GEOCOINFEST 2018: Seattle

This was the first time Geocoinfest (GC7CX8F) was going to be in Washington and of course we had to go.  I texted Bev to see if she was going to go because Ben and mom couldn't go with me.  She said she had to get back to me.  About a week passed and she got back saying that she did want to go because Bob had a blackjack tournament and he doesn't like going to events up north.  We set up a time and a place.  I got all of my stuff ready before I went to bed so I had less stuff to do in the morning.

I set my alarm for 5:50 because Bev was going to be here around 6:30.  Why did this darn thing have to start so early?  Ugh.  It was going to take us at least an hour to get there give or take.  I got my clothes on and got ready.  I made sure I brought some food with me because I wasn't quite hungry yet.  Bev rolled up just after 6:30 and I gave her a hard time for being late.

We got on I-5 and headed north.  The trip went somewhat quick because there were not that many people up driving around that early.  We took the 405 and headed into Bellevue.  There was a lot of construction but not a lot of people making our trip horrible.  We got onto I-90 and we were making pretty good time.

I was heading down the last hill towards our exit (I was going with the flow of traffic down a hill) and I got pulled over in a speed trap.  It was a woman cop and she was hidden pretty good.  I didn't see her until I drove past her but knew she was after me when she got onto the freeway.  The feeling of dread came over me.  I didn't need a ticket today.  I pulled over, she got out of her patrol car and I looked for everything she might want.  She popped up next to the driver's side window really fast and scared Bev.  I handed her my license and registration and she went back to her patrol car.  A few minutes later she popped back over, scared Bev again and told me that this was a warning and to have a nice day.  Wow, I got off with a warning from a woman cop!  Usually, woman cops are more cutthroat.

We continued to follow Nuvi to the venue.  We found a parking spot and make the walk over to the event area.

We found out we were there a tad bit early so we went and found three geocaches that were within walking distance along the Pickering Trail.  We had about an hour to kill so we walked to the closest one nearby, Salmon Don't Run They Swim (GC3Y4KR).  We found it with ease.

The next one, Water Under the Bridge (GC29RYH) was north of the barn along the trail.  We saw groups of people walking the trail finding these just like we were.  We knew the Geocoinfest was the main event today but there had been events, caches and challenges going on since Thursday.  There were lab caches, a sasquatch challenge and a donut challenge.  We decided not to do them due to lack of time and things really weren't labeled all that well.  We found the cache quickly.  It was a bison tube.

We still had some time to kill so we walked to the complete opposite side of the barn to grab the third one along the Pickering Trail, No Problem (GC5EN4W).  We didn't go back the way we came instead we went through the brush and onto the asphalt next to the parking garage for the barn.

We just followed that back and we ran into Brad and his kids.  We chatted about Cougar football and his new camper.  I could not believe how much his two boys have grown since the last time I saw them.

We walked back into the event and signed the logbook, which was a giant cable spool.  We wrote our names on stickers and stuck them wherever we wanted on the spool.  We were a few of the first ones so there were plenty of spots available.

Bev and I tried our hands at some of Bounce Bounce's lab caches but lost interest after a while.  We saw that it was nearing time to be let into the venue so we got in line.  This is where the volunteers should have had us go into the other room first to get our swag bags, name tags etc. but they didn't.  There wasn't any signage so we almost missed out on our stuff.

We went inside and stopped at the many booths that were inside.  Some were fun to look at the swag and others we just weren't that interested in.  We saw a lot of people we knew and visited for a while.  I found out next year's Geocoinfest was going to be in Louisiana.  I traded pathtags with one of the girls at the booth.  She handed me her pathtag and a little swag bag with next year's information in it.  Antoine and Nikki were at a booth nearby and he handed me a snack bag from his store.  I guess his store decided to donate to Geocoinfest which was pretty cool.  The next booth we spent some time at
was the WSGA booth.  There, we were given a Geocoinfest tag (they were just giving them out because they had a defect) and both Bev and I bought an event coin.

This is really why we came...to see what a Geocoinfest was and the fact that it was near home so you almost had to come.  I really want Geowoodstock to come back to the pacific northwest so I can attend one of those.  I started geocaching two months after Geowoodstock was in Washington and I missed it.  Since then it the closest it's been was California and I couldn't afford to go.

