. It was a skeleton and lots of pirate booty and fake diamonds. This set-up was to honor The Goonies 30th anniversary. Which in fact the other day the owner of The Goonies house closed it down to fans, cachers and tourists because they was just done with all the people showing up to the house.
Then we decided to go get Been There, Done That, Got 50 T-Shirts Challenge (GC4QYWN) since Kenny suggested we do it. You could only log it if you have 50 souvenirs on your profile. I had over 70. Of course we went to the posted coords because no one figured out the coords. Upon further investigation we figured them out and walked the long way to the cache. While walking to the cache, since it's Fremont there is bound to be weird murals along the way right?
We circled around and made our way back to the block party. We figured out the anagram to the t-shirts hanging on the clothes line along with a few other people wondering what the word was.
We took a break to relieve ourselves. It was just in time. Then we grabbed the final to Fremont (GC3FQDQ) a Wherigo off the Burke-Gilman Trail and then finished our two lab caches. One was under the building inside the parking garage. There, we took a UV flashlight went into a dark room and looked for the code on the ceiling. The final one was across the Lake Union canal, we were looking a building with a geological gem on it. Ray spotted it quickly and we moved on to turn in our words and get our prize for finishing.
I chose a trackable travel tag and Ben decided upon a grocery bag. We went upstairs to Blue Moon Burgers, ordered burgers and chicken tenders with Bev, Kenny and Shari for some much needed food. I logged my lab caches while we waited. When we were done we walked back downstairs to the goofy photo booth and took a group picture.
I haven't done the brewery tour so we decided to do it this year. Kenny, Shari and Bev did it last year and they were telling us how much fun it was. We got to one of the breweries and they told us that the first brewery, Fremont Brewery had the small tasting shot cups. We said okay and we drove to that one. They said they didn't have anymore so we had to go purchase some at the block party. I wasn't aware we had to purchase the glasses. Bev, Kenny and Shari had some so we just used the three of them and shared. It was annoying they didn't have anymore and no one told us that the stipulations had changed. Lame lame lame lame. We went to Fremont Brewery, The Outlander Pub, Hale's Ales (where we saw Lynette from the Fugefinders and we chatted for a few minutes), Bad Jimmy's, The Peddler and Hillard's Beer (that one was closed for a private event).
Kenny, Shari and Bev took us back to the Escape when we were done. We left as soon as we could towards the trail head at Mount Margaret. It took us a while to get out of Seattle and a little while to merge onto I-90 towards Mercer Island and Bellevue. Once we got past Bellevue the traffic magically disappeared. I texted Ray telling him we were on our way but needed to make one stop at at store for some ice and a couple other things. We got gas on our way out of Issaquah and back onto I-90 east.
We got to the Hyak exit and took a left onto a road that paralleled I-90. It was paved for the first few miles then turned into a washboard infested dirt road. We got to the parking area around 7:30ish and met up with Brenda and Ray who chose to spend the night in their hamster mobile. They saved a place for us to set up our tent. We spent about a half hour getting our tent and bedding ready. We enjoyed a PBJ sandwich and some popcorn while we chatted with Brenda and Ray for about an hour before retiring around 10 to get some sleep.
We crawled into our spots in the tent and tried to stay warm. I had quite a few layers of clothes on and I was still chilly. Snoqualmie Pass got down to 49 degrees and we were not used to that type of cold. A few weeks ago Mowich, in Mount Rainier National Park, wasn't even that cold at night. I feel like I got some sleep because we had to get up at 5:45 the next morning to take the tent down, put our stuff away and eat some food before the hike started at 6:30.
Next Adventure: GCD, Ape Event and the Drive Home
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