Sight Seeing in Canada: Vancouver Lookout, Capilano Bridge and the Drive Home

Mom's alarm was set for 6:30.  She got up and took a quick shower.  I slept in my tiny bed until around 7.  I was so comfortable I did not want to move or do anything.  I eventually got up and did my morning routine.

We got ready for the day, packed up our stuff and purchased tickets to the Capilano Suspension Bridge in North Vancouver.  Since we had a few hours before we had to check out, we walked downtown again.

For breakfast we had to go to a Tim Hortons.  There was one down the street from the hotel.  Tim Hortons specializes in donuts and coffee but now has a spread of baked goods, bagels, breakfast sandwiches, cheesecake, soups and sandwiches.  We each got the breakfast sandwich meal which came with a hashbrown and an orange juice.  It was like eating a breakfast fast food meal at McDonald's but it was Tim Hortons so it was cooler.  Again, it was weird paying with Canadian money.  We finished up and walked down the street to find some other stuff to do.

Mom saw the Vancouver Lookout and wanted to go into it.  It's really sad I've been to other towers, lookouts and views and still have never been to the Space Needle in Seattle and I live there!  We went in to see how much it was.  It wasn't all that busy so we said, sure why not!  We paid $18 each and headed up the elevator.

When we got to the top the 360 degree view was amazing!  Mom spend about a half hour here taking several pictures.  We walked over to the gift shop and I got a few postcards and mom found a sloth keychain she just couldn't live without.  We went back down the elevator.  In the lobby we looked at the downtown map I grabbed and decided what to do from there.

I saw we were within blocks of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic torch and the seaplanes in Coal Harbour.  We walked over and it was very cool to actually see one of the Olympic torches in real life.  Mom and I actually thought about heading up here in 2010 to watch some of the events but we both didn't have passports nor a whole lot of money to spend at that point.  So we watched it on TV instead.  That was the year we cheered for Sidney Crosby because he is awesome.

We walked back to the hotel, grabbed our stuff from our room, mom checked us out and the valet brought the Escape back to us.  I tipped him another toonie and we were on our way to North Vancouver.  We got onto the main road and followed the road over the Lion's Gate Bridge.  We stayed in the lane I thought we had to be in and saw the signs for the Capilano Suspension Bridge.

Mom realized she left $40 worth of Canadian money behind underneath some magazines at the hotel.  I told her to call the hotel and let them know.  She did and they found it.  We asked if we could pick it up later and they said sure.  I made fun of mom so hard for that one.

We got off the highway and merged onto Capilano Road.  We followed that until we saw a sign for the bridge and where we were suppose to park.  The lot was on our right and the bridge was on our left.  We found a place to park and found out that it required us to pay.  Lame.  We paid our $5 and walked across the street for admission.  We showed them our tickets on our phone and they gave us a passport/map.  If you wanted to each section of the venue had these little stops where you could get a stamp and learn something about the bridge and the surrounding area.  We only did a few of them because it started raining halfway through our visit.

We walked across the iconic bridge and onto the other side.  There, we walked to the Treetops Adventure.

We had to wait a lot because there were several Asians taking pictures of themselves in every which way possible at every single landing.

When we got to the end we took the walk around the boardwalk.  By that time it was raining harder and they gave us a free bright green poncho to wear over our clothes.

We walked back over the bridge and onto the other side to walk along the Cliffwalk.  We were the only ones over there so we took our time.

We even saw an eagle chilling at the top of one of the Douglas Fir trees and tried really hard to get him to look at us.  He eventually looked over his shoulder at us.

We decided to call it a day because it was raining and we were now getting soaked.  We walked the loop around and went into the gift shop to see what all they had inside.  I found some postcards and a magnet.  Mom found a couple things to make her happy as well.  We got a certificate before we left the premises stating that we survived crossing the bridge.  Why not?  It was free.

We walked back to the Escape and wanted to hit up a Walmart just to see what a Canadian Walmart was like.  We looked up the address of the nearest one while we had some WiFi and saw that it was down the hill into the city of North Vancouver, which was near the mall.  We headed down there and missed the turn for the mall.  We had to turn around and come back to the road.  We found where the Walmart was and was a little weirded out that it was actually a part of the mall.  It took us a while to find a parking spot.  Apparently, Walmart is just as busy up in Canada just as it is in the United States.  We walked in and noticed right away how similar and how different is was compared to ours.  The snack foods and the sports aisles were very different than ours.  Since it was near Halloween they were selling candy so I grabbed a box of 100.  Inside, there were Canadian Kit Kats, Smarties (similar to M&M's), Coffee Crisp and Aero bars.

