Leap Day 2020 at Woodland Creek Park and Some FTF's

I noticed this event, Leap to It Olympia - 2020 (GC8GYAJ), a few weeks back and made sure I put it on my calendar so we didn't schedule anything else and feel hurried or double book ourselves.  I did schedule a time with Dad to go get rid of our garbage today.  I told him we were going to go to an event in the morning and then be available in the afternoon.  He said just to let him know when we were done.

The travel bug dog tags that Heather gave us a few weeks ago I turned two of them into active trackables that I bought Matchbox cars for.  I got a version of a Chevelle, not the exact car my grandmother had, but it was to remember her by anyway.  I got Ben a fire truck.  We activated them, gave 'em a description and decided to release them at this event.

We got up, ate some cereal and dressed warmly because it was going to be a cold morning outside.  I mean it is winter time after all.  Harvey's Pack decided to host the event at Woodland Creek Park, a place we were very familiar with.  I've been here several times over the years for caches and events.  This is where Ben and I met for the first time seven years ago for a date.

I wanted to leave early so we could be there, log trackables, the logbook and to get mom the Leap Day Event frog geocoin.  I made sure I had $12 to get her one because she liked it.  Ben and I left the house about a half hour before we were suppose to be there and it took us maybe less than 10 minutes to get there and park the Escape.  Harvey's Pack were there with their two dogs getting everything ready in the outdoor covered area.  They had doughnuts, coffee and orange juice.  I helped myself to a doughnut and some orange juice and Ben also did but he had coffee instead.  We chatted with them for a bit, signed the log, got my coin and then more people started to arrive.

Some of the attendees I've met, some I haven't seen in a while and others were new and I had no idea who they were.  I spent time talking to Bob and Bev, Seth, Dave, Dan and Joy and some other cachers from Tacoma who we didn't know.

I knew there were going to be caches that publish today somewhere but I didn't know when they were going to publish so we loitered around waiting for them to publish.  The crowd started to dwindle and Bob and Bev even decided to head home because they were getting cold.  I don't blame them.  I was getting cold as well but I wanted some FTF's.  

After everyone left the caches finally published.  Harvey's Pack, Joy and Dave went on the hunt for the two.  We went after the one nearest the parking lot first.  I put up A Bonus Cache For a Bonus Day (GC8HF19) on my phone and the six of us walked to the cache area near the pond.  The wind was blowing pretty hard and I was cold.  We investigated the bench and Ben pulled it out from its hiding spot.  We all spent a few minutes passing around and signing it before putting it back for others to find, which I'm sure they were on their way.

We then walked out towards the disc golf area and made a left turn down the trail that follows the creek.  We were on our way to grab the other new one in the park called Leap to It - 2020 (GC8HEVF).  In the cache description they explained during the time of the year this area may be flooded or puddles hiding in the tall grass.  We made sure not to step in the watery areas.  We approached a wooden log over a low spot that would keep our feet dry.  

We tip toed down the small path to a large tree where the cache was hidden.  Ben and I got there first and so we signed it, took the FTF coin and then passed it off to Dave and Joy so they could sign the log.  We placed it back and we all walked back to the parking lot near the covered area we held the event at.

We thanked them for hosting the event and then Harvey's Pack and Joy drove out to Tumwater together to do one of hers that I did many years ago.  Ben and I got back into the Escape and headed home.  I let Dad know we were on our way home.  We got home roughly around noon and Dad was there waiting with the truck.  I grabbed my checkbook, wallet and keys and Ben and I helped Dad load our cans into the back of the truck.  I jumped in the truck and Dad and I headed into Rainier.  We got rid of the garbage and the recycle and Dad took me back into Lacey and dropped off me and and my cans.  I thanked him for helping me.  He had some other stuff he needed to take care of.  

Ben and I did a few things in the house and then Josh and Heather invited us over for hamburgers at their house.  We brought chips and drinks with us.  We headed over around 5 to their complex in Tumwater and the food was pretty much done when we got there.  We dug in and ended up sitting at the dining room table talking about stuff for a few hours while a movie Lily was watching played in the background.  We eventually got sucked in.  Ben and I headed home afterwards and thanked them for the food and the invite.  

We went home and relaxed for a bit.  Ben got on his game for a bit while I watched some TV shows, logging the caches and worked on my blog.  We earned our Leap Day 2020 souvenir.

 This was probably going to be the last normal weekend for who knows how long because of the Covid virus that's spreading like wildfire.  I really hope it doesn't impact my trip here in a few weeks because I was getting super nervous that I was going to have to eat a lot of money I paid for this trip.

Next Adventure:  Cache Maintenance on Hwy 507 and Picking Up Two New Ones

Ben's Birthday Weekend

Ben's birthday was in the middle of the week this year so on his birthday Erika and I had a mini birthday party for him in the dining room.  We had cupcakes, decorations and a present for him to open.  Oh yeah, we can't forget the birthday hat!

We made plans with Ben's mom to come over for the weekend and spend time with her.  She said she set aside this weekend to hang out with us and we talked further about what we were going to do when we were there.  She said bowling might be fun so we planned to do that and we haven't been to the Japanese steak house for a few years so we thought that would be a good place to get reservations for again.  Trish agreed and made the calls.

On Friday we both went to work and came home and got our things together for a night.  We asked Erika to feed Calvin while we were gone and give him some pets.  We took Ben's car and headed out.  It was a Friday and everyone was getting off work so traffic sucked.  We took the back way through Spanaway and Puyallup to get to Bonney Lake.  I wanted to stop and get a cache so I looked on my phone as Ben drove.  I saw one up ahead called Bygone Days - Camp Montgomery (GC7X97V) so we pulled over in the small pull out and I ran out and grabbed the cache next to the rock structure.  I brought it in the car and we signed it, got a photo and then I ran out and put it back.

We drove on and made it to Trish's house just before 7 p.m.  She had picked up some pizza from Papa Murphy's for dinner.  A meat Chicago style and a thin crust chicken Mediterranean pizza.  The Chicago style one went in the oven first.  We were all set.  Ed wasn't coming over that night because we would see him tomorrow at bowling.  We sat at the table, ate pizza and visited for a while.

Trish got out the cheesecake, he opened his gifts which was a giant coffee cup and a gift card.  Trish told him that she would pay for his meal the next night at the steakhouse.  I gave Ben his gift the other night when we had a mini birthday party.  I got him a Sounders zippy jacket and another Sounders scarf.  

We played a few games including dice and some rounds of rummy before heading to bed for the evening.

We got up the next morning and had French toast for breakfast.  Ed came over just as we finished breakfast.  He got there just a little after nine.  We all got ready to go and we all jumped into Trish's Tucson while Ed drove separately.  We drove into Puyallup to play a couple frames at the Daffodil Bowling alley.  We parked and went inside and discovered there were no open lanes because they were doing league.  The wait time was going to be another hour or so.  I asked Trish if she made reservations and she said that she thought she did.  I told her, you had one job.  They called Paradise Lanes in Lakewood to see if they had any room and