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 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."
Next Adventure: Firecracker Alley
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.
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