I went to work as I always do on Friday. I was not able to get it off because it would look bad taking Friday off when we just had Monday off. Ben slept in because he needed it after a long week at the casino and on his fire shift. I wanted to meet up with him after work but he wasn't going to be in town yet. I had all of my stuff packed up in the Escape because I was going from work to his mom's house in Bonney Lake for some girl time with his mom and sister.
Traffic was horrible but it seemed to creep along slowly. I expected to get there around 6:30-7:00 just in time for Trish to get home.
I stopped by the store to pick up some stuff while we were on the mountain the next day. We had planned on going snowboarding again and I wanted to be prepared with food. I got to the house just after 6:30 and Amy had just pulled the pizza out of the oven. Brad was over for the evening so he joined us at the table. Trish got home just as I sat down with my pizza and beer.
We ate and I kept in contact with Ben. He was out with his friends at the bars in downtown Olympia. He was to come up to Bonney Lake around midnight or so. After dinner I started wrapping his gifts that I acquired over the course of a month or so. Trish brought out her gift and asked my opinion on it. I told her he was going to love it. She monkeyed around with the face mask part of it and finally gave up and wrapped it up. We all signed the card.
Earlier, during the week, I had talked to Trish about stuff we could do on Friday night and she came up with a plan to take Amy out for some karaoke. I told her that would be fun since it's been a while since we did that. Trish drove and we headed out to the New Peking Chinese Restaurant. I'm not much into singing in front of anyone so I just sat with Trish while Amy sang her songs. She sang some Toby Keith songs, a Queen song and Huey Lewis and the News The Power of Love. Meanwhile, Trish and I drank rum and Cokes. We were there a little under three hours.
After her last song we went home. We all got ready for bed. I tried to get a hold of Ben one last time before I went to bed and I didn't hear anything. Maybe his phone died? I fell asleep and then got up around 5 the next morning to use the bathroom. He still wasn't home yet. I went upstairs and called him. He answered very confused. I asked him where he was and how come he didn't come up last night. He said he woke up in his bed in Rochester with all of his clothes on and the last thing he remembered was dancing at Jake's. He didn't think he drank all that much or his drink was tampered with. One of his friends took him home in his car. At least he was safe and sound.
He told me that he was going to get ready to go and come up. He said he should be there in an hour or so. I stayed on the phone with him until he got stopped in that shooting by Thorn Street in Lakewood. He said he almost got through before the police closed the northbound traffic. He said he sat there for a long time before they rerouted them to Mounts Road, through Yelm and then onto Hwy 7 near Spanaway. I got onto the WSDOT website to see the traffic cameras before they blocked them. He said he was behind the tan looking van in the lower corner.
I went to sleep for a couple more hours and then got up around 9:30. He didn't get home until almost 11 because he stopped by Walt and Wendy's house to say hi for a bit. We were not going to make it to the mountain this time. I was excited to make Ben look bad snowboarding and I wanted to use my new gloves I got a few weeks ago.
Trish made some pancakes and French toast for breakfast with some sausages.
That's when we found out a guy killed his girlfriend at a clinic, got in his car, drove southbound trying to shoot cops out of his window, turned around and went northbound and was gunned down by the police. How lame.
After we all ate breakfast we gathered in the living room and celebrated Ben's birthday with him opening his presents. He loved them; especially the helmet his mom had cleaned and painted. It was his first fire helmet from when he was enrolled at Bates and did his wildland fire fighting.
He told me that he was going to get ready to go and come up. He said he should be there in an hour or so. I stayed on the phone with him until he got stopped in that shooting by Thorn Street in Lakewood. He said he almost got through before the police closed the northbound traffic. He said he sat there for a long time before they rerouted them to Mounts Road, through Yelm and then onto Hwy 7 near Spanaway. I got onto the WSDOT website to see the traffic cameras before they blocked them. He said he was behind the tan looking van in the lower corner.