We both used the restroom before we decided we were good and to go home.  That's when I saw the extra room off to the side where the name tags and swag bags were kept.  I went over there and grabbed my stuff mostly now as a souvenir.  Bev wandered over and grabbed her stuff as well.  So lame that this wasn't labeled that well.

We said our goodbyes to the people we knew as we left.  The venue was pretty cool and we got a few caches, a travelbug, a coin and some pathtags I traded with a few people.

We walked back to the Escape and we both decided to get some breakfast before we left Issaquah.  I looked up some of the places on my phone and the 12th Avenue Café popped up as one of the favorites.  It wasn't too far away from the venue.  We went in and sat at the "bar" seats.  We were promptly asked what we'd like to drink and I ordered an OJ.  Bev said she would treat since I drove. She got a coffee.  We both ordered the French toast but she got the larger size.  I would say breakfast there was pretty good.  I would go again if I ever found myself in Issaquah for breakfast.

We drove back to Lacey, Bev went home and I took a small nap before the Seahawks and Cardinals game.  I logged my finds for the day watched the Seahawks barely beat the Cardinals 20-17 and did a couple loads of laundry as I also worked on my blog.  It was a long but fun weekend.

Next Adventure:  Dinner and the 14th Annual Oktoberfest in Puyallup

Beacon Rock, The Sasquatch Series and Panther Creek Falls

I have always wanted to hike up Beacon Rock since high school but have never had the time or money.  I've been past it several times on Hwy 14 over the years and this time I was going to make it a day trip paired with a couple of other things to go see and do in the area.  I asked mom if she wanted to go with me and so we planned.  This was probably going to be the last nice weekend for a while and we were going to take advantage of it.

We looked at some of the other things to do while we were in the area.  I really wanted to do the Bigfoot Series in North Bonneville a few years ago but never went down to get them.  I added them to the list for this trip.  Mom had been looking at waterfalls on the Washington side of the gorge and found one, Panther Creek Falls, to go see north of Carson.  We also added that to the list.

I got everything we needed ready the night before and when I got up at 6:45 the next day I made sure we had some snacks and drinks in my little cooler.  I threw on some comfortable clothes, grabbed a quick breakfast to eat on the way.  Ben called me on the phone as I was getting ready to lock the door.  I talked to him on the way to mom and dad's house until the phone had no reception.  He was on a 24-hour shift at the fire station.

When I got to mom and dad's house I had to get on mom because she wasn't ready.  I helped her get ready and told her we were going to drive her Expedition.  She said sure.  We got all of her stuff and left the house around 8:30ish.  We got onto I-5 south and stopped in Napavine at Love's to get some gas.  We talked about the stuff that was happening at work, the upcoming stuff that was happening in October and other random things that came up during conversation as we reached the junction of I-5 and I-205.  We reached the junction for Hwy 14 east and took that exit.  We had about 30 miles to go.

While driving down this road, we reminisced on the last time we came through here...which was awhile ago.  We took the last curve and bam, there was the parking for Beacon Rock.  We parked near the restrooms, took turns and then decided to park closer to the trail head.  We parked and then got all of our stuff ready.  I asked mom where her Discover Pass was and she said it should be in the console.  It wasn't.  She forgot to put it in the Expedition.  We had to drive across the street to get a day pass for $10.  I kept telling mom how lame she was and she just ignored me.

We drove back over to our spot near the trail head, grabbed our stuff and headed up.  We took a lot of pictures along the way.  There were many switchbacks and in some places the trail was so narrow, we had to squeeze by other hikers.

The views were amazing!  The construction of this trail was pretty ingenious.  It almost looked like metal scaffolding zig zagging back and forth.

We got up to the top and there were some boy scouts with their scout leaders learning about the area.  Mom and I figured out the virtual cache, Beacon Rock Summit (GC7B9W7), logged the nearby benchmark and took a dozen pictures.  The view from the top was amazing.  You could see the Columbia River for miles.  We did notice where that fire raged through the gorge as well.  It definitely ruined the scenery for a while.  I'm glad they stopped it before it ruined Multnomah Falls and the lodge there.

