Heading Home: Granger, Miner's, Caching Along Hwy 12 and CPR

We got up around 7:30 and started packing up our stuff as part of the CITO with Some Gossip (GC75D77).  We walked over, signed the log and grabbed ourselves some maple bars, orange juice and Ben got coffee.  We visited with the people around us and celebrated a birthday with ACFunk, who used to live here in the TriCities but now live in New Mexico.  They gave me one of their coins they had minted for the move to New Mexico.

After about 45 min to an hour of visiting and eating with everyone with Brenda and Ray, we decided to really get our stuff packed up so we had some time to cache on the way back home this afternoon.  Between packing up the tent, rolling up all the sleeping bags, pads and tarps, we got that thing hammered out and tetris'd our stuff into the Escape without any problems.  We left our camping site and the park well before noon.  We were also trying to get home before the Sounders game started.

A while back I had told Ben about the dinosaurs in Granger.  We were going to be driving by Granger.  I asked Ben if he wanted to stop to see and take pictures of the dinosaurs and he said yes.  There were also three geocaches in Granger and I had planned on blacking it out.  When we finally got there, after a slow down on the freeway, we parked the Escape near a pull out at the 9/11 Memorial just off the freeway.  A few years ago there wasn't a cache here but there is now!  It was so hot when we got out of the Escape.  It had to be at least 90 degrees or more.

I read the hint for AWESOME MEMORIAL (GC5F24C) and we looked everywhere.  Finally after some circles and turning over every single rock there was we finally found it. 

I took him to Hisey Park where there was the most dinosaurs in town fairly close to each other.  Last time I was here, it was with Willmarth in the winter time.  We put Santa hats on the dinosaurs.  It was fun.  The only prop we had with us in the car was a flamingo.  We put that to good use.  We parked the Escape under the shade, which didn't matter because it was so hot, and walked towards the T-Rex.

We found the cache, Granger's First Cache (GC44CM7) since it was near the T-Rex.  That one for some reason eluded us and it was a freaking ammo box!  How are we not finding it?  There really weren't that many places to hide an ammo box and not find it right away.  We over looked it in a tuff of grass.  Ben pulled it out of its hiding spot, "found it!"

We checked out the rest of the herd before we moved on to the next part of town.

We finished up our tour of Granger with one more cache on the west side of town.  The cache, TT&CMITM (GC44CMA) was located near the museum inside a lamp skirt.  We literally could park two feet from it.

I haven't had Miner's since 2014 when we were coming home from the TriCities Geocoin Challenge back then.  This place is always busy.  You have to set aside at least an hour and can't be in a hurry to get anywhere when you come here.  This time, there were several softball and baseball teams and parents everywhere.  I knew we were going to be waiting a while.  We ordered and found a table in the back...every single table was basically being used.  While we waited, Ben played Clash of Clans and I wrote out all the caches we found this weekend and the ones I wanted to get on the way home.

When our food finally came I had totally forgotten how big the burgers were.  I am so glad we decided to share our French fries...sooo many!  The food hit the spot.  Now we wouldn't need to have any dinner when we got home.

Around 3:30 is when we made our way west towards home via Hwy 12.  Our first stop was Columbia River Basalt Group EC (GC63P4N) and I was very surprised there wasn't an earthcache here years ago.  When I stopped here for the traditional on the bridge a few years ago I asked myself, why isn't there an earthcache here?  It would be a perfect spot!  Someone finally did and this has been on the list since I found out there was one.  We parked at the pull out and walked across the bridge.  I told Ben there was a traditional on the bridge and we spent sometime looking for it and couldn't find it.  Maybe it had fallen in the water?  We stood in the spot where the coords directed us and answered questions about the columnar basalt.

It was getting hotter and the AC felt great when we got back to the Escape.  I wanted to get a few more along the way.  There was another pull out near the river at a cache called Dead Tree (GC53VHQ).  It was self explanatory.  I had Ben find that cache.

