Easter Sunday

It is one of those weird years that Easter is in March along with St. Patrick's Day.  I spent a bunch of time talking to my grandmothers trying to figure out what we were going to do.  They made it more complicated than it actually appeared.  We were also going to celebrate February and March birthdays since there were five of them.  I even told her that I was okay with buying some stuff to put in the Easter baskets.  She said we would assemble them before grandpa went and hid them.

Ben was lucky enough to get the day off at the casino so he could join us.

It was going to be at Kevin and Karla's house in the afternoon.  Everyone was assigned to bring something. We brought veggies, dip and dad was going to bring Jello but decided not to.  Mom made cookies at the last minute and made me late getting ready.  We got all the presents into the bags and the cards signed.  Ben got there just before we left and dad decided to take a walk at the wrong time and barely made it back in time.  He and Ben loaded the Escape and we forgot a couple things because we were in a hurry.

Then we were late picking up grandma.  Luckily once we got onto the road it didn't take us long to get there.  I think we rolled into his driveway at 1:05.  Doug and Jenn weren't even there yet so we weren't the last ones to arrive.  We got the stuff out of the Escape and went inside.  That's when I found out we weren't going to do Easter baskets or an Easter egg hunt.  I was disappointed.  We had a plan and no one told me it had changed.  I just handed out stuff and sat down.

We said grace and then got our food.  We had ham, chicken, potatoes, gravy, veggies, rolls, salad, a cobbler, cake and ice cream when we celebrated the birthdays.  Doug and Jenn arrived just as we sat down for food.  We chatted, visited and cleaned off the table.  Then we moved back into the living room to get ready for presents.

I passed out everything and didn't realize we forgot our cards or they were brought and left in the Escape.  Oh well.  Everyone seemed to be happy.  Tracy, Kevin and Karla handed out "tremors" birthday cake and ice cream.  The cake fell apart in the car and it looked like one of those tremor worms bit into the cake.  You would have to see the movie to picture it.  We ate our cake and visited.  We passed Erika around so everyone could talk to her for a few minutes.  She was glad to hear from us.

We stayed til about 6, then packed up everything, said our goodbyes and headed home.  Ben and I hung out for a bit and watched the first Captain America movie.  He had to go home shortly after because he had to get ready for work the next day and I had to go to bed.  It was a nice Easter but I was sad we didn't get to do Easter baskets and find the eggs. 

Next Adventure:  The Tulip Festival, LaConner, Anacortes and some Geocaching

Baby Shower, Engine House No. 9 and Jamie Kennedy at the Tacoma Comedy Club

We are still waiting to hear back if Ben gets his entrance interview to become a career firefighter at his station.  The levy passed last month and because it passed the station is required to hire a few people before the 45 days is up.  He got a phone call earlier this week to ask if he was still interested in the position...of course he was!  We can not wait until he doesn't have to go back to the awful casino ever again!

This weekend was his two days off and we try and go and visit his mom on that weekend.  He had a training that wasn't required but we thought it would be in his best interest to go and make himself look good and get the training of course.  We had to alter our weekend.  We were going to spend the weekend at his mom's house but ended up having dinner and a show with her and  Amy instead.

His best friend Chris and his wife Rosa, were having a family oriented baby shower on Saturday afternoon and we were invited to go.  Trish told us she was going to go and that she would pick up the gift.  We all agreed on one of those baby Moby wraps.  Of course we would be late getting there but we would still come after his training.  Then the plans changed.  We called Trish asking if she got the present and she said she wasn't going to go now.  We asked her why.  She said she never was invited.  We said what?  We invited you yesterday and you were getting the gift.  What changed in less than 12 hours?  Ugh. 

Ben was done with training and I got my stuff ready to go and headed to the fire station.  From there, we stopped at the Westside Toys "R" Us and got a Moby wrap and a rubber ducky.  From there we headed to South Hill Puyallup area via I-5 and Hwy 512.  We got there way late but we made it.  We had a few snacks, chatted with everyone and learned a little bit more about baby Daniel.