 

I pointed out where we were we were going to go after we walked back down to the Expedition.  I told her there was a walking trail and several bigfoot statues.  She was surprised I haven't gotten those caches yet.  I told her I was going to one summer but it just never happened.  Today was the day!

While heading down, we noticed a lot of people coming up wearing open toed shoes and had no water with them.  This wasn't the first nor the last time we would see this.  We got back to the Expedition and headed to North Bonneville.  It was a short downhill drive.  The last time I stopped here I was with Ben and we took a picture of the pair of Bigfoots that greet you into town.  I didn't realize at the time there was a geocache series here.

We pulled into a parking lot and I got out.  It was a quick park and grab near the Bigfoots behind a wooden sign.  Mom took some pictures of the Bigfoots while I found the cache BFDT 1 - The Search for Sasquatch (GC4HD1M).  I read ahead to find out where we needed to park for the rest.

I followed the parking coordinates to the beginning of the Discovery Trails system that meanders through the neighborhood.  We made sure we had everything we would need before we started our two mile walk.  I looked at the map to see which ones and in what order we needed to grab so we weren't backtracking.

BFDT 2 - Discovery Loop Littlefoots (GC57BZ3) was our first one since it was near the beginning of our walk.  I thought it was going to be hidden in the rock pile but in fact it was hidden in a carved out hole on the side of the wooden statue.  I had a feeling most of them were going to be hidden like this.

The next cache, BFDT 9 - Acrobat Bigfoot (GC57F2P) was at a pretty unique statue series.  We were impressed when we got to ground zero and the cache was really easy to find as well.

We followed the trail for a bit to an open area.  We saw a sign that lead us to a baseball field.  It said "Caution, bees in the area."  Yikes, let's stay away from here.  No one has time to get stung today.  A little bit beyond the bee sign was BFDT 8 - The Baseball Fan Bigfoot (GC57FYE) and we know where it was before we even got to it.

We continued down the paved trail and still had at least five more of these Bigfoot caches to go.  BFDT 7 - The Shy Bigfoot (GC57FTA) was a quick find and I could see where the cache owner got its name.  It was hiding amongst the trees.

BFDT 6 - The Fisherfoot (GC57CB0) was a little trickier to find.  The coords were a bit off and I didn't think they would put one of their wooden statues that far off the trail.  As I walked down there a woman and her dog were walking up from the area.  I found the Bigfoot and made the grab.

We walked onto the next one, BFDT 5 - The Wildlife Watcher (GC57CA5).  This one took us to a great view of a wildlife field.  I guess at certain times of the day you can see a whole herd of elk eating grass.  Upon first glance I could not see any wooden statues.  I took a closer look and found them around a corner on a stump.  You also could see that some of the neighbors were feeding some of the wildlife with smashed up pumpkins and other vegetables hanging on the fence.  I grabbed the cache, signed our names, got a quick picture and returned it.  One of the neighbors saw us and came down to talk to us.  He asked us if we've found them all.  We said no yet, we still have a few more.  Then he preceded to tell us about the area for about 20 minutes or so.  He talked about who owned the land, the small down, the dam and the devastating fires from last fire season.  We thanked him for the information and went on our way.

There was a large gap of trail between the next cache and the one we just found.  We looped around and now was on our way back towards the park where mom's Expedition was parked.  BFDT 4 - The Golfer Bigfoot (GC57C4T) we actually had to be careful at.  There were active golfers nearby and we had to make sure we weren't too loud or in the way.  I made the grab as mom acted as a lookout.  This was the first container that wasn't a lock n' lock.

We were finally on our last one, BFDT 3 - Peeking Out Bigfoot (GC57C35).  I was pretty happy because my feet needed a break from all of the walking.  Plus, I was in need of a snack soon.  We followed the path to this small grouping of trees.  You could see the wooden bigfoot statue from a ways away.  I had to wait until some muggles walked past us before I went for the find.

 
The Expedition was not too far away from the last bigfoot cache.  We used the restroom and then sat with the air conditioning on while we ate our snacks.  I brought a lunchable, a banana and some fruit snacks.  They hit the spot.  I found the coordinates for the Panther Creek waterfall and plugged them into Nuvi.  We got back onto Hwy 14 and headed east towards the small town of Carson.