We walked over to the sporting goods aisle and they literally had an aisle just for hockey.  It was awesome.  I was so happy to see they had Pittsburgh Penguin stuff for sale.  Mom bought a $20 Sidney Crosby jersey and I got a small soft hockey stick and a ball with the Penguins logo on it.  I just couldn't help myself.

Then we went to the junk food aisle.  I told mom a list of stuff we were told to bring home.  That included Ketchup chips, the real Kinder Eggs and Kraft Dinner (which was mac n cheese) but apparently it tasted different.  We got in line and paid in self check out.  I just had mom put it on her card and I would pay her back later.

We still needed to find some lunch before we drove home so we stopped at a Mooyah.  I have never been to one and we both thought, why not?  Let's try it.  Everything was made to order and we just got burger and fries.  We decided that neither of us loved gravy that much to try poutine.  We paid with the Canadian cash I had remaining on me since mom forgot hers at the hotel.  We ate our food and decided we didn't have enough time to do the Granville Island Market.  We would have to do that the next time we came up here.

We went back through Vancouver so we could grab mom's money she left behind at the hotel.  At this point my stomach started to feel icky so I ran inside after she came back but there were no lobby bathrooms.  Hmm.  I was in a dire situation.  Plus, we had to figure out how to get back to the border and we needed some gas before we left.

We were on the main road and followed what we thought was the right way.  We probably should have checked while we had WiFi.  Oh well, it was going to be an adventure getting back to the border in more ways than one.  We saw a gas station on our right and pulled in.  We found a space and decided how much money we had, how many liters of gas that would get us and did some conversion math.  I could not stand it anymore.  I had to poop.  The gas station did not have a public bathroom so I found a place over by the dumpster and let it all out.  I was there for probably 10 minutes making sure I was done and didn't have to do this again somewhere else.

Mom sat in the Escape and waited until I came back so I could pump gas.  She said she gave him all of her plastic money so we got what we got.  It ended up putting in 30.022 liters of gas for $45 Canadian dollars.  We used all of our money except for a few loonies and toonies.

We followed the 99 and ended up on the wrong road at some point.  I found a place to stop and check out the map at the bus stop.  I found a route that would take us south.  We ended up stopping a lot down Kingsway (1A) onto Knight and them onto the 91 and then finally made it back onto the 99 to the border.  We drove through a lot of Vancouver suburbs into Richmond and then into Surrey.  We waited at the border for a good half hour to 40 minutes.  We enjoyed the view of the Peace Arch while we waited.

There was a truck in front of us that had to be completely searched.  The border patrol literally had all the doors open rummaging through the vehicle.  They even had the back of the truck canopy open to check for smuggling.  It was entertaining to watch.  We got into a line and waited our turn.  I grabbed our passports and when it was our turn I handed the border patrol our information and he asked why we were in Canada.  I told him for the hockey game, sight seeing and tourism.  He handed our passports back to us and said, welcome back.

Now we had the long daunting trip back home.  The surprising part was that traffic didn't suck which was nice.  We got home roughly around 7ish and mom grabbed her stuff out of the Escape and shoved it into her Expedition.  I went inside and dumped off my stuff and wanted to get cleaned up and go to bed.  I was tired.

It was a great trip overall.  We got to go to Canada (my first time), I got my first Canadian cache, we got to see the Penguins play hockey and Sidney Crosby in real life, got to experience some Canadian stuff and do a lot of sight seeing.  I can't wait to visit Victoria some day.

Next Adventure:  Early Morning Adventure:  Heading to Colorado

First Time to Canada: Vancouver BC and a Penguins Hockey Game

My mom and I have been Pittsburgh Penguin fans since early 2009.  Seattle didn't have an NHL team so we turned on the TV and whoever was playing we would be come fans of.  That happened to be Sidney Crosby and the Penguins.  We've always wanted to see a live game ever since.  We've watched many games throughout the years and enjoyed their back to back Stanley Cups in 2016 and 2017.

