Ben's friends, Michael and Elaine were celebrating their 30th birthdays and saved up money to rent out a building in Bellingham to celebrate the occasion. They invited us at Oktoberfest and through an event on Facebook. They really hoped that we could come. We blocked it off on the calendar and went through our nice clothes since it was a masquerade ball. That meant I had to dress nice and find some masquerade masks.
The next day we got up late...I around 11 and Ben not until after noon. I had some cereal while I watched college football. Afterwards, I got a shower in and packed up my stuff for the rest of the weekend since we were going to spend the night at their house in Mount Vernon. Ben thought the party started at 7 so he took his sweet time even though it started at 5. I told him that we needed to go soon because it was going to take a while to get there. He said that we would have plenty of time because it started at 7. I told him no it doesn't, it starts at 5. We are going to be really late. We verified it by looking at the Facebook event. Ben also texted Michael stating that we were going to be late because of Ben's misinterpretation. He just said to get here when you can. Plus, we still had to go to the Halloween store in West Olympia to get masks. Today is already a disaster.
Ben hurried, got all packed and we left our house around 3. We drove over to Westside Olympia and to the Halloween store.
We were lucky, they had black masks which will go with both of our outfits. We got onto I-5 and headed to Bellingham, which was going to take us a while. We left Olympia around 4. The only traffic we had to stop for was between Nisqually and Lakewood. From there, it was smooth sailing. I had an estimate that we would be there by 7.
Once we were in Bellingham, we followed Nuvi's directions to Lairmont Manor. It was going to take us through Fairhaven and up the hill. We reached the destination and found a place to park. The building was pretty cool. We did some changing in the car since I wore jeans and a sweatshirt up. I got into my nice sweater and slacks. We grabbed our masks and our chips and dip and walked in. The manor was insane. This building was pretty cool. I wonder how much they had to pay to rent it out?
The only people I knew were Michael and Elaine and a few other guys that I've seen a couple times. We basically ate food and talked to a bunch of people for a while and then right around the end of the night we did some dancing and picture taking.
We were so late getting there that's really all the time we had because the night ended at 11. We helped pick up some stuff and packed up the items that belonged to Michael and Elaine. We said our goodbyes and some of us headed to Mount Vernon, which was about a 30 mile drive.
I wanted to get a geocache before we left Bellingham so we stopped for Little Free Library in Fairhaven (GC83FZV). We parked in a lot and walked up to it on the sidewalk. It was outside of a business that was closed for the night and it was almost midnight as it was. We found it quickly, signed the log, got a picture and I left a pathtag for the next cacher. We continued to Michael and Elaine's house in Mount Vernon.
When we got there, we parked in the cul-de-sac, grabbed our overnight bags and went inside. I got changed (we stayed in Dom's room) and headed downstairs to play a few board games before bedtime. Their kids were with the grandparents for the night so we didn't have to worry about being quiet while we played. We ended up going to bed past 2 a.m.
The next day we got up around 9 a.m. and started getting ready to go. I wasn't sure who was up yet since we went to bed so late. I wanted to get a start on our day so we skipped breakfast and thanked them for having us over. Elaine was still like, are you sure you don't want breakfast? I can make you some pancakes. Nah, I wasn't very hungry plus we had to go do some shopping before we drove back towards home. We gave out hugs, threw our bags into the car and headed out.
I wanted to do some caching while we shopped and when we left their development I saw one at the nearby park. MVGCC3-Fire Station Park (GC6DM91) which was down the hill. It was a tiny park situated near the fire station. We parked and followed the phone to the corner of the fence. The cache was compromised. The lock was missing from the birdhouse and the cache contents were thrown all over the ground. We picked up what we could and put it back in the birdhouse. We wrote a note to the cache owner telling them that their cache was compromised. Later on in the day they thanked us for the heads up.
We drove back towards the freeway and I saw the Value Village. I had to go in because this is an area I have not looked at their junk yet. I left with a Cougar pint glass and a book. We moved onto the Burlington Coat Factory in Burlington!! Haha! Ben promised me a winter coat last year for my birthday/Christmas and got me one online but it was the wrong size. I wanted a black puffy coat without any large logos on it. We were in there for about an hour before I found the right one. It was originally $260 and it was now discounted to $60. It was a black puffy jacket with a very small spider on it. I looked it up and it was called Spyder and it was an active sportswear company out of Boulder, Colorado. I tried it on a couple times to make sure I could wear it with a sweatshirt underneath it. It was perfect and I told Ben this was the one. He said okay, we looked around a bit more and then we went to pay. I also bought a Seahawks sweatshirt since mine were getting all worn out.
We decided we were hungry and looked at the places that were nearby. I asked Ben, what about Five Guys? We haven't been there in a while plus I have a gift card for $10. He said sure! We both had burgers, shared the fries, I had my drink and Ben had a peanut butter chocolate shake. We put the Seahawk game on his phone while we ate. We were playing the Falcons in Atlanta so the game started at 10 a.m. It was almost halftime and we were up by almost 24 points. We finished up our food and decided to find a few more caches in town before we headed south.
Da Boat Da Boat (GCZH7R) was hidden near a church that looked like Noah's Arc. It was pretty cool. We literally drove right up to the cache. We had forgotten it was Sunday but no one seemed to be paying attention to us. It was a quick find.
We started heading south. I saw a few along a side road so we got off of I-5. Brian's Cache (GC23QXQ) was a quick park and grab guard rail cache. I was happy it was there. I hate showing up to guard rail caches and they are missing...especially ones that are not near home.
About a mile or so down the road we searched for Stumpy (GC4A0ZH). This one took us a while to zero in on and once we did we had trudged through the brush and saw the cache at a really obscure angle next to a power pole. You really couldn't see it from the road side. We got our names on it, took a picture and headed to the next one.
We continued heading south on the side road. I saw another one coming up, Professional's Only (GC2TCHG) and as we got closer to the cache site, we knew it was going to be in or around this very large stump/nurse log on the side of the road. It also was an easy park and grab.
I was pretty excited for the next one, A TB Hotel For the Birds (GC7H8D9) and there were actually TB's inside the cache. I was shocked. Usually when we stop for TB Hotel's there are no trackables inside and it's upsetting. This is why my TB Hotel at home always has trackables it will not disappoint cachers when they come find it. We took the two TB's and I left a pathtag for the next set of cachers. We moved onto the next one.
Born Free (GCWHM1) was on our way back to the freeway. There was this cool historical place across from where we found the cache near the cemetery. It's too bad it wasn't open when we came by. Cache was a film cannister hidden in the fence across the street. It was a quick find.
We got back on I-5 and headed south towards Marysville. A few weeks back I had noticed a new virtual cache in that area and we were going to stop and grab, Ye Old Opera (GC890BJ). As we got closer we followed Nuvi to the parking coords of an old opera house. I read the cache page to see what we had to do. The cache owner wanted us to check on a few words on the corner of the building and sent it to them and to take a picture. Pretty easy.
Since we were near a Dairy Queen I asked Ben if he wanted a blizzard so we drove a couple blocks. We went inside and there are some real winners working there. I made sure I watched them make my blizzard just in case they decided to spit in it. Both workers looked like they had just gotten out of prison and were addicted to meth. Yikes! We took it to go and got back onto I-5.
We called Trish to see how her weekend was and she asked us where we where since she knew we were in the Mount Vernon area visiting Michael and Elaine. We told her that we just left Marysville. We asked if we could stop by and she said sure. She was going to get some pizza's for dinner. We didn't hit any traffic from Marysville all the way to Bonney Lake. We got to her house around 5ish. We ate pizza, hung out and told her about the weekend. I showed her some of the pictures and she said sounds like we had a fun weekend. We stayed until about 7 and then had to head home to get ready for the new work week. We thanked her for the pizza and told her we would come visit again soon.
I had Erika start a load of laundry so it would be done and ready for the dryer by the time we got home. We got home around 8, unpacked the car, showered, folded laundry and relaxed a bit before bed. I was happy to finally have a warm jacket. I knew it would come in handy over the next couple months.
Next Adventure: Seattle Seahawks vs. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
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