We tried finding others along the way.  We either missed the pullout or the road or it was further up the hill than we thought it was so we skipped them.  Our next one landed us at Bear Canyon Road, a spot I've stopped at before but just got the one closest to the road.  Today, I had a Discover Pass (last time I was here I didn't) and some free time so we took the extra 20 minutes or so and walked to get two of them, A House with a Perch (GC7099) and Bear Creek Stump (GC2QCYK).  Both were easy finds in the very hot weather.

From there we stopped at a spot where you could fish or swim along the Tieton River.  I thought the cache was accessible but it wasn't.  A group of Hispanics were having a BBQ and swimming nearby so we walked further down the trail to relax and dip our feet in the water for a few minutes.  It felt so nice.

We put some miles behind us for a while and once over the pass and onto the western side of Hwy 12, we stopped for another earthcache, Rainier100 4:  Goat Rocks (GC6QQ99).  There, we admired Mount Rainier and answered questions about an ancient volcano range that went by the wayside.

When we got into Packwood, I wanted to stop for the ones I didn't get last time I was here but we only had time for one of them so I chose the easiest one, Rainier100 3: White Pass Country (GC6KQN9).  It was hidden like the last one in the series, tucked into a cinder block with a flat cinder slab over it.  We signed our names and put it back.

We continued on our path down Hwy 12.  We had two choices once we got into Morton, take Hwy 7 home or drive all the way to I-5 and get on the freeway to head north to Lacey.  I chose the same way we took going to Yakima.  I've driven this road so many times I know it so well...plus there really wasn't that many people out driving around so we were likely to not run into a slow person in front of us.  I chose poorly.  We ended up following some motorcycles going way under the speed limit.  I was like, oh well and we turned on the Sounders game.  As we got through town and past the railroad tracks near the lumber mill the motorcycles sped up a bit.

We rounded the corner and saw a bunch of people, cars stopped and a motorcycle and a guy laying lifeless on the side of the road.  As we got closer Ben told me to stop and put my hazards on.  I pulled over as far as I could without going in the ditch.  I saw the two guys, who were very upset and confused, the smashed motorcycle (that looked like it hit the guardrail), people stopped on both sides of the road and a guy who was probably already dead having two strangers do CPR on him as a small stream of blood rolls down the grade of the road.  It was coming from the side of his head near his neck.  That must have been the part that made contact with either the guardrail or the road.  He had several spots where his body rubbed against the asphalt.  He either lost his boots on impact or his buddies took his boots off of him.  I stood there on the side of the road watching this nightmare unfold.  All I could do is watch Ben and a off duty cop, probably in his 20's perform CPR.  It took about five minutes for the ambulance, bush truck, fire truck and a few cop cars to arrive from Morton.  The park rangers from Mount Rainier even showed up along with an ambulance.  I heard the same guy (who was riding with the guy who was basically dead) tell his story at least three times to three different people including the main cop on duty.  All I could do is watch in horror.  It was hard to keep your mind from going there but it does remind you that it could happen to anyone at anytime.  His family, friends and the people he worked with will never see him alive ever again.  That was the part that I struggled with.  He was with two other people on motorcycles coming home from a day trip at Mount Rainier and they were less than a mile from home.  I knew I was not comfortable helping with the CPR but I did help by giving Ben and the other guys some gloves while they kept the blood pumping through the guy.

I found it ironic though.  Not even a week ago, my co-workers and I, took a CPR/First Aid class at work.  Usually when I did that class in the past I never had to use it...not even once.  This was the first scenario in my whole life where I had taken the class and the opportunity presented itself.  Again, I didn't feel comfortable joining in because I felt that Ben and the off duty cop were more qualified than I was.  However, I participated by giving out gloves in my first aid kit.