One day last week I was watching my Penguins on TV.  I had a thought, I wonder if they play the Canucks this year?  I quickly looked at the schedule and found out they did, in Vancouver.  We HAVE to go.  This is the closest the Penguins will be to Seattle until Seattle gets their team in 2021 or until we plan a trip to Pittsburgh.  I called mom and asked her what she was doing this weekend.  She said as far as she knew nothing at this moment.  I ask her, how would you like to go to Canada this weekend and watch the Penguins play the Canucks?  She said sure, let's do it.  We found pretty good tickets, a hotel within walking distance of the arena and things to do in the area while we were there.  I was so excited I could not wait for the weekend.  This would be my first time crossing the actual border into Canada.  Of course we were going to find some caches.

I got home from work on Friday and immediately started packing.  I would have to get up super early on Saturday so we could get on the road.  I tried going to bed as early as I could so I could get enough sleep because I knew it was going to be a very long short weekend.

My alarm went off and I zombied out of bed.  I didn't actually get up until 4:45 but I knew mom would be late so I took my time getting ready.  I made a couple of sandwiches and put them in the cooler with some fruit, chips, drinks and other snack-like stuff.  I grabbed my back pack, my duffel bag and put all of it in the back of the Escape.  I called mom to see where she was because I was ready to go.  She told me she was almost there.

She threw her stuff in the Escape and off we went.  I had prepared days before the geocaches we were going to stop for, the food places we needed to try (my friend Jessie lived in Canada for a year), the places we were going to go and information about crossing the border.  I found an app called CBSA CanBorder and downloaded it.  I wanted to compare it to our WSDOT app to see if the border information was similar.  For the most part it was.  I made sure we both had our passports because we didn't want to have a bad weekend.

Traffic was pretty minimal and we made our first stop in Bellingham to use the restroom.  We found a Haggen and went inside.  We had to wait for a bunch of cross country kids from the local high school who were probably going to a meet that morning.  I found some snacks and mom bought dad a huge container of black licorice.  That stuff is hard to find in the giant circular containers.  From there, we found the closest WSECU and each grabbed about $60 in cash to exchange once we got there.

We made our way to the border and got there around 9 a.m.  Neither of us had crossed into the Canadian border via car before but we have by foot into the Peace Arch Park.  It was a really short wait going into Canada.  When it was our turn, we handed him our passports and he asked us why we were going into Canada.  I told him for the hockey game tonight and some sight seeing.  He handed us our passports back and told us to have a great time, welcome to Canada!  We really wanted our passport stamped but we really didn't know where to go so we drove on.  I saw on my maps that there was a geocache just ahead.  I pulled over and grabbed my first Canadian cache, The Best Place on Earth - Peace Arch (GC1VPXH).  I was embarrassed that it took me a little while to find.  Mom watched me from the Escape.

From there, we took the highway into Vancouver.  I could see why so many people come visit.  The city has a great mountainous backdrop to the north.  I had to make sure to look at my speedometer every once and a while to make sure I was going the correct kilometer per hour.  I was glad our vehicles had both mph and kph.  This was the first time my Escape had ever been driven in a foreign country.  My GPS didn't really work in Canada so we had to figure it out with my geocaching maps.  We finally got into Vancouver and kinda just drove around until we decided where we wanted to go first.

We started in the Gastown area because mom wanted to see the steam clock.  We parked near some shops, put our money in the meter, set a timer and walked around for a while.

As Vancouver's oldest neighborhood, Gastown grew from a single tavern founded by John "Gassy Jack" Deighton back in 1867.  Today, the district retains its historic charm and independent spirit.  Victorian architecture houses a thriving fashion scene, impeccable curated décor boutiques, one-of-a-kind galleries and some of the best culinary far in Vancouver.  It's a gathering place for stylish locals and an ideal neighborhood to explore on foot.  Gastown lies along the north of the downtown Vancouver peninsula, from Richards east to Main Street and south to Hastings Street.  To my mom and I, it really resembled Pioneer Square in Seattle.  It had that feel to it.  Of course there was a geocache here, Gastown:  The Steam Clock (GC78HP3).  I got out my app and pinpointed where it was.  It was kitty corner from the steam clock.