We got off Hwy 14 and headed north on the Wind River Hwy.  We followed that road for a while until Nuvi told us to turn right onto NF-65.  That took us through the Panther Creek Campgrounds (the PCT also cuts through this area) and we followed that road to the cache, Panther Creek (GC2DFBV) that I wanted to get while we were out here.  Mom sat in the Expedition while I jumped out and looked for the cache.  It took a few minutes to pinpoint where it was.  I found the obvious pile of northwest camo hiding the container.  On the way back I stopped and took a picture of the river down below.

We drove further up the forest road (it was nicely paved) and found the large gravel parking lot after driving past it the first time (not very well marked.)  We parked, grabbed our stuff and found the small trailhead marker that was about 50 yards behind us from the lot.

We walked down the trail to the wooden platform.  There were a lot of people here and a pair of people hogging the prime corner of the platform with their professional camera set-up so we had to be patient.  We spent about a half hour here talking pictures and exploring.

We started our walk back up and walked past a bunch more people.  We got back to the Expedition and went back the way we came.  We got into Carson and took a side road to Hwy 14 because I wanted the other virtual cache, We Love Highway 14:  It's a What?  I Don't See It. (GC6F78). It's an older cache from July 2002 and I've always meant to stop for it along the way but just never made the time.  We pulled over into this pullout and read the cache page.  Basically, you're suppose to see a Native American man's face looking up into the sky on the hill.  I actually did see it and took a few pictures to prove I was here.

We got back on Hwy 14 and drove back towards Stevenson.  Just after Stevenson we got onto the Bridge of the Gods because mom had never been over it.  It cost us a $2 toll to go over.  We stopped at the small park under the bridge to take a few pictures.  A few years ago Ben and I came here and we thought the cougar painting was funny.  The cougar looked surprised.  Mom decided that we were going to drive to St. Helens again to go see the pumpkins.  A few weeks back we went and the Halloweentown decorations weren't out yet.

We headed towards Portland via I-84 and got stuck in a little bit of traffic because I-205 had an accident.  We continued on I-84 to I-5 and got off immediately towards St. Helens on Hwy 30.  We went over the bridge and through the industrial area of Hwy 30.  We followed the road until we got to St. Helens.  Mom looked up the website as I drove.

We turned off the highway and headed into town.  We found a parking spot just off the street, parked the Expedition and walked to City Hall to take pictures of the pumpkins.

Mom found the info booth and got a map of the tourist spots.  We took a few pictures around town and used the park bathroom before we went into a store so mom could get a Halloweentown shirt and two purple grocery bags with the logo on it.  One of the bags was for her co-worker Amy's birthday.

We got back in the Expedition and headed north through Rainier, over the bridge into Longview and on I-5 to Centralia.  We decided to eat dinner at Harold's burger bar.  We drove the back way home through Bucoda and into Tenino where we stopped to say hi to Ben at the fire station.  He was happy we stopped to see him.  I drove into Rainier, dropped mom off and headed home.

I got home at 9ish, took a shower and got everything ready for Geocoin Fest the next day.  I had to get up early because Bev was going to meet me at my house and I was going to drive up to Bellevue.  It was going to be a long day.

Next Adventure:  GEOCOINFEST 2018:  Seattle

Rainier, St. Helens and Scappoose, Oregon

A few days ago mom was browsing through the internet and saw that Rainier, Oregon had an animal sanctuary that housed sloths.  For some reason in the last few years mom had gotten into sloths.  However, the only thing we could find was the address and nothing else.  They hadn't updated their website in years.  Besides the address the instructions were pretty vague.  Mom decided she wanted to go the next Saturday.

I got up, got ready, got some food together and grabbed the recycle so I could dump it off on my way out to Rainier.  I called mom to tell her I was on my way and to get her stuff ready so we weren't waiting around for her when I got there.  I got rid of the recycle and headed to get mom.  She was ready for once.  She threw her stuff in the Escape and we were on our way towards I-5.  I've done this drive many times between June 2009 and February 2010 when I was seeing Brad in Hillsboro.  Once we got on the freeway I had mom try to find out more about the sloths in Rainier.  She really couldn't find much.  I might have to create an alternative adventure once we get down there.

