My Adventures and Places Life Takes Me: Placing my Rainier100 Series 3 and 4 Caches

I volunteered for the Rainier100 geotour last fall mostly because I knew it would be hard for our project manager to find people that wanted to maintain caches far from the places they lived. She has someone from Bellingham maintaining some caches. I requested that if she could keep them close for me like around the Eatonville area that would be awesome. I missed the first round of them but participated in the second, third and fourth installments. I had plenty of time to do them but when it came to series 4, I spent a lot of my July and August moving and I didn't have internet, which made it hard to meet the deadlines.

I was given instructions through an email for my series three and series four caches and I didn't know I was doing two for the fourth series.. The containers were mailed to me right away. I got my third one taken care of as quick as I could.

On May 26th, I asked grandma if she wanted to come with me to talk to the Pioneer Farm Museum and Ohop Indian Village manager to get permission to place the cache. She said sure. We headed there in the afternoon and I haven't been here since my last grade school field trip. We parked the Escape and we walked in. The manager seemed frazzled because she was on the phone. We just waited until she was done before I pitched her the idea. We probably waited a good half hour until we got to talk to her.

I introduced myself and told her about the WSGA, geocaching and our geotour. See said she's heard of geocaching and she said that there used to be one here a few years ago. I asked with her permission, if we could put another one at this location and told her why. She said it would be cool but it would have to be across the street on the Ohop Indian Village side of the farm because the museum area closes at a certain time and they didn't want people coming in while the gate was chained up. I told her that would be okay and I thanked her. I let her photocopy some of my stuff and I gave her the contact information for the project manager.

Grandma and I went outside and scouted a good place to hide it. Originally, it was suppose to be a multi cache but that wasn't going to work now that we were off limits to a lot of the museum area and old buildings. We created one anyway but placed the cache as a traditional. That would have to do unfortunately. I took coords and made sure it was hidden well. I jotted down some notes and made sure we had all the correct information before we left, including the code word for the passport.

On the way home we stopped by I Don't Like Spiders and Snakes #2 (GC63VHP) just to pick one up for the day and we were driving past it. I found it quickly while grandma guarded the Escape.

I received another email right away for our 4th series caches. This time I got two and I didn't ask for two. I did them anyway. She included links on the page for some references, people to contact etc. She told me not to contact Northwest Trek until she established a connection with them then she would let me know to pursue them. I waited until I heard from her. In the meantime I packed, moved, was busy with work, unpacking, getting rid of stuff, the geotour was out of sight out of mind at the time and we didn't get internet until late August. I got a reminder email stating what we needed to get done and sent to her before Sept. 16th, that is when they went live. I sent her a quick email asking if she had contacted Northwest Trek yet and she replied with,

"I gave you the information on your contact at NW Trek months ago, and I thought you'd contacted her well before now (the deadline!)."

I just went with it and didn't even want to bring up the fact that she told me not to until she contacted them first and once she did she would email me. I never got such an email. I got frustrated. I got a hold of the South Pierce County Historical Society about the Van Eaton log cabin and got permission from them to place my other cache. I tried calling the lady at Northwest Trek and jus got her voicemail. I left a message hoping that she would call me back in the next few days. I didn't hear back. Her voicemail never indicated she was on vacation or an extended amount of time.

Ben and I headed to Eatonville to place the Van Eaton cache at Mill Pond Park on September 3rd. Earlier we had helped my parents cut down and few trees in the yard and saw them up. I wanted to go place the caches just to get it over with. We got to the park and I realized I have never been here. I scouted a few places that they suggested and found one that would keep it out of the weather and be hidden from muggles. We took coords and I got my photo with it.

Then we went after a cache, Center Point (GC5Z7HE) that was nearby but took the hardest way possible to it. We crossed the Mashel River and we didn't even have to. It was fun anyway. We had to take our shoes and socks off to cross twice. Once we got to the location we were like wow, we could have just walked to it from the parking lot. I didn't know!

We headed back the same way we went. We left Eatonville and attempted to place the Northwest Trek one just in case they said yes to the cache. It was closed when we got there so we just went home. Northwest Trek had become annoying now. I would have to come out here again.

Grandma accompanied me again to Eatonville in the middle of the week with plans to place the cache inside Northwest Trek just in case they got back to me. As I was picking up grandma I got an email from our project manager stating that the person from Northwest Trek called and decided against having a cache there. Ugh, now what? I was still going to go and find some caches in Eatonville anyway. When we got there, I tried figuring out what we could do with that 25th cache. I emailed her back and forth and she decided against putting one in Eatonville. I let her worry about it. We continued on with our afternoon.

We drove to the west side of town to pick up Where the Sidewalk Ends (GC1NACC). It was at the end of a cul-d-sac. Grandma decided to stay in the car while I looked. The coords did put me at the end of a sidewalk but I couldn't find a container. I read some of the logs and knew exactly what I was looking for. Found it!

I saw that there were three along a road outside of town I didn't have yet. I do remember going down this road with Bob and Bev a few years ago and that's where we met Hoppingcrow, a lady who volunteers up at Mount Rainier. We picked up a few that day. I went back down this road again today with grandma and it had changed a lot. A new state park was created and it opened on January 20th of this year. Rainier100 3: Nisqually State Park (GC6JKCP) was hidden behind some of the stump carcasses on the edge of the parking lot. The hiding spot wasn't ideal but found it, got my code and signed the log. We moved to the next one down the road.

Ammo Can (GC1MNBN) threw me off a bit because of the power lines (my brother used to call them hotoos and hossies) and I wasn't thinking out of the box. My coords eventually took me to underneath the electrical transmission tower and I was like, where could there possibly be an ammo box? I thought about it for a few seconds and duh, it's a tiny ammo can! I signed my name and taped it back together because someone had broken the lid.

We headed to our last cache of the day, Rainier100 2: Remembering Soo-Too-Lick (GC63WZ0) at the end of the road. I had no idea there was a cemetery out here. We parked, got out and followed the GPS into the brush. I should have known it would lead me astray. When we got there I knew I should have looked under the bench first. I looked under the bench and there it was. I signed the log, took a picture and put it back. I admired the tiny Indian cemetery for a few minutes and then we headed back towards Rainier.

We stopped by Wendy's house for a little while to visit and to pick up some aluminum cans. I took grandma home shortly after, hung out at the house for a while and then went home. I sure hope the 25th cache was figured out.

I got an email a few days later asking me to meet our project manager in Eatonville so I could give her the cache. So after work I left and met her at the Bud Blancher trailhead. I told her I could be there around 1. She called me and told me she was going to be late and to leave it with the cache that's there. I told her okay.

I walked down to the cache and placed the container with it and covered it with rocks. On the way back to the Escape, I thought to myself, a cacher will show up as I am trying to leave and wonder why there are two containers. Sure enough, a couple got our of their vehicle and started walking. I asked them if they were geocachers and they said they were. They were on their way to Mayfield Lake for some camping and decided to stop and pick up a few along the way. I introduced myself and told them the situation. Their caching name was Rianthe and they were from the Puyallup area. They thought it was fun meeting another cacher and they said they do not do that as often as they would like. I told them to have a fun camping trip and headed out of Eatonville.

I stopped by McKenna for another cache near the Subway. This would be the third cache at this location the past five years. Yawbus 0 Fat~Low Calories- 2 (GC6MZGK) gave me the run around for a few second and then I zeroed in on it. It was a park and grab lamp skirt cache. Lame.

I saw there was another one close by. Since I was in the area why not right? I was really hoping I would not need boots or a rubber raft to get Polliwog Pond (GC6JM4X). I figured since its been dry I wouldn't have any trouble. Of course it was in Nisqually Pines. I followed my Nuvi through the winding driveways to a small park. I parked the Escape and walked to the coords. They took me right towards the pond. There were tons of cattails and I took a few home to show to Ben. The cache was easy to find and I was glad I didn't have to get my shoes wet.