We took a few pictures and then walked back towards the Escape.  We walked past the Escape to see how much time we had on our meter and  then walked along Water Street until it turned into West Cordova.  I followed the directions to Under the Clock (GC7B6F0) up Granville Street.  There, we answered a few questions about the clock and got our picture to prove we were there.

We walked up West Hastings Street to grab another virtual cache, Marine Building (GC7B6MA).  I wanted to get as many virtuals as possible because I really wanted to get to 100 virtuals before July 30th.  Including this one I had 15 left to grab with a little less than nine months left of my goal.  I knew with some of my upcoming trips I would have to grab as many virtuals as possible.  There really weren't any close ones around.  The Marine Building was completed in 1930 making it the city's tallest building for its time.  It's iconic architecture and luscious interior decorations, the building has been chosen as the setting for numerous film and television productions.  The cache wanted you to admire the architecture and the exterior stone walls.  It was a really cool building.

We continued walking around a little while just to experience Vancouver and to see what all was around.  Mom took several pictures of the city, the harbor and the port.  For being the end of October the weather was sure nice.

It was almost time for our meter to be up so we started walking back after trying to find a public bathroom.  We walked down West Cordova and noticed this Mountie shop that we saw earlier.  We decided to go in to see what was in there.  Both mom and I found a few things.  We chatted with the shop keep for a little bit as well.  We asked him if there was a place we could exchange money.  He told us there were a few banks around and a couple of exchange places.  He gave us an address for one of the exchange places.  We thanked him and then paid for our stuff with mom's credit card because we hadn't changed our US Dollars yet.  Plus, she earned miles when she used it.

We had a few blocks until we were back at the Escape.  I saw this little souvenir shop next to where we parked the Escape and I had to go inside.  I got a few things for myself, Ben, his mom and Amy.   Mom found some stuff for her, dad, Doug and Erika.  I asked mom where we wanted to go next and she said Stanley Park.  I checked to see where the park was from the street we were on.  We got onto the main road and followed the signs.

When we got into the park we just followed the road.  We really didn't have a destination but we did see a lot of cool stuff.  We got to Brockton Point and decided to park the Escape.  I wasn't too sure of the parking situation so I walked over to one of the parking pass machines and read what we needed to do.  It was $6 to park all day long wherever inside the park you wanted. We got a great view of North Vancouver from here.

We grabbed our lunch and found a place in the park to eat.  We ate our sandwiches, chips and fruit and did some people watching.  A nearby crow really wanted our food but we just ignored him.  Mom took pictures while I tried to find a nearby cache.  After 10 minutes of looking I decided to call it quits and find mom.  We got back into the Escape and drove around the rest of the park.

Our next stop was Prospect Point, at the north end of Stanley Park.  We stopped at the view point of the Lion's Gate first.  The view of the bridge from here was awesome.

We found a parking spot and walked to the viewpoint.  There, I did two caches, an earthcache and a traditional.  There were a lot of people around talking group selfies, walking their dogs and being tourists.  Mom and I did the earthcache first, Fjord (GC5BEB1).  We had to learn a little bit about the geology of the area specifically why this point is the most narrow and why was that?  I had no trouble with it and answered it quickly.  The other cache, Prospecting Love (GC5EXMN) which was down below the viewing area.  I guess this place is known for wedding proposals and date nights especially at twilight or at night with the lights.  One of Ben's best friends got engaged at this exact spot.

We continued around the circle and parked near the horse rides.  Mom wanted a few pictures of the horses and totem poles.

We walked about a mile towards the Lost Lagoon.  There, mom almost got chased by a raccoon.  The guy who was sitting near the bench said she was friendly.  I tried to get a picture of the raccoon chasing mom but I couldn't get it in time.  I did laugh at her though.  We took some pictures, enjoyed the view of Vancouver from this spot and some of the wildlife.

I sat down on a pile of rocks and reflected at the Lost Lagoon.  Again, a lot of life changing things happened this year and I was still trying to recover from it.  I knew life was going to be different and it wasn't a good different.  It was a hard different.  It was almost like everything wasn't as exciting as it used to be which is really hard to explain to someone else when you've lost someone very special to you.