The ambulance took the guy away, after the AED did not administer a shock, towards the hospital in Morton.  Ben and the off duty cop provided the on duty cop in charge their names, phone numbers and a summary of their participation in this horrible accident.  Ben got cleaned up, we got back into the Escape and we headed home listening to the rest of the Sounders game.  It ended in a 2-2 draw with the Portland Timbers.  Ben asked me if I wanted to talk about what had happened.  I really didn't want it at this point.  I was still internalizing it.

The next day I shared my story with my co-workers in our daily huddle.  It turns out Ashley's mom went to high school with the guy who died.  That was my degree of separation from this tragedy.  Everyone thanked me for the story and how important it is to know some form of CPR or First Aid because you never know when you will have to use it or even giving someone a chance to survive.

We got home about an hour later and unpacked the Escape.  I thought it was important to share our story with Facebook and how CPR/First Aid could have helped someone in need.  This is what I wrote:

"We finally made it home from the TriCities. It was a hot but great weekend. Today we left the campgrounds around 11:30 and decided to see the dinosaurs in Granger. We ate lunch at Miner's and cached a bit along Hwy 12. It is usually a typical drive down Hwy 7 through Morton but not today. Two miles out of Morton heading towards Elbe we turned a long corner and saw a huge crowd and stopped cars. We got closer and Ben told me to stop so I pulled over and put my hazards on. A ...guy was laying on his back lifeless after losing control of his motorcycle. He and a few of his buddies were on their way home from Mount Rainier for the day. Blood was running down the slope of road to the other side as Ben, one the guys friend and an off duty police officer continued giving CPR before the paramedics, the cops and firefighters were on scene. There wasn't a pulse and the AED could not detect anything to administer a shock. They got him loaded on to the ambulance and taken to a nearby facility. We believe he was dead on impact but we hope for a miracle. Be careful out there everyone life can be taken away at anytime. It does not discriminate."

About a day later this was posted on Facebook from the Lewis County Sirens page:

CHEHALIS – A 53-year-old motorcyclist died last night when his bike wrecked about a mile north of Morton.

Troopers called at 7 p.m. to state Route 7 determined the motorcycle was traveling southbound when it left the road to the right and struck the guardrail, according to the Washington State Patrol.

Dead is Kris G. Bailey, 53, of Morton, according to the state patrol. He had been wearing a helmet.

His 2013 Yamaha XVS1300 was impounded.

The scene was cleared about 9:15 p.m., according to the Washington State Department of Transportation.

Next Adventure:  Firecracker Alley

The 8th Annual TriCities Geocoin Challenge

We got up at 7:30.  We got dressed and cleaned up.  That gave us some time to make breakfast and clean out the Escape because this year we were driving the route.  I got all the stuff out of the Escape we didn't need to use and stuffed it inside the tent.  I replaced it with the cooler, lunch stuff and some of my geocaching stuff.  I also made sure there was room for Brenda and Ray's stuff.  I found out last night that Bob and Bev were going to do the challenge with Gabe and Ken and they weren't going to caravan with us.  It made me sad.

We ate our meal of scrambled eggs mixed with cut up turkey sausage and cereal.  We brought extra water this year so we could use it to wash our dishes after we were done eating.  We got everything cleaned up and put away so we could start putting the last of our stuff in the Escape that we would need the rest of the day. 

We walked over to the event, Tri-Cities 2017 Geocoin Challenge (GC6MGZP) and signed in.  Several people came up to me and chatted.  I talked to WatchdogsMike, Lookout Lisa, Sproutter and whoever came up to me to visit with.  We took several pictures of the event including guessing how many items were in the swag jar (I didn't end up winning, which was sad) and throwing smaller cache containers into an ammo can.  I was off about a foot.

We wandered around with Brenda, Ray, Bob and Bev for a while until Jen got up on the stage and explained what the next half hour consisted of.  She went over the rules for a few minutes then told us where the picture was going to be, how do download caches onto your GPS via the loading station and our maps and how unique they were this year.