We met up with Trish for dinner around 7 in Tacoma.  We haven't been to Engine House No. 9 in quite some time so it was nice to visit the place again to eat.  The place was busy but we didn't have to wait that long for a table.  Ben ordered the dark, I ordered a reddish ale, Trish got a blonde and Amy tried the raspberry cider.  I ordered my French dip, Ben got a sandwich, Amy got the burger and Trish got the fish and chips.  The food was delicious! 

We asked them if they wanted to go see Jamie Kennedy at the Tacoma Comedy Club and they said sure.  I have never been to the venue before and tried to remember who he was.  I guess he was in Scream and the newest movie, Tremors 5.  We had some time to kill so we played a game of shuffle board.  It was Ben and Amy against me and Trish and we destroyed them!

We drove over towards the comedy club and found parking.  I have never parallel parked up a hill before and I couldn't tell how close the car was behind me.  It made me nervous.  I had Ben do it and then he made fun of me for the rest of the night about it.  We walked in, showed them our receipt and they escorted us to our table, in the back corner.  It was a weird view but oh well.  It was a two drink or food item per person minimum because it was a special event.  We got beer and water and I ended  up getting a soda for the pick-me-up.

The opener was a guy named Brian who went to school at Arizona State and was a third string kicker.  He made fun of how short he was and Ben added to the conversation about how I am short and he is tall and that we make it work.  We later talked to him about it after the show.  Then Jamie came out and started his routine.  He started with telling us to refrain from yelling SEA....HAWKS!, during the show because he really wasn't a football fan and he said we sounded like complete morons when we chanted that.  Which is true...I think the chant is dumb because people take it overboard.  He kept getting interrupted by this really annoying girl who sat maybe 20 feet away from us.  You could tell he was trying to ignore her but couldn't.  He made fun of her, told her to shut up because he always had to start his joke over again and eventually the bouncers from the facility came over and talked to her.   She was quiet the rest of the night.

It was a two hour event and I didn't want to get up so I wanted along with everyone else to use the restroom afterwards...the line took a while but I eventually got to my destination.  I met up with everyone and we stood in line to meet him for a picture.  He was pretty cool and we decided to make faces in our pic as we did a selfie with him.  It was hilarious.  We talked with Brian and left just before one.

We said our goodbyes to Trish and Amy and I took Ben back to the station.  We hung out for a little bit because I had to get home to got to bed.  I was tired and he had to work the next day.  I headed home and got home around 2:30.

Next Adventure:  Easter Sunday

Rattling Bridge and The Swinger

The other day some caches published out in the Bald Hills/Cougar Mountain area. I over heard Bev talking about them at the event the other night and needed to find time do do them. I heard the one was pretty cool.

I tried to get a hold of Lacey on Wednesday but my text message didn't go through but it said it did on my end.  The cell phone service in my building sucks so I can not receive calls or text messages.  I thought it was weird I hadn't heard from her so I texted her again later on in the day outside away from the building.  She said she never got it.  Dang it!  We will have to do it tomorrow since the weather was suppose to be somewhat nice still.  She said that would be awesome.

After work on Thursday I headed home as quick as I could so we had maximum daylight.  I decided to take Lacey out here because she was familiar with the area, due to Tabitha's wedding back in 2010 and it was relatively close so we didn't have to travel very far.  I think she wanted a mini adventure as well.

I got everything ready in the Escape and started backing out of our driveway when Lacey pulled into the driveway.  I didn't see her text before she left but she offered to drive.  I told her it was okay, I already had everything in the car and the GPS on.  She parked the car and jumped in with me.  I set the Nuvi to our first stop, Rattling Bridge (GC6CA44) just on the other side of Lawrence Lake.

Here is some information about the location near the cache from the cache page:

"This Cache is at the beginning of a private road that crosses the Deschutes River. This is the third Bridge at this location. The first was supported by two fir arches. The second one was simply four large cedar logs making the span with wood planking for a deck. The current Bridges supportive structure (1967) is a train car that originally had a crane mounted on it. It spans 60 feet between a concrete bulkhead on one end and piling drove down to bed rock on the other. The decking is metal planking that tends to rattle quite alarmingly when cars drive over it."