We walked back to where we parked the Escape and looked at the time.  It was almost time to check into the hotel and we weren't sure how busy downtown was going to be.  We got onto the main drag and found Howe Street but we weren't sure what block of Howe Street so we did some guessing with the address we had.  We had to drive around the block several times and even encountered some construction.  We did eventually get there.  Mom booked us for a night at The Metropolitan Hotel because it was within walking distance to the arena.  We did not want to drive to the arena.  We pulled in and the valet helped us unload our stuff onto a cart and he took my Escape to park it until it was time to leave tomorrow.  The doorman took us to the desk with our cart so we could check in.  Mom checked us in and the bellhop took our cart to our room for us.  We were in room 1208.  I tipped the bellhop one of my Loonies that I have had for years waiting to use my spare Canadian change in Canada.  We thanked each other and he went on his way.  Mom and I dug through our bags to find our stuff for the game.

Mom went downstairs to find out if they could exchange our money so we could have some cash on us for the game.  We each put in $60 and she came back with $150 dollars in Canadian.  We each got C$75.

We got settled in, mom turned on the TV, I decided to upload pictures to my computer which seemed like a good idea for the time to pass before we had to walk to the game (turned out to be a bad idea.) I did some other stuff on my computer before we decided to change our clothes for the game. I got a Sidney Crosby jersey for my birthday last year and you better bet I was wearing it tonight!

We didn't know how long it would take to walk there, Rogers Arena was roughly a half a mile from the hotel, so we left a little bit before 5.  We knew we were going the right way because everyone else donning Canucks and Penguins gear were headed the same way we were walking.  When we got there we were really early so we had to stand outside for a bit.  This is when the rain started to fall very lightly.  I was not a fan.

The gate finally opened and we went inside.  It reminded me of being inside of Key Arena.  They handed us a poster program and we meandered our way to our seats in the upper bowl.  These were the cheapest tickets at $75 a ticket.  This game was more expensive because the Canucks were playing Pittsburgh.  We had a great view regardless.  We got the camera out to take some pictures and turns out I didn't put the SD card back in.  I was so upset.  We could have gotten some really awesome pictures.  We had to settle with the ones we took with our phones.

We went and grabbed some food, hot dogs, chips, a drink and some popcorn.  It was weird paying with money we weren't familiar with.  I felt like I was paying with plastic Monopoly money.  They handed us our food and we went back to our seats.  We waited for the game to begin.  There were more people wearing Penguins jerseys than there were Canuck fans.

The first period was pretty boring.  There was a lot of back and forth but we had some great shots on goal.  Meanwhile, there were two guys who sat on the other side of mom. They were both in their mid to late 20's.  They were hilarious.  They were both from Canada and they were huge Sidney Crosby fans as were we.  They asked is if we were Canadian Canadians, Canadian Americans or American Americans.  We told them we were American Americans who loved watching hockey.  They were satisfied with that answer.  They asked us where we were from and we said Washington...assuming they would know just across the border.  They thought we came all the way from Washington DC to watch this game.  Nooo, Washington State.  They were like, oh makes more sense now eh?  We talked about an array of stuff as we sat there watching the game, like where they were from in Canada, their jobs, etc.  They told us they got their tickets at the last minute and took a seaplane into the harbor and then walked to the game.  As I assumed, the consumption of beer in a can didn't disappoint either.

The Penguins finally scored a goal early in the second period by Phil Kessel.  There were a round of high fives in our little row of fans.  Just before the end of the second period, Sidney Crosby scores on the backhand making the score 2-0.  More high fives are had by all.

At the end of the third period the Penguins sealed the game with three more goals, two by Evgeni Malkin with less than 5 minutes to go and another one by Crosby with two minutes left of the game.  The crowd went nuts.  I was jumping up and down high fiving our two Penguin fans.  By the end of the game we had 35 shots to their 29.  The two guys were so chatty during the game they had me saying eh by the time the game was over.  They also said that they liked our accents.  I thought that was weird.

Penguins crushed the Canucks 5-0.  It was the best first NHL hockey game ever.  Mom and I have started the planning process to go see a game in Pittsburgh next fall.  We walked the half a mile back to the hotel this time it was actually a steady rain.  We got back to the hotel and rode up in the elevator with a guy and his kid (who were from Seattle) who had great seats.  He showed us some pictures he took with his phone.  They must have had money to sit in a seat that close.  We got to our room and I took a shower while mom got ready for bed.  I relaxed a bit on the computer before turning the lights off and going to sleep.  Today was epically long but awesome.