We all walked over to the designated area (which is where we've been taking the picture for years) stood in a group and had the drone take our picture.  You could tell this year there were many more people than we've had in the past two years. 

There were a few large garbage cans as we exited the picture area and I was curious on how they were giving out the maps this year.  Previous years they were just rolled up and tied like a pirate map.  This year they were inside of a Ziploc bag with ice and a match...the old Fire & Ice theme.  If you needed to you hand off your match to the person manning the GPS station.  Ray took care of that for us.  I drove the Escape to where their hamster car was so we could put their stuff in the back and head out towards West Richland.

I had Ben drive this year because past events he didn't seem like he was that involved, got bored and fell asleep.  It was a great job for him.  Ray manned the GPS and the navigating duties and Brenda and I were in the back, checking the map and communicating with everyone in the front.

We got to our first cache, TC 2017 W07 - Badger Mountain West Trailhead (GC70ZTP) in West Richland, which was at the base of a hill that people were running, walking their dog and strolling up and down.  I thought it was going to be somewhat of a walk but it ended up being in the parking lot hidden in some sage brush. 

Then we went to Candy Mountain Chaaarlie!  (If you don't get this reference please refer to the internet.)  Ben parked the Escape and Ray and I got out and followed the geotrail to the obvious spot, plus there were people finishing up with it which made it less difficult.  We grabbed TC 2017 W08 - Candy Mountain Trailhead (GC70ZTN), signed our name and headed back to the parking lot.  It was starting to get hot.

We ended up finding a really cool cache this year and we actually waited for the people in front of us to finish and put it back so we could have they full experience of finding TC 2017 W05 - Enterprise Park (GC70ZTM).  Ben worked the controls while Ray waited for it to come down from the tree.

This year there were two puzzle caches that we had to solve while driving from cache to cache this year.  We received the papers and we started working on them as we drove.  The first one we worked on was really easy.  I could fill in the blanks on command.  We got those coords done and made sure they were right.  The other one, unfortunately, was missing a piece and Brenda had to call Mike to tell him.  The volunteers would be getting several phone calls throughout the day because of the error.  We were told the missing piece and grabbed TC 2017 W06 - 5 Mountain View (GC70ZTQ) before we left the West Richland area.

As a group, we decided to finish West Richland and get a few in Richland before we stopped for lunch.  We try to bring our own picnic lunches and find a park along the route to eat our lunch at.  We found six of them before we were hungry enough to stop and set up a spot for our picnic.  We brought sandwich making stuff, fruit, drinks and chips.  It was a fairly shaded spot so we didn't get too hot.  About a half hour later, we packed up and walked over to the cache, TC 2017 R07 - Leslie Groves Glacier (GC705GT).

Following along our path, trying to keep ourselves from backtracking a lot, we made it towards the end of our Richland caches.  One, was pretty fun to find.  Ben literally off roaded it to the cache, TC 2017 R01 - Bradley Fossil Beds (GC701PZ).  Ray and I got out and got the cache as Ben and Brenda turned around.  We walked up to it and it reminded me of the cache that Ben and I couldn't find at Seabrook last fall with the gnomes.

We went back to the Escape and showed them what we found.  They thought it was pretty cool.  We moved on to Columbia Point, a park that hosted my first TriCities Geocoin Challenge back in 2012.  I reminisced as we pulled up to the parking lot.  I remember getting a FTF with a horde of people that night we showed up.  It was fun even though it rained the entire night.  Anyway, we all got out and found the birdfeeder cache, TC 2017 R06 - Columbia Point Sturgeon (GC705G4) and then we all took advantage of the restrooms nearby.

We finished up Richland and moved our way into Kennewick following the map to avoid some hardcore backtracking.

 

TC 2017 K07 - South of the Ice Sheet (GC73X6D) was a stop we've also made in the past.  It was the TriCities Chamber of Commerce and they've always had fun goodies inside their pirate chest.  This year I found some really cool blue fun glasses.  Zuri also found a really cool prize inside she wanted to take with her.  We signed the logbook and I grabbed a TriCities visitors guide for future scrapbooking.