The drive was pretty uneventful.  The weather looked like it could rain at some point today and we were hoping that it held up until we were on our way home.  We got off the freeway in Longview and took the highway to the Lewis and Clark bridge to cross the Columbia River into Oregon.  We drove into Rainier and found out that this sloth place was up the hill towards Astoria off of Larson Road.  We turned around and followed the directions.  It took us past Rainier High School and an Amish store called Black Buggy Furniture.  Not even a quarter of a mile from the furniture store was the gate to the animal sanctuary.  It had a large sign on it that said something about patrons waiting outside until their appointment time.  There wasn't an option to get an appointment.  How do people get to go in here?  It was a mystery.

We moved on and decided to do more research at another time.  Meanwhile, mom wanted to go into the furniture store.  I checked my geocaching app to see if there were any caches nearby.  There was one at the furniture store!  Score!  Mom stayed in the car while I walked down to the cache.  It was an ammo can hidden by Freda!  Oh how I missed Freda.  The geocaching world lost a good one when she left us to years ago.  I signed our names, took a picture and put 2's Company~3's a Crowd (GC3H8ZK) back in its hiding spot.

Mom and I went into the store and looked around.  All the furniture was handmade by Amish folk and it was really expensive.  Since it was handmade the quality was spot on.  I ended up finding some blue popcorn kernels to take home with me.  As we paid we talked about college football specifically the Pac-12 because they saw my sweatshirt.  We thanked them and headed back to the Escape.

I asked mom what she wanted to do next since we drove all the way down here.  She said she didn't know.  I suggested since we were down here we could go to St. Helens, Oregon.  I've been down there several times over the years but it baffles me that she had never gone.  I told her the movie Halloweentown was filmed there.  She didn't know that and wanted to go see it even more.  I told her since it wasn't October yet they probably don't have all the Halloween decorations out.  She wanted to go anyway.  We drove through Rainier again and down Hwy 30 to St. Helens.

I haven't been down this way in a while so it was nice to see if anything had changed plus it was a nice little drive.  When we got there I had to put in the coordinates so I knew where downtown St. Helens was on the river.  It has been a few years since I've been here so I couldn't remember every detail.  We found a free place to park near the shops across from the famous city hall building.  I told mom about some of the places that I could remember.

We walked to city hall and I found out there was a multicache, Historic Old Town St. Helens (GC6N4C9) here so we started doing the pieces of it as we walked the street and took pictures.  We walked down to the park near the river where we used the restroom and tried to figure out how to get to the other side of the fence that was blocking some of mom's river shots.

We finished the multi, which took us to the theater and then to the final on our way to the small walking trail along the river.  The final was a nano stuck to a yellow power box with a skull head on it just down the street from city hall.  I thought it was cool.

We made our way around the small walking trail as mom took pictures.   We walked back over to where we parked the Escape and decided to find something else to do while we were here.  I grabbed one more caches, The Forgotten Cache (GC3AXBW) tucked into a rock wall.  It was an easy rock wall.

We looked to see if there were any waterfalls in the area.  We drove to Scappoose to show mom the large red candle and we got monsooned on for about a half hour.  Then I saw the Goodwill and had to go inside.  I found a few things and was impressed on how organized this place was I gave a compliment to one of the workers.  She thanked me.

We had to get gas before we were stranded and I always hated getting gas in Oregon because we had to have it pumped for us by the attendant.  I hated waiting there and I hated handing them my money.  Why can't I just do it?  It would take less time and I would be out of there.  But then it takes jobs away from people.

Mom, again, suggested that we go see one of the falls just located off the Scappoose/Vernonia Highway.  I said sure, it's still pretty early to be heading back towards home.  There wasn't an exact address when mom was searching for but we thought we found it but it turns out we did not.  We did find a little creek to enjoy though.

We got back on the highway and headed north towards home.  We drove through all the little towns and finally back into Rainier.  We went across the Lewis and Clark bridge and into Longview where we followed the road to I-5.  Mom wanted pizza for dinner so I figured since we were heading through Castle Rock in a bit to go to Papa Pete's for dinner.

We shared a salad and ordered a large pepperoni and black olives pizza.  I had a Pepsi with it and we scarfed that pizza down.  We took the leftovers home for dad and Ben.  When we got near Chehalis mom asked if we could stop at Walmart so she could get a few things.  I said sure.  She bought some Cheerios, strawberries and yogurt for dad.

