We thought about going to Stevens Pass to snowboard but it was too late in the day to head over there(it was already noon) and we decided to do it tomorrow at Snoqualmie Pass instead. We decided where we were going to have lunch and what we were going to do with the rest of our afternoon. We got all of our stuff ready and took it out to the Escape. We thanked Sven for letting us stay with him and it was great to finally meet him (Ben had talked about him often) and hit the road.
We drove into Monroe (this place has changed a lot) and Nuvi directed us to the teriyaki and sushi place we picked out. Kami Teriyaki and Sushi was nestled in between a haircut place and an H&R Block. We went in and noticed this place was busy. We ordered and thankfully we didn't have to wait that long. Ben ordered sushi and I ordered teriyaki. My food was delicious.
Afterwards we did a little caching in the main area of town. We grabbed the nine traditionals around town. The first one was called Shell Shock (GC1XMQ4) and it was located at the Shell Station on the south side of Hwy 2. We rolled in and noticed the guard rail. It was a guard rail cache, poop. However, the cache container made up for the poor placement.
We drove across the street to the Walmart to grab This is Progress (GC61VP4) really quickly. There were lots of people driving around and not obeying the rules of the road. We had a guy who clearly had the right of way, stop in front of us and wait for us to turn. It was dumb. We parked in front of the cache, I got out, found it under the lamp skirt and returned to the car with it. We signed it and I put it back into its hiding spot.
We drove over towards the theater and found a place to park and walked up the small hill behind Fred Meyers. We passed a boy and a girl who were roughly high school aged walking back down the hill. I doubt they were geocachers and the only other explanation is they went up there for some making out or some home run action. Freddies and Beyond (GC24ZMB) was a small bison tube with a magnet on the side of it that stuck to the outside of a pole tucked underneath a corner to conceal it from muggles. We found it quickly and walked back down to the Escape.
We checked his App and the next one took us into the other complex across the side road. YOU Have the Power (GC5RBW4) was an electrical face plate stuck to the side of the lamp pole. Luckily no one was paying attention to us.
The next one took us down a side road north of Hwy 2 out towards the farming part of town. We saw the side road and parked at the gate. We walked up the short but semi steep paved driveway. Ben thought it was going to be on the tree side. We looked there first and didn't find it. Then I remembered two caches I found near home a few years back. I told him that sometimes caches have been hidden in the caps of this white fence. We spent some time opening all the lids on the fence and didn't find it. We were looking in the wrong one. I pulled one more cap off and it was the one that contained Resolutions (GC1KBR7). He told me good to know for future caches.
There was one more down the same road that we could get before heading down to Duvall. Cable Guy (GC1T468) was next to the road near a muddy pull out. I dropped Ben off and turned around. I parked in the muddy pull out and gave him some pointers about finding caches underneath power lines...the coords will lie to you. After that, he figured it out and found the cache. Our shoes were really muddy and now my Escape was going to be muddy.
We drove back into town and found one more along the way to Duvall on Hwy 203. Monroe Parks: Lewis Street Parks (GCRK3V). This cache was located inside Al Borlin Park. Immediately I thought of Al Borland from Home Improvement, lol. We walked down the hill and across the bridge. The coords took us to the end of the bridge. We started looking. With the many bridges I've found caches on it could be just about anywhere. I gave Ben a chance to look for it. He read the hint and found it immediately.
I wanted to walk down to the river so we followed the path down to the bank and then over the bed to the river. We found a really cool downed tree with the bridge in the background so we took a few pictures. You could tell the Skykomish River recently flooded in all the rain we had this winter so far. There was so much tree debris.
Then it started raining so we hustled back up the hill, over the bridge and to the Escape. I thought I would use the restroom before we headed to Duvall. I went and checked and it was closed due to vandalism. Don't people have better things to do than to destroy a public bathroom? I guess not. We got back on the road and headed south over the bridge and towards Duvall. I don't remember ever visiting Duvall in the past. I guess this was my first time there.