We chatted about stuff on the way there.  It didn't take us long to get there and I wasn't paying attention and drove by our stop.  I turned around and parked the car near the mailboxes of the private driveway.  I remember coming out this way when we were in high school with some friends to go swimming in this really awesome swimming hole.  I believe this was the last time I was here until today.  Lacey recognized the area and told me this is where they took Tabitha and Earl's wedding pictures.  It definitely was a good choice to bring Lacey out to these caches.


I got the coordinates into the handheld GPS and waited until it found a signal.  In the meantime, we walked out to the bridge to admire the area.  I really don't remember these houses being here almost 16 years ago.  Even the small grocery store down the street was out of business and vandalized, which was too bad, every little community needed a small grocery store/gas station.

We talked about the times we spent with our friends in middle and high school, before she left to Olympia and then to California, of the many inner tube trips we took from bridge to bridge during the summer vacations.  I really missed those times.  I was one of those kids who had a great childhood and awesome friends to hang out with.  Life just gets in the way now.

We walked back towards the Escape thinking about the hint.  We looked around for a few seconds and then it hit me, "it's a fence end cap!"  I grabbed it and low and behold the cache!  Lacey, who I've taken geocaching a few times, hasn't seen one like this before.   She thought it was pretty clever.

When the wind blew it was really cold.  I didn't think it would be this cold.  Luckily I had some hats, gloves, extra jackets, sweatshirts and a blanket in the Escape.  I put the coords to the next cache into Nuvi and we were on our way.  It's been a while since I drove these roads.  The last time probably was about 10 years ago while I worked at Camp Cascades.  Neat Road was the least traveled of the two roads that took you to the same place and it gave you a great view of Mount Rainier.

I must have driven this road at least 200 times during the two summers I worked at the camp.  I never saw the gate that we stopped at for the cache.  The Swinger (GC6CMT3) was a very well crafted field puzzle even though it was a traditional cache.  We parked the Escape right in front and I gave her the run down of what we were looking for.  She said she knew the family that owned this property, which to me, made this even cooler.

From the cache page:

"My father, Ken Reichel in the late 1960’s, created this gate and dubbed it the “Swinger”. He also built the Rattling Bridge (cache GC6CA44). He made the first (right) half and later found it too narrow and added the second (left) side. Thankfully foreseeing “Google” searches in the future he did not pluralize the name. Those who don’t appreciate art will call this a gate and those who do may call it a sculpture. Dad has never been accused of being an Artist or a Swinger but he did create some cheap art while using up some of the junk in the shop like a tractor steering wheel, peavey, pitchfork, wheel bearings, large fan, model A jack and numerous other things. The Swinger has been featured in the local papers a couple of times. Dad was more apt to make my brothers and I toys when we were young rather than buy them. One of these found its final resting place on the second half of the gate. It is a Bulldozer. I do remember my brother taking this particular toy to school for show and tell. He ended the day saying, “Boy that cat is heavy!” "

The gate showcased a lot of farm junk which made it seem very overwhelming when trying to locate a small-sized cache.  We didn't realize there would be three parts to this cache.  The first hint lead us to a sliding latch.  Upon further investigation the end cap came off yielding a clue to the next piece.  The clues were very poetic and we had to use our thinking caps to find the next one.  We touched everything that moved, everything that had a hole in it and everything that could hide a magnet or something.  Lacey found the second clue on the small metal tractor.  It's wheel hubcaps hid the next PVC pipe, dowel and the next clue.  I was so excited she found one of the clues.  Plus I'm sure we touched that little tractor at least five times already, lol.  We read the clue and tried to make sense of it.  It definitely screamed something that had to do with a "support."  Which meant it had to be on the support poles that were holding up the gate.  Sure enough a few moments later we had the cache in hand.  We signed our names and put it back where we found it.

