Rainier100: Alder, Elbe and Mineral Lake

I haven't gotten very many of the Rainier100 caches since February and I needed to get some more of them before the third series comes out in July. I committed for the second, third and fourth series and needed to get the cache pages done as soon as I could.  For the third series, I have one cache that is suppose to be at the Pioneer Farm area in Ohop.  I needed to get a hold of the manager and find out if we could do it and then find a spot that is accessible year round.  I chose to do this later and I called grandma to see if she wanted to go for a ride out towards Alder, Elbe and Mineral.  She said sure.

After work, I went home and got ready as quick as I could.  I let the chickens and ducks out, changed my clothes, got my passports, the GPS and brought my lunch with me.  I went and picked up grandma and we were on our way.

The first one, Rainier100 2:  Alder Ghost Town (GC63EX7) was down a road I haven't been on in at least five years, during my maiden voyage with my raft.  During that trip I got a cache on the bigger of the two islands.  This time we parked at the wide spot in the road and head down an old road with overgrown trees, shrubs and patches of grass here and there.  We saw a guy at the end of the road fishing.  The cache was hidden along a row of trees and hidden very obviously.  I pulled it out and we signed our names, took our pictures, got the word on the lid and put it back where we found it.  Like many of the towns that "used to be" in Washington, this one disappeared to make room for a lake due to the need of electricity and manufacturing for the second world war.  When the reservoir is really low you can still see remnants of the old town.

Rainier100 2:  Rolling By the River (GC63EXB) was located near the train station in Elbe.  We parked near the station and walked to the location.  I miscalculated what side of the brush it was on so we took a small detour before actually finding the cache.  We walked down towards the river looking at the rocks and the drift wood.  We took some pictures of the bridge from this location. 

We walked back up to the top and found it behind a loose power pole and brush.  We signed the log and got our word for the passport.

For the past few years I've always wanted to go to Mineral.  It wasn't too far from Elbe and Hwy 7 but I never seemed to have enough time to stop and check it out.  On this mini trip we had plenty of time to drive around.  Our first stop in Mineral was Rainier100 2:  Mineral Lake Lodge (GC63JBB) and I've heard that it's a pretty cool place to visit and to stay and it has a great view of Mount Rainier.  This one was a multi cache.  We parked at the lodge and filled in our missing coords with the signs outside the gate and the wagon near the parking lot.  Once we got them filled in, we got back in the Escape and headed to the final location.  It was at a pull out off the road tucked between some large rocks.  We signed it, wrote the word down and put it back.

I put the next one in and it was right where we parked!! Getting Hitched at Mineral Lake (GC49G24) was hidden inside the wagon we just got done counting things on.  Haha.

I had to take a couple pictures of Mount Rainier with the lake.

And now for the last one for the day, Rainier100 1:  Mineral Lake Boat Launch (GC5V6G0).  There were quite a few people using the boat launch for the day we had to kinda be stealthy.  Upon arrival I noticed pieces of the cache scattered all around the gravel driveway.  Uh oh!  The cache was vandalized and the location was compromised.  I gathered up all the contents and stuck it in a bag.  I made a temporary cache for the time being and contacted the cache owner.  I will have to wait for the code word when they emailed me back.

Then grandma and I met up with Ben in Lacey to check out a potential house that was for rent.  We had a tour, did the paperwork and waited the results.  Turns out we were approved but then we talked about it and decided we didn't want to be poor at the end of each month.  We will have to continue looking.  Wish us luck!

Next Adventure:  Key Peninsula:  Joemma Beach and Penrose Point State Park