Next Adventure:  Sight Seeing in Canada:  Vancouver Lookout, Capilano Bridge and the Drive Home

College Game Day and Moving Doug Back Home

Around the beginning of August Doug had mentioned that it was time to move back home.  Jenn could do her work from anywhere and Doug just needed to get away from Seattle.  It was just too expensive to survive up there.  They had a tiny one bedroom one bathroom apartment and it was more than what we paid rent here in Lacey...for a house!

Throughout the summer Doug really couldn't tell us when they were going to make the move so it was going to be a last minute weekend thing and most likely in October.  A few weeks went by and in late September Doug gave us a target date, October 20.  I set aside the weekend to help them move.  The weekend before the Ducks beat the Huskies 30-27 in overtime and the Cougars stomped the Beavers 56-37 which resulted in a Cougar-Duck College Gameday Showdown in Pullman.  Yes, you heard that right.  WSU was going to host its first College Gameday since the live program started in 1993.  We waited 15 years for this moment.  This day.  We all heard the announcement late after we beat the Beavers.  I found out on my Facebook that night.  I was stoked but saddened I could not make the drive to Pullman to experience the historical moment because I had promised my weekend to Doug already.  Huge bummer.

When College Gameday did make it to Pullman a few days before the big game it was like everyone dropped everything to head towards Stadium Way.  If you were in Pullman you were there when the bus came into town.  I was super jealous of all the posts, pictures and mayhem.

I really wanted to be there.  We've been waiting years to have this moment happen, this is why we wave Ol' Crimson week after week.  This meant a lot to the people of Pullman, the fans, students and alumni of WSU.  This was our year to be great; one game at a time.

We did not have the capabilities to record College Gameday so we missed all of that this morning while we were getting ready to go.  I would have to either find it online or ask someone if they recorded it to watch it in its entirety.  If you did attend Gameday you were basically up the entire day.  You would have to get in line really early in the morning to be one of the people in the crowd.  There were hundreds of flags, Gameday signs, seas of crimson and gray, Butch, chanting...this was the game of all games.  Someone said it was up there right with the 1998 Rose Bowl.  This was worth the wait.  This was epic.

Kirk Herbstreit, Lee Corso, Rece Davis, Desmond Howard and David Pollack told many of the media outlets that Washington State was crazy and festive, high energy atmosphere before, during and after the show.  They all said it was incredible and Pullman didn't disappoint.

Corso picked the Cougars over the Ducks and one of my favorite pictures came from that moment.

The Spokesman Review stated that College Gameday at Washington State was seen by almost 2 million people.

He wanted us to be at his house around 9 a.m.  He had already started the packing process days ago and has a lot of it staged in the bedroom.  Erika, mom and I left my house around 7 a.m.  We stopped at Safeway so Erika could get some coffee.  I grabbed some maple bars and a milk for the road.  Erika rode with mom and I drove myself up.  We needed two cars for the "expensive breakables" and stuff that shouldn't go in the moving van to get ruined.

Traffic was alright until we got to Seattle.  For some reason before you go over the bridge into North Seattle there is always horrible traffic almost like the bridge is a magnet.  It's very weird.

After ducking and dodging idiots, we finally got to the exit and followed the Nuvi and part of Doug's directions (because the Nuvi and most GPS's wouldn't find the correct driveway anyway) we made it to his apartment complex.  We found the giant U-Haul truck and found some parking places near the door.  We walked up the several flights of stairs and into their tiny apartment.  I was shocked to see how much stuff was packed in this microscopic space and how dirty it was.  They basically lived on the couch and at their computer desks.

Jenn started packing the rest of the kitchen stuff while everyone else attempted to pack up stuff in the living room so we could get the couch out to the truck.  At one point I was just putting random things into empty boxes just to get the stuff done.  We eventually got everything away from the couch so we could start taking that down in pieces.  The couch was so awkward but I'm glad it fit down the stairwell.  We took the bed stuff and a lot of the large boxes down.  We got all the big stuff down and into the truck.  Doug said, "then we start tetris'ing the weird stuff."

The desks, random clothes bags, desk lamps, shelves and the rest was miscellaneous stuff that we stuck in the truck last.  The TV's, computer screens, game consoles, mirrors and canvases (basically all the breakables and expensive stuff) all went into the Expedition and Escape.  We finished up with washing the windows, bathroom, living room kitchen, vacuuming, mopping and spackling holes in the walls.