We got back in the Escape and took a few pictures of Mount Rainier on our way home.  She thanked me for bringing her along.  I told her we will be doing more of this when it gets a little nicer.  She was excited.  She drove home and I went inside and started doing my evening things.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Next Adventure:  Baby Shower, Engine House No. 9 and Jamie Kennedy at the Tacoma Comedy Club

3.14

Last year was really hard to find a Pi Day I could go to because I had to work weekends and Pi Day happened to be on a Saturday that year.  Luckily a buddy of mine who works for the Postal Service also worked that day but had the event later on in the day so people with jobs like that could attend.

This year it was on a Monday so I had planned on driving down to Centralia to grab a few caches and then go to the event after work.  Unfortunately Ben couldn't come with me to the event because he gets off work around 7:30.  I did tell him I would bring him some pizza at the station.

I was really hoping the weather would hold up at least for an hour once I got down there.  I planned on getting three caches I didn't have time for a few weekends ago when I hit my 10,500th cache. 

I got off of work around 5 and headed down.  You could see the giant gray cloud as I drove south on I-5.  It was a matter of time when it decided to dump.  I was hoping I was not out in it when it did.  The first one I had written down was Little Green (GC57YM0) along Harrison Ave north of Centralia.  I knew it was a nano and some people have been having trouble with it.  I saw the CO had been there and replaced it recently so it should be there.  I parked in the veterinarian's parking lot and walked the last 300 feet to the cache.  I looked and looked with the hint that was provided.  Then it started dumping rain.  I gave myself a couple seconds to look one more time and bailed.  I ran back to the Escape.  I would have to look for this again after the event.

Pushing Pansies (GC5FEBG) was on the other side of I-5 down Blair Road, a residential side street that runs parallel to I-5.  I've always wondered what was down this road.  A dead end and houses...not that exciting but at least I found the cache!  It was a plastic toy that some one had put a magnet in to attach it to the guard rail.  Previous logs had said the coords were off to the south by 60 feet but I didn't have that problem.  I found it pretty quickly plus the rain had died down a lot.

I got back in the Escape and drove down Reynolds to Hwy 507 to Sixth Ave to snag one called Not in My Yard! (GC511F0).  Technically it wasn't in the yard but still on the person's property.  I've always hated these kind of caches.  If the people are home they are watching you, or come out and talk to you or their dog or the neighbor's dog constantly barks at you while you're there.  It's annoying.  I just want to find the cache and move on to the next one.

That cache was the last one before the event.  I only had about 20 minutes to get to the Say Hi on Pi Day (GC6BKDV), order pizza before it got busy, sit down and relax.  I wasn't sure how many people exactly were coming to this thing but I imagine more than what the cache page said.  Mom texted me to bring her back some pizza so I just ended up ordering a family size.  Some for me now, some for Ben because he eats like a fat kid, some for mom and some for leftovers the next day.

I signed the log and chatted with Wayne and Frisbeer.

Bob and Bev showed up, Wayne and I sat with them at the table while we waited for our pizza.  Verano was this year's SW Washington Chapter Rep and she said this was the first time she's hosted anything up this far.  Usually they have events more south in Castle Rock, Vancouver and Ridgefield.  I'm glad they had one up this far.  It's nice seeing other cachers than the same ones over and over again.  She said this was probably her last event because she will not run again for the WSGA elections. 

Since I am writing this a few weeks after Pi Day, I found out our new SW Washington Chapter Reps are Geek&Gopher again!!  Yay Brenda and Ray!

Our pizza's came and they were delicious!  I ordered peperoni, sausage and olives because I know everyone would eat it.  It was a huge pizza!

We had a raffle and I didn't win.  It would have been cool to bring home that pie trackable,  No such luck!  I saw Freda and her daughter came all the way from Longview to hang out with us.  I went over and talked to them for a while.  It was nice to catch up with them.  I will have to make it to one of her events sometime in the spring.

