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.
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
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