This year was finally the year I could get the cache that has been on my list since I started geocaching. I read about it in my first geocaching book I got for Christmas in 2010. I will talk about the Ape cache more in my next post.
I took Monday off because I needed to recover from my relay for life weekend and set aside a day to get a bunch of caches somewhere. I did some looking and the best area we could do that in was along I-5 in Cowlitz county. Our friend Frida, who passed away last spring, put a series of caches together along the roads that paralleled I-5. I've done some here and there with Bob and Bev over the years but waited to get the rest of them.
I told Ben what the plan was and I wanted to leave somewhat early so we would have enough time to get the ones we needed. I got out a yellow legal note pad and it was Ben's job to jot down the ones we found so we can keep a visual count since I don't log them on my phone as I go (it would take too long.) I looked at the map and we were going to start at the Winlock/Toledo exit and drive as far south as we could until we got the amount we needed.
I got up around 7:30 so I could go to Kaiser for my first round of travel vaccinations. My appointment was at 8:30. I left around 8 and got there early. I filled my prescriptions while I waited. I probably sat for less than 5 minutes and picked them up. I walked back to the injection room and they got me back immediately. I got a tetanus and Hep A & B all in less than a minute. I was done with my appointment before my appointment even started. I got home and told Ben to get out of bed. I made eggs, toast and bacon and we left around 9:30. We brought snacks and drinks with us and depending on where we stopped we would eat dinner somewhere on the way back home. We arrived at our first cache around 10:50. Camoed along I-5 just for your Fun, #66 in Series (GC5JQD2) was a pretty easy first find right off of Knowles Road.
I-5 "Hockey Puck" (GC1HFBM) was a cache that I should have found years ago. It's been around since 2008 and I think I tried to get Bob and Bev to stop one time but since they had it they didn't want to stop so I could get it so it just waited for me to finally find it. Ben and I got out of the Escape and knew it was going to be on the guardrail somewhere. The coords were off so we just started checking every inch of that guardrail. I eventually found it and it was a gross rusty Altoid can. I was hoping the container was a hockey puck and was very disappointed when it wasn't.
We followed the road and found a few more of Freda's caches. She was always known for her cute caches. Most of them had a theme and/or a toy of some sort attached to it. Mama Bear, read me a story~ #37 in I-5 series (GC41EZ3) was one of those adorable caches that just make you smile when you find it.
We followed State Route 506 all the way to Vader and picked up a few more and had a sad DNF in a place where it shouldn't have been missing. I haven't been to Vader since I came with Bob and Bev back in 2012 when we did the Barnes Drive caches with Barwright/Hoofprints and their dog. That really seems like forever ago. A lot more have been added to the area since then. When we got to Vader, we picked up Little Crane (GC4AFV6) and History of Vader (GC4AFNE). The history of Vader was located near a really cool building that has been here since the town was built. We found the cache and then drove to the town's mural, which was also pretty cool, to get a picture of it.
Ben and I ended up heading south towards Castle Rock for the next few. One of them, placed by Freda, was missing and it was a really cool spot so we replaced it for her. I didn't know if her daughters replaced her caches or not. We made sure to add a note to the cache page so future cachers knew that it wasn't the original or replaced by the cache owner.
AMERICANA:Rural Unfurled (GC4AGQE) was a quick pull off on a side road. It was near a pond but the coordinates were really off and had me doing some bush whacking. I did some reading and found out it was suppose to be a park and grab. I checked closer to the road and found it instantly. There was a cool view of a barn with an American flag square on it from the cache site.
The Westside Highway paralleled the Cowlitz River and there were several caches I didn't have so if they were quick and have been found in the last few months we stopped and attempted to find it. We found a hilly side road that led up to some logging roads. I thought these ones would be pretty easy to get to. After the first two, we sort of gave up on the rest since no one has found them over the past few months. We were short on time and had a quota to fill. We drove back down to the main road and continued south.