I packed up all of my stuff and took it to the Escape.  I got a hint from Wayne on Little Green and he said to look on the other side of the road.  Ooohhh.  I was looking on the wrong side of the road but that's where the coords took me.  Plus the hint made sense there.   I got back on Harrison and headed the back way to Rochester.  I stopped at Little Green and found the darn thing on my second try,

I took Ol' Hwy 9 past Maple Lane to Rochester.  It rained the entire time to the station.  I met up with Ben just as he pulled into the station from work.  Perfect timing.  I brought the box of pizza in and he took almost half of it.  I saved the other half for mom and leftovers.  I visited for a little while then he had to get ready for his fire shift at Grand Mound.  We said our goodbyes and I headed home.  It was around 9 p.m.  I did a few things, showered, watched Bones and got ready for my Tuesday.

Next Adventure:  Rattling Bridge and The Swinger

Saint Patreaster's Day

This month, my friends and I, decided to combine St. Patrick's Day and Easter to avoid trying to plan two game nights this month.  It's hard enough just getting everyone to come on one Saturday let alone two.

Last year Lindsay found the golden egg.  If you find the golden egg it is up to you to fill them for the next years egg hunt.  This year I found the golden egg without realizing it.  I was just cramming as many eggs into my bag as fast as I could. 

Ben and I made the deviled eggs and I brought a poke cake.  I made it gluten free for Nicole who didn't end up coming because she double booked her day.  It was basically cake mix and Jello.  You poke holes into the cake and dump the Jello in.  I made it green. 

We headed over and when we walked in we were greeted by dogs and a bunch of little kids.  I guess Lindsay was babysitting her nieces tonight and brought them along.  Megan brought Mason and Miles and they were much quieter than the two girls.

We ate our yummy food and chilled.  Nicole was suppose to bring dip, Celeste made bacon wrapped asparagus, Lacey made a noodle pasta, Megan made a broccoli and carrot dough thing, Lindsay and Justin made cupcakes and mozerella tomato and basil bites and Lance made meat wraps.  There was plenty of food to go around.

After food we did our adult egg hunt.  The kids did theirs earlier and watched Frozen as we found our eggs.  We had to hide them in the house because the weather really was poor outside and we all didn't want to get soaked.  Lindsay spent some time hiding the eggs while we made fun of Frozen.  I still to this day have never seen it.

We frantically searched everywhere and I managed to find 3 eggs but one that really counted I guess.  Inside the golden egg was a blow up cat horn.  You can actually attach it to your cats head.  I haven't tried it out on my cat yet.  We cleaned up the tables and got ready for games.

We ended up playing Wits and Wagers and a game Lacey brought for us to try, I can't remember the name exactly, but it's almost like Catch Phrase.  There was a lot of laughing.

It was getting late and everyone started getting tired and leaving.  We all grabbed our stuff, said our goodbyes and went home.  Ben hung out for a little while until he had to go back to the station to get ready to go to work the next day.

Next Adventure:  3.14

Day Trip to Westport

We had planned on hiking down in the Columbia Gorge area but the weather was not going to cooperate very well.  The gorge generates its own weather just like the ocean and Mount Rainier does.  I told mom that by the time we got down there, which is like a 2.5 hour drive, the weather would start getting bad.  Plus, dad wasn't even ready to go that morning.  I added that we should go when the weather gets a little better and when all the gates re-open after April 1st. 

She got upset because she was really excited to go.  She really wanted to go somewhere that day so I suggested, we haven't been to the beach in a while, let's go there!  She agreed and picked Westport.  We motivated dad, called Grandma to see if she wanted to go, threw together some lunches, warm clothes and a query and headed out.

We picked up Grandma along the way and once we got to Grand Mound I filled the Escape up with gas.  I knew it was cheap there.  It didn't take us long to get to Aberdeen and dad criticized my driving the entire way.  I was too close, watch out for that person, leave some distance between cars, they might slam on their breaks, etc., etc.  It got really old and we deemed him the "Debbie Downer" of our beach day trip.