We got off of I-5 and headed towards Rainier.  I dropped mom off and headed back into Lacey and went home.  I got a shower and hung out for the evening watching TV shows, logging caches and trying to catch up on my blog.

Next Adventure:  Beacon Rock, The Sasquatch Series and Panther Creek Falls

Heading Back to Seattle via San Francisco

Mom's alarm went off at 3:30 a.m.  This was painfully early considering this was really 1:30 a.m. our time.  I struggled to get out of bed.  I was pretty tired still but it was time to go back home.  I did my bathroom stuff and got my airplane clothes on.  I had to reorganize everything so my fifth of whiskey didn't break.  I wrapped it in so many clothes.  My suitcase was very full and tipped forward.  I had to make sure nothing broke.

Mom went down stairs and checked out while Erika and I packed the car one more time.  It was so early.  We got onto the freeway and followed the signs to the rental car drop off.  We parked the car and filled out the rest of the paperwork.  We took all of our stuff out and found out I had lost the button for the top of my Nuvi.  We looked everywhere for it and couldn't find it.  Bummer.  I walked over to the drop box and put the paperwork and the keys inside.

We walked ourselves and luggage to the departures section of the airport.  We printed out our boarding passes and checked in our luggage.  We paid for our luggage, went through security and walked to our gate, A8.  We waited there for a bit.  We all took turns using the restroom before we started to board.  Our flight left at 6:25 a.m. central time and would arrive in San Francisco at 9:13 a.m. pacific time.  I sat next to mom and got the window view.  I slept some and looked out the window during the flight.

As we flew over northern Arizona and southern Utah we got to see the landscape change.  I wasn't sure what I was looking at but it definitely looked like the canyons.  Maybe part of the Grand Canyon?

We arrived in San Francisco a little before our actual arrival time, which was nice.  I was ready for some breakfast once we got off the plane.  We had a short layover.  Our flight to Seattle left at 11:01 a.m.  We got off the plane and into the concourse.  We wandered around for a bit looking for food because I was trying to find a healthy alternative besides all the fast food places mostly for mom.  At this point she really didn't care so we settled for Burger King.  I haven't had Burger King in forever.  Just before 9:30 we all got a breakfast sandwich, a hashbrown and an OJ.  Erika got coffee.  We sat at the table for a little while before heading to our gate.

We got to our gate and we all used the restroom again before they started to board.  If I don't have to use the airline bathroom more power to me.  Our flight left on time and we headed north to Seattle.  Along the way, the clouds held up for us, we knew we were getting close when we saw some familiar landmarks.  The first one was Crater Lake.  We had gone here July 2017 when we went to Bend to visit with dad's friend Ron.

We knew we were getting closer as we approached Mt. St. Helens to our right.  We went to the Windy Ridge side of Mt. St. Helens this past summer for a fun day trip.  Both mom and I hadn't been there since the mid 1990s.  Mt. St. Helens is my favorite Cascade mountain.

A little farther north to the right of the plane was Mount Rainier.  I see Rainier just about everyday.  It has always been known as the mountain in our back yard.  You can see it on the way to my parents house and on the way to our house.  It's a fixture to our horizon we've always known.

We made our descent into Seattle.  I was so ready to be home.  I was tired and wanted some food and a long nap.  We got off the plane and headed towards baggage claim.  We grabbed our bags after a few minutes of waiting and went outside to wait for the shuttle to Ajax 2.  We probably waited maybe 15 minutes for the shuttle to arrive.  They drove us right to the Escape, we thanked them, handed them a tip and loaded our stuff into my vehicle.

We got onto the highway and onto I-5 south.  It took us about an hour to get home and that was including taking mom home.  When we got home, I had a sandwich and took a couple hour nap.  When I got up I worked on Grammie's photo slideshow for her celebration on Wednesday.  I had Monday off for the holiday, Tuesday and Wednesday were my bereavement days from work.  I was always hoping it would be a long time before I would have to use those.  Everything just happened so fast.  I almost forgot to breathe.

Next Adventure:  Celebrating the Life of Eileen Joy Larson (Grammie)