I posted on my facebook page if there were any cool caches in the Monroe area the other night and I got some responses back. One in particular was from Fen telling us to stop by their house and get the one in their yard. I wasn't too keen on the idea of caching on people's property but since I knew them it would be okay. Ben and I decided to go get that one but it was premium and we didn't have coordinates.
We found a pull out near the welcome to Duvall sign because Ben's phone and the caching app was giving him a hard time. I finally broke down and reactivated my premium account. This was the first time in six years I didn't do it right away. I asked him if there was a cache here and he said no. We plugged the coords into Nuvi and we were on our way to get The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (GC4B2YG). Fen and Mitch lived in a really nice house. We were very impressed. We found the cache hidden amongst the rock wall facing the road. We took our picture and ran to the Escape because it rained really hard. I believe we passed the cache owners as we were going down and they were coming up. If only we stayed a few minutes longer we could have chatted.
We headed back towards town but pulled over at the other welcome to Duvall sign. There had to be one here and of course there was. Welcome to Duvall (GCG07V) was a dumb one located inside the guardrail. While we looked, "Ben there's an eagle, there's an eagle, an eagle!"
Meanwhile, Ben found a couple of caches in town with a lot of favorite points. He said we should do these ones. There were three. We started with Grandma Rose Room (GC2P7JX). Boy did we have a good time with this one. Here's Ben's cache log:
"Fun muggle story with this hide, made us laugh so hard. We pulled up to the cache which was obvious to us and three ladies watched as we started removing the contents from the container. Unknown to their presence, we turned around to these ladies wide eyed and gawking at us with no knowledge of who we were or what we were doing assuming we were trafficking drugs. Val and I knowing we were caught in the act of caching started playing dumb as we assumed they knew of the cache and the activity. They walked outside from the building and started accusing us of hiding paraphernalia in the container that they had never noticed before despite the fact that they worked at this location. Once describing the game of geocaching they became instantly apologetic leaving us with this story."
You would think these ladies would have seen people come and go over the years since this cache was placed back in 2011. We had a good chuckle as we made our way back to the Escape.
We made our way back through town and found a road that took us down to the river to Flooding in Duvall (GC1WR9C). This one required a special "tool" to get the cache out. When we rolled up I knew what kind of cache this was. I had Ben get out and do it because he has never done a cache like this before and I have several times. He loved it. Luckily someone had left a jug of water behind for us to do it.
He said the last one was called Welcome to Doo-vahl (GC3RK17) and it took us back to where we pulled over before we went into town. I asked him, " I thought you said there wasn't one here?" "According to my phone at the time there wasn't, lol." We got out and found the cache laying on the ground. It would have been really cool to look for it because it was a pretty clever hide. We signed our names and put it back where it was suppose to be.
We said goodbye to Duvall and headed up the hill towards Redmond. We stopped at a Starbucks to use the restroom and to get some coffee and hot chocolate for the ride home. We got onto the 520, then to the 405, where we had to wait in traffic near Bellevue, for nothing and then to 167 towards Bonney Lake.
We got to his mom's house around dinner time and tried to get a hold of Trish to see if they had dinner yet. They got home roughly around the same time we arrived. They had dinner in Puyallup. I asked Ben if he wanted to go to the store and get sandwiches at Jersey Mike's because I've never been there before and it sounded good. We got the sandwiches, headed to Safeway, got gas and went inside for ice cream and sandwich making stuff for the mountain tomorrow.
We got back, ate our food, did some internetting and ate ice cream while we watched some TV.
We practiced some snowboarding maneuvers on his wake board in the living room and watched some YouTube videos. I got a shower in and we tried to go to bed early so we could get up and get everything done so we could go snowboarding.
Trish got us another mattress topper and we put that on the bed. It was wonderful and I did not wake up with back pain the next morning.
Next Adventure: First Time Snowboarding
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