We hit the junction towards Westport over the draw bridge and into the south side of Aberdeen where the mall and Grays Harbor CC are located.  Dad wanted to stop at his gun store but no one told me where it was so we would have to stop on the way home.  I had no idea how long the weather was going to hold up.  I heard the rain was coming.

We got to Westport and saw all the familiar sites from when we came here twice a year on the school bus to compete against them in basketball and in fastpitch.  Fun fact:  Grandpa Dennis went to school here for a short amount of time when he was a kid.  We drove to the most northern part of the peninsula, parked the car and wandered around the shops, docks and the observation tower.  And I geocached. 

I walked out to the dock and enjoyed the scenery.  I also looked for Don't Bore Us, Get to the Chorus #1 (GC1TFG3) which was hidden on the south side of the gift shop.  In the summer I could see how this one would be harder to find with more people wandering around watching you.  I was the only one out here besides a lady who was on her phone.  She had no clue what I was doing.  I grabbed it and sat down like I was texting someone but I was really signing the log book.  I put it back and went inside the gift shop just to see what they had.

I went back to the Escape and dumped off a few things I didn't want to carry anymore and found out mom left her phone in there too.  No wonder she wasn't answering my phone calls.  I wanted to know where they were.  I managed to find mom and Grandma and asked if they wanted to go towards the tower to find the other cache in town.  They said sure.  I had been to this tower once before with Bob and Bev years ago.  The Let It Rain (GC201KF) was located underneath the ramp hidden in the rocks.  It was a quick find.

We then wandered around the area trying to find dad.  He wasn't answering his phone and we were getting hungry and needed to find a place to hang out while we ate the lunches mom made.  We finally found him and made everyone go potty before we headed to the state park up the road.

The last time I was at Westhaven State Park was when I came here with Bob and Bev at the start of the State Parks GeoTour back in June 2013.  We really didn't stay here that long because we had a lot of ground to cover that day.  This time we were able to relax and enjoy the area a little bit.  And this time the bathroom was done being built.  When we came three years ago they were in the middle of building it.

Dad and Grandma sat in the Escape while mom and I hung out in the parking lot.  We ate our sandwiches and talked about stuff.  There were more people at this state park then I thought there would be today.  Some guy had attempted to do some body surfing and was trying to get the shower to work over by the bathroom.

We finished our lunch and headed down to the beach.  It was really muddy looking, we found a couple of sand dollars and a crab that was still alive.  Someone was really cleaver and chain sawed this wooden log into a bull.

We walked down a good half mile or so and then turned around because dad was getting tired.  I took a detour and headed up to get a cache I couldn't find three years ago, Feckless Deck (GC2J6MR).  I think it was a different container then because it took me 15 seconds to find it this time.

I walked out to the jetty with mom and dad and had her find the state park cache.  We took a trackable out of it to move it on.  We used the restroom one more time and headed back out towards Aberdeen because the rain started to come down.  We stopped at the Westport Lighthouse before leaving town.  We got a group selfie with it.

We tried stopping at dad's gun place but it closed at 4ish.  We decided to take dad to Bi-Mart.  Mom bough some more Girl Scout cookies from the Aberdeen troop because she felt bad for them.  The Grays Harbor/Aberdeen/Hoquiam area isn't the best place to live in Washington.

Dad bough some bullets, mom got a new electric blanket, Grandma got a new calendar and I bought a HDMI cable so we could connect a computer to a TV.  I haven't been to a Bi-Mart since I went to one with dad in Yakima, which has been years and years ago. 

We left the harbor and headed home on Hwy 12.  Dad wanted to stop at Eagan's, which had a new Oakville location I've never been to, for dinner.  We all had some burgers and shared the large basket of fries. 

We got back, dropped Grandma off at home and headed to our home to unpack the car, shower and relax.  It was a quick afternoon trip.  Once daylight savings time kicks in we should be going on more trips this spring and summer.

Next Adventure:  Saint Patreaster's Day