Throughout Middle School and High School we played against Winlock so I knew my way around the tiny town.
This year I asked Liz if she still wanted me to come to Egg Days. She basically said sure, if you want to. It wasn't like the first time she asked me almost like she could care less if I came or not. I asked mom if she wanted to come with and she said sure. So we planned to meet Liz and her family at Darren's mom and dad's house in Winlock. She gave me the address and she told me that she would see me on Saturday before the parade. I told her that we would be there around 10 since the parade began at 11.
The beginning of Egg Day. The highway between Winlock and Cowlitz Corner was complete and dedicated on August 13, 1921. There was a big celebration commemorating the event, and since Winlock was becoming quite a famous poultry center, they decided to call the celebration "Winlock Poultry and Egg Day." There were about 1,000 people present at the celebration. Otis Roundtree was the General Chairman for the event. After the celebration, it was decided to make this an annual event. Egg Day was postponed for WWII during the years 1943-1946 making this year the 94th Egg Day Celebration!
The big egg at the depot. Deemed the "World's Largest Egg" by Ripley's Believe It or Not in 1989. On October 23, 1923, the Pacific Highway Bridge over the Columbia River at Vancouver was completed and opened. A huge caravan of cars and floats, representing the various communities of Western Washington, started at Olympia, and drove to Salem, Oregon, where they had a huge celebration, commemorating the opening of the through travel from Capital to Capital. John G. Lawrence, manager of the Co-op, suggested that Winlock should be represented in the caravan by a huge egg, mounted on a truck. A wood frame was made in the shape of an egg. A canvas was stretched tight over it, and painted white. This attracted so much attention, that on their return they decided to place it on a platform near the depot where it has since remained. The current structure is the fourth reincarnation of the original egg.
I have been to the Winlock Egg a few times over the years. I did the virtual cache back in 2010 when I started geocaching and back when the Seahawk logo was painted on it for winning the Super Bowl back in 2014. Today would be my fifth time back to the egg.
I got up at 8, grabbed my stuff and headed over to grab mom. We got onto the freeway and headed south on I-5. We stopped in Chehalis so I could grab the new cache, Recreation Park - Chehalis Park Series (GC85GXG). This one that used to be here must have gotten muggled so they had to replace it. It was hidden further away from the playground and near the building and I found it within a few minutes while mom waited in the Escape.
We got back on the freeway and got off at the Winlock exit. We drove through town and went down the wrong road. We had to wait a bit to get back through the sea of people getting ready for the parade. We finally got to the correct road and looked for familiar cars. We parked off the road and went inside Darren's parent's house. We met Darren's mom and step dad, his brother, his brother's wife and some of their friends. We sat there for about 20 minutes feeling awkward until it was time to walk to the main street where the parade was going to be.
It was a pleasant walk, Darren really likes to visit a lot and was very loud, their oldest boys were smart asses and their two younger daughters couldn't wait to be at the parade. When we got closer, Darren split off to do the truck with Aaron's while Liz, my mom and the two girls found a spot to watch the parade. It was like any other small town parade. You had the high school band, the Grand Marshalls, the various businesses and small clubs, the farm equipment, the old cars, horses, the police, the fire department and the tiny football players and cheerleaders.
The two little girls were really excited about candy and I ended up taking care of one of the bags while they collected candy off the street. When the parade was over, we walked down to the Elementary School (quickly stopped by the Arron's truck to say hi to Darren) for a free egg salad sandwich (which were famous) and stood in a really short line. Apparently, we were one of the first groups of people there. We didn't have to wait that long for a sandwich. We sat at the lunch tables, ate our sandwiches and made some small talk.
We walked around the vendors for a while and Darren met up with us with the rest of the kids.
From there we walked back up to the main street and looked at the old cars for a while. Mom took a few pictures while we wandered around.
We decided it was time to head back to the house so we walked back, thanked Darren and Liz for the invite and headed north on the back road towards Napavine. Once to Napavine we got onto the freeway. Mom wanted to stop at Walmart to pick up a few things so I stopped in Chehalis.
We got back onto I-5 and got off to take mom home in Rainier. There wasn't any more caches to get so I would have to wait for more to publish down here again. I dropped mom off and told her thank you for going with me. She said she had fun and learned a bunch about the town of Winlock. We might go back for geocaching but probably not for Egg Days, once was enough for us.
Next Adventure: Heading to Selah, Geocaching and Visiting
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