I went to sleep for a couple more hours and then got up around 9:30. He didn't get home until almost 11 because he stopped by Walt and Wendy's house to say hi for a bit. We were not going to make it to the mountain this time. I was excited to make Ben look bad snowboarding and I wanted to use my new gloves I got a few weeks ago.
Trish made some pancakes and French toast for breakfast with some sausages.
That's when we found out a guy killed his girlfriend at a clinic, got in his car, drove southbound trying to shoot cops out of his window, turned around and went northbound and was gunned down by the police. How lame.
After we all ate breakfast we gathered in the living room and celebrated Ben's birthday with him opening his presents. He loved them; especially the helmet his mom had cleaned and painted. It was his first fire helmet from when he was enrolled at Bates and did his wildland fire fighting.
We watched a little TV and then Ben went downstairs and took a nap for a few hours. Amy and Trish went to the store and I decided to head into Enumclaw and Buckley to do some caching. I couldn't waste a warm sunny day in February being indoors. I gathered my stuff and wrote down the coords to the caches I was going to get because I didn't have a query downloaded. I managed with the handheld and the car GPS. Then I realized my handheld's batteries were dead and I didn't check before I left. Lame.
I got into Enumclaw and bought some batteries from the Walgreens. Then I made my way to the east side of town to get KC Geo-Poker 2013 #6 (GC4JX55). I parked near a duplex on a non busy street and walked the 400 feet to the small rock wall near a very busy street. The cache wasn't even hidden very well. I signed my name, took a selfie and put it back better than I found it; by covering it up better than it was.
The last time I was at the Expo Center was for the Highland games this past July. This time it was a quick visit to get Rainier100 2: Enumclaw Expo Center (GC63GDA). It was outside the gate of the facility which made it easy to "park and grab" it. To blend in and keep it concealed from the masses, it was disguised as a bird house in the large tree. No one was around so I took my time signing my name and taking my selfie.
I walked back across the street, got into the Escape and headed to Buckley to get Hot Ziggdy Dog Ziggdy (GC2JEWX) near the Welcome to Buckley sign. Hwy 410 is extremely busy!! At the light I turned down a side road and found a place to pull over and park. I am going to have to walk to the sign because of the awful location along the side of the highway. I hustled over towards the sign and probably every person driving down this part of the road wondered why. I just pretended they weren't there. I found the container, jotted my name down quickly, put it back, took a picture and hustled back to the Escape.
I took the back way back to the house and picked up three more along the way. Parker Pacific(GC2FZ32) was found near a business inside of a really cool tree with a fun nook.
The next one was suppose to be a hidden cache disguised as a Dr. Pepper can but it kept getting muggled so it turned into a nano cache instead. I found Established 1885 (GC37YGB) very quickly and got back in the Escape.
It was getting late so I stopped for one more, Evergreen Hide (GC2PMRQ). This one was also a very quick find. It found me before I found it. I got underneath the tree did a couple of circles and it smiled at my face as I made the discovery.
I got back to the house and it was still such a nice day I asked Trish if I could wash the Escape. She laughed and told me she was about to do the same thing except she let me go first. I told her I would help her wash her car when I was done. We ended up washing hers and Ben's while he was still napping. Sooo shiny!
I did some stuff on the computer and then showered after having car residue on me. Trish made steaks, potatoes, veggies and salad for dinner. We ended up having brownies and ice cream while we watched How to Train Your Dragon 2 and Harry and the Henderson's.
About halfway through Harry and the Henderson's I was getting really tired. I told Ben it was time for bed. We passed out as soon as we got comfortable.
The next day we got up late on purpose and it felt really good. Trish and Amy wanted to take us to a place called the Buttered Biscuit down in Sumner but it was really busy so we went to the Buttered Biscuit 2 down the road instead. The food reminded me of the Black Bear Diner. It was sooo good!
After stuffing our faces we went outside to look for a cache without a GPS. We had a hard time but ended up finding Queue Up? (GC490G0). A fun little nano on a light pole.
Next Adventure: Lewis County Caching and Finding #10,500
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