I had seen this sign a few years ago and always thought, there should be a cache here.  This year there was.  TC 2017 K05 - Welcome to Kennewick (GC73X4F) was pretty easy to find but the sign and horses were cool.

We found a few more before we found ourselves at my favorite bridge in Washington, The Cable Bridge, which used to be called the Green Bridge before it was demolished.  TC 2017 K03 - Green Bridge (GC73Q4N) was really easy to find, was attached to a cable to prevent it from being stolen, and gave us a great view of the bridge. 

TC 2017 K04 - Flying Squirrel (GC73Q47) took us to my favorite park in the TriCities, Columbia Park Trail, this park is where they do the hydroplanes from and a place we had lunch a few years ago.  There are tons of caches in this park and I've almost gotten all of them in the five years I've been doing this event.  There is all kinds of activities to do at this park including a team ropes course.  We found this cache near the ropes course inside of a bird house.

Ben was also big on breaking the rules today.  Here is a compilation of him breaking the rules.

"No Parking"

"Please Stay on Path"

"No Loitering"

We had finally reached our fourth city, Pasco.  We were glad to finally be in Pasco.  All roads lead to Pasco.  Anyway, we drove to the furthest one away from the state park and worked our way east as best as we could. There were a bunch of caches that took forever to get to.  I was so ready to be done and have my coin in hand.  I think it was mostly wanting to relax and go eat some dinner. 

Power (GC74TD4) was a pretty cool one.  When we arrived at the substation, we all thought, ugh it's going to be another rock or ammo box.  When I whipped around the corner and saw this really cool, to me it looked like a compost barrel, and couldn't wait to see what was inside. The cache was definitely cool but its contents were disappointing.  I was hoping for some stickers, coins or pathtags...not this time.

We found a couple more rocks and water meter covers throughout Pasco.  The next one took us to Chiawana Park.  Someone was having a family reunion or something because there were tons of pop up tents, food and kids running around.  TC 2017 P02 - 889 Feet Under (GC74TH9) was pretty easy to spot once we got there.  On the way back to the Escape some lady asked Ray to help her with her very large innertube that was getting away from her.  Ray is such a nice guy! 

We finally go to the end of our adventure.  Our last cache, TC 2017 P08 - Confluence (GC75N8G) was right outside the park near a rock statue about Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea and the Columbia River.  This site has been used for other caches throughout the years and there is usually always pelicans nearby.  We found the cache with another group of cachers and they took our picture for us!  Go team Boobs!  Haha!

We hustled back to the Escape and drove into the park to get our fresh shiny new coins!!  I was super stoked!  It was a set of four trackable coins with a wooden base.  It was pretty sweet.

We put our stuff away and contacted Bev to let them know we were going to be on our way soon to meet them at Cousins for dinner.  We drove ourselves and Brenda and Ray drove separately so they could go to their hotel afterwards.

They were all caching nearby when we arrived.  We had to wait about 10 minutes before everyone arrived and our hostess got us a table to sit at.  I had the burger, fries and a Pepsi and Ben had the steak and beer.  Like always, it was tasty with some good company.  After dinner, we bid our farewells and everyone scattered to their hotels.  Ben and I wanted to get a couple more caches around the immediate area.

We started with Don't Mess with Captain Octopus (GC7482G) and ended with You Take the High Road and I'll Take the Lowe Road (GC14FCG).  In total we found about eight of them with a stop at the Walmart to get some more ice and drinks.

We went back to the park and took showers.  For some reason after a long hot sweaty day showers just make everything better.  We hung out in our tent for a while, chatted and listened to the annoying train whistles all night.  I really don't remember it being that loud the last few times I stayed at the park.  We went to bed around 2ish.