Around 3ish, we had everything packed up, the apartment was clean, they left the keys and we headed out.  Doug drove the U-Haul, Jenn drove their car with their cat Freya, I drove the Escape with stuff inside and Erika and mom drove together with all the TV's and monitors.

We left first because they stopped by their apartment office before the left.  I went the same way we came up, via I-5.  I knew there would be places along the freeway where there would be traffic.  We would just have to be patient.  I was hungry and hoped we would get some food soon.

We made it through the traffic and finally got out of Seattle.  The rest of the time it was pretty much smooth sailing.  I called Doug to warn him about the traffic because it would be more difficult in the U-Haul.  He said he took 405 through Bellevue and he said it wasn't too bad.  I told him to text us when he got closer to Lacey.  He said sure.  When we got to Lacey mom wanted to stop at Walmart for some stuff and had to kill some time while we waited for Doug and Jenn, who were about an hour behind us still.

We wasted enough time inside the store.  I bought a snack because I wasn't sure if we were going to eat anything or not.  Doug said he and Jenn were at the house and I told them we were on our way because we stopped at the store for a bit.  Doug backed the truck up and we all decided to unload the U-Haul and then our individual cars.  Dad met us there to help.  We unloaded the truck fairly quickly and stuck everything in the back room near the kitchen for "staging" purposes.  They really didn't know where they wanted everything yet.  The only thing we knew for sure was where the couch was going to go.  We grabbed the stuff out of their car, mom's Expedition and finally my Escape.

The Cougar game started at 4:30.

I went out to the garage to grab my mop and bucket.  I brought them just in case we needed to use them to clean their apartment.  We didn't end up using them.  I went to grab them and then something caught my eye.  A car had driven by and out of my peripheral it looked familiar.  I thought to myself, no way.  NO WAY!  Remember that one roommate Ben and I had about a year ago?  The one that we took to court and won?  She was living with some of her friends at the time and then I found out she was buying a house somewhere.  She was very secretive about people knowing where she lived and her address...she even gave us a friend's address to forward her mail to so we didn't know where she was living.  We knew where she was the entire time anyway.  Mostly, so we knew where to serve court papers but we ended up doing it at work instead.  Well, today we found out where she bought her house.  That's right, three houses down from my brother's house.  Insane right?  What are the effing odds!!??  Of anywhere in Thurston county she chose the neighborhood my brother lived in.  Granted, she was living there before he even knew he was moving back home.  I was beside myself and I'm sure she was crapping her pants when she drove past my Escape a few minutes ago.  Just to make sure I inched my way out of Doug's driveway to make sure that was who it was.  Sure enough, her creepy boyfriend Tyler was just standing out at the edge of their driveway staring at us.  I stood there staring at him.  I was not going to acknowledge him.  She sat in her car and then scampered away into the house trying not to be seen.  I imagine it really bugged her that I now knew where she lived.  The funny thing is though, we got what we wanted and she is no longer a problem in our lives.  She is now a stranger that I sometimes see at work...there I ignore her as well.  I still could not believe it though.  I had to tell people.  I called Ben and told him and followed that up with a call to Trish.  They were beside themselves too.

Doug wanted to buy us all dinner so we drove back into Hawks Prairie and he treated us to Red Robin.  I just got my usual and I saw they were playing our game on one of the TV's.  I had been checking the score off and on so I knew how dominant the first half was.  I just hope they had enough to keep the lead in the second half.

They came back out and let the Ducks have 20 unanswered points in the third and fourth quarter.  Cougar Nation was a bit worried there in the fourth quarter only leading by a touchdown.  It was a long five minutes after Oregon kicked a field goal.  We got the ball back and scored a touchdown keeping the lead out of reach.  Oregon got the ball again but turned it over on downs.  We ended the game in victory formation.

We won 34-20.  This game was epic in so many ways.  We rushed the field in victory.  It was a perfect day out on the Palouse.

The Cougars were now (7-1, 4-1) with five more Pac-12 games left of the year.  Unfortunately, I was not going to make it to a home game at Martin Stadium but this year I would be making my first away Cougar game in Colorado in a few weeks.

Next Adventure:  First Time to Canada:  Vancouver BC and a Penguins Hockey Game