When we arrived outside of Castle Rock I noticed I didn't have a few of them. I was here last with Bob in late 2013 when we came to get some puzzle caches we solved and a few in the area he hadn't gotten yet. I noticed one that was an easy park and grab off of a side road. Texas Memory (GC4P5R0) was a tricky one if you hadn't seen these types before. I've been around a while and have seen these types of hides so it was an easy quick find for us.
We drove through town and missed our turn to get a cache up on the walking trail along the river so we had to turn around. I noticed someone had made the yellow blockade poles into Minions. We found a place to flip a U and made our way back to the small park. We found a parking spot and I had to go take a picture with the Minions. The Spot the Ape tags had started at the end of June and this spot was featured with a tag. Ben and I ended up getting a tag of our own in Dupont a few weeks ago.
Back to the middle of town we went because I was interested to find out about Jailhouse Rock (GC47D0G). We parked near the small park and walked towards the tiny cement jail. I found out it was built in 1907 and was used up until the 1940's. Next to the building is a souvenir of a dredge they used to scoop up ash from the 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption. Both were really cool! I found out where the cache was and cringed because a muggle was sitting basically in front of it. We loitered around for a bit and the guy didn't move. Dang it! We were going to have to tell him about it. We spent a good half hour explaining it as we found the container. Apparently the guy is a wanderlust and travels around the Pacific Northwest. He's got a brother who lives in Castle Rock. To me he seemed like one of those pot head who mooched off of people but he was nice nonetheless. He talked to us about Pokémon Go. We signed the cache and put it back and wished him luck on his travels.
We found a stretch of road, Bond Road, south of Castle Rock that paralleled the east side of I-5. We grabbed at least 12 of Freda's series. Majority of them were pretty easy but we did come across a few of them we couldn't find, which got frustrating, because we were out for numbers instead of views or cool caches. It got really hard getting a bunch of caches in a row because they were either missing or we really could not find them. There were several really hard ones that we had to give up on because of how much time we had.
One of those caches, Ship Ahoy Mate-27 in the I-5 series (GC40YPX) just made me smile. I miss Freda so much. It was really hard finding her caches knowing she wasn't here anymore to enjoy putting more cute caches out, going to events and hanging out.
We stopped just before we got to Kelso and moved on to the west side of the freeway and found some caches along Pleasant Hill Road back up towards Castle Rock. We stopped at Gnome Home @ the Grange (GC5XT0P). I knew it involved a gnome of some sort. My phone was dying quickly and I had to pinpoint where the cache was before it died. Unfortunately, there was a car in the parking lot and I knew someone was going to come out and ask us what we were doing. I found it, signed it and put it back and walked back towards the grange. Indeed, some lady came out and introduced herself. We introduced ourselves and she thought we left something behind at the grange and that's why we were there. We explained that we were geocachers and we were here to find the cache near the trees out back. She told us that she said some nice people came to ask for permission to place it years ago. I told her I might know who those people were. She thanked us for talking to her and explaining what we were doing. We told her to have a nice day.
We found a few more to make our total 41 for the day. I wanted 44 but we settled for 41. We would have to pick up the rest on Friday on the way to Trish's house. I asked Ben if he wanted dinner at Papa Pete's in Castle Rock. He said sure. We stopped there because that was the place we first met Freda and we thought it was appropriate after finding a bunch of her caches.
We went inside and we looked at the menu and ordered a large meat pizza with olives and some drinks. I immediately found a plug in because my phone had it for the day. It was on like 3%. It wasn't that busy so we got our food pretty quickly. We ate most of the pizza and brought some of it home for leftovers for lunch the next day.
On the way home we called Trish and talked to her for a bit. She told us about her day since we just saw her that weekend at relay and we told her about our day geocaching down by Castle Rock and why we were finding a bunch of them. She was thinking about joining us at Snoqualmie for the Ape event this next weekend. I told her it would be fun and she should.
Next Adventure: Mission 9: Tunnel of Light, It's Back and My 11,000 Cache Milestone
No comments:
Post a Comment