Next Adventure:  Heading Home:  Granger, Miner's, Caching Along Hwy 12 and CPR

Heading to the TriCities, Juniper Dunes, Camp and Meet and Greet

I got up around 9 and couldn't sleep anymore.  I heard the dogs and Willmarth get up a few times but other than that I was dead to the world.  I started to get uncomfortable so I got up and figured out what we were going to do that morning.  The night before Willmarth mentioned going down the hill and having breakfast at the Powerhouse Grill.  Shannon was doing as much as she could to get the house ready for the house/pet sitter that was coming over while they went to Hoopfest for the weekend.  Meanwhile, Zoey developed a weird cough and Willmarth was gone for an hour at the vet.  I helped Shannon as much as I could while Ben and Kevin slept in a little longer.

Willmarth came back a little less than an hour later and had it confirmed that Zoey, didn't have kennel cough, which is what they were worried about.  We packed up our stuff and put it in the Escape.  Willmarth finally got Kevin up so we could go eat some breakfast.  We followed them down the hill and he decided to get the oil changed in the truck so he pulled into the oil place while we found a spot at the restaurant.  I was so excited for blueberry pancakes and bacon.  Ben ordered the lumberjack skillet and Willmarth ordered blueberry pancakes and bacon and shared it with Kevin.

We chatted about Hoopfest, geocaching, sports, TriCities and whatever else came up while we ate our food.  Willmarth paid and we thanked him for letting us come over and hang out for a day and meet Kevin.  He said anytime just let us know when you're coming over again.  We told him we would like to come over in August sometime but we will see how that goes.  We might have run out of free weekends.  But I told him we would check our calendars.  We hugged it out and told Kevin it was nice meeting him and that we would see him again soon.

We didn't need gas so we got onto the freeway and followed I-82 to the TriCities.  I thought about stopping for a few caches on the way there but decided that we needed to get there so we could set up the tent and go out to the dunes to get that cache.  It didn't take us very long to get there.  We stopped at the Walmart in Richland so we could get some ice for the cooler, mosquito repellant for Ben and some other things we thought we would need while we were here.  Of course we found the nearest geocaches just because we could.  There are always caches at Walmart.

We drove over to the side of the building to find Geo Hohoho Holiday Songs 2 (GC6XHF2) and this one was a bugger to find because it was hidden in some shrubs.  If you didn't find the exact place you could be looking for a while.  Since the coords were not spot on, we were looking in the wrong shrub.  We adjusted and moved across the road and found the right shrub.  We signed it and moved on to the next one that was by the Lowe's.

We drove the quarter of a mile behind the Walmart and to a place near the Lowe's for PYN #1 - You Can Do It!  We Can Help! (GC11BXK).  This one was easier to find than the last one.  We wrote our names on it and decided it was time to head on over to Pasco so we could set up our tent.

It's about a 12 mile drive from Richland to where we were going in Pasco.  Sacajawea State Park was on the east side of Pasco just before you go over the Snake River into the Burbank area.  We were hoping there was still a good spot for the tent.  When we got closer we noticed the train over the road was not moving.  I didn't know how long it had been there or now long it would take for it to move.  I saw the line of cars adding up.  Hmmm...nope!  I will come back after we go get the dune caches.

We followed the directions listed on the cache page.  We found Peterson Road and followed it.  We saw the large sign that said no trespassing but we ignored it.  If this wasn't the road we were suppose to use then how are ATV's, Dune Buggies, Quads and geocachers suppose to get out here?  This was literally the only road to this spot.  We followed the Nuvi until she said we were here.  I was skeptical on the road that we were suppose to drive two miles on towards the cache.  Eh, the Ford Escape has a high clearance and it's also a 4-wheel drive vehicle...let's go for it!  There were lots of deep holes, grooves, high spots, low spots and really big washboard wave grooves.  I felt like we were surfing waves driving out here.  We got to the parking coords and saw it was going to be a half a mile hike to the actual cache over the dunes.  It was getting hot and luckily we had water with us. 

I had a hard time reading my phone and it's directions.  I though I had a straight shot at it and it turns out we were way off and had to walk an extra quarter of a mile to get to the right spot.  We were weary of rattlesnakes so we treaded very carefully. 

When we were close, we checked all of the sage brush in the area and Ben found the right bush.  This cache, Juniper Dunes (GC6E5) has been here since 4/11/01.  I was a junior in high school!  I've been wanting to grab this cache since the first time I heard people talking about it...which was probably back in 2013.  I was just ill-equipped and didn't have time to come out here then. 

Then we had the long hot walk back to the Escape.  That half mile seemed like it took hours but it really didn't.  We scouted the way we would walk back to make it easier but it really wasn't.  It was still hot and there were still high sand dunes to hike up.  We were dying by the time we got back.  I immediately took my shoes and socks off, put my flip flops on and drank water.  Ben did the same.  We stuffed our shoes and socks into a plastic bag because they had sand and pokies in them.  I told him I would deal with them later.  We needed to get back so we could get gas and put up our tent.  I figured, unless something was seriously wrong with that train, it should be gone about now and we could get to the park.

We got gas and Ben went inside and got some new ice.  When we got closer to the park we saw the train was gone, YESSS, and we could get go inside with out any waiting!  We stopped at the gate and registered the Escape and our tent site for two nights.  It was cheaper than staying in a hotel for two nights plus we liked camping. 

We unloaded everything and started putting the tent up.  I've had that thing since at least 2004 and it was showing its age.  I knew we had to upgrade soon but I just wasn't quite ready to let go of it.  That tent has been to a lot of places over the years.  Once it was up, we put all of our sleeping pads, sleeping bags and pillows into it and arranged it as comfortably as we could.  I put up my trackable flamingo, got the cooler and tubs with cooking gear out so I could rearrange the Escape.  We got all of this done by the time the event started.

Bob and Bev found us and we would not hook up with Brenda and Ray until the next morning.  They planned on leaving butt crack early tomorrow morning.  We walked over to the event, TriCities 2017 Meet and Greet (GC75BFV) and signed in at the booth. They gave us an ice breaker, the walk around with a bingo card asking people if they've done those things while geocaching except it was different questions this time which was refreshing.  They had a cool theme this year, Fire & Ice. 

There were lab caches as well as activities for kids of all ages to keep busy with.  At this point I was hungry because we really haven't had any food since breakfast in Yakima.  Ben arranged us to go with Nikki and Antoine to a brewery in Kennewick at around 7ish.  I honestly just wanted to eat a sandwich and relax at the tent. 

We followed Antoine to Clover Island, where we've all been various times over the years for the geocaching challenge, found the address and saw the brewery sign, Ice Harbor Brewery.  I've always had good experiences at brew pubs but this one was awful.  The food was good don't get me wrong but the service was terrible!  It took them at least a half hour to get our drink orders...that included bringing water to us.  Then they forgot about us again for at least another half hour to 45 minutes.  We didn't order our food until we were an hour into our visit.  The funny thing was...the place was NOT busy!  There were a few people at the bar and we, along with two other sets of people, were the only ones in the dining room!  We could not believe it.  We thought about just leaving but we had a hungry kid with us who was getting crabby. Antoine got up and complained about the service and let them know he would be contacting the manager. When our food finally came, we ate, messed with some underage girls outside with sign language, refused to pay for a tip because our service was beyond terrible and left to go back to the park.

When we got back to the park, we chatted with Go.Warcat, a geocacher from the Puyallup area.  She was hilarious to talk to and does most of her geocaching on a motorcycle.  Everyone then decided to head to bed.  Ben and I got cleaned up because we were very sweaty and probably had sand in places we didn't know we had.  We brushed our teeth and relaxed a bit in the tent before saying good night.  We had a long day ahead of us tomorrow.

Next Adventure:  The 8th Annual TriCities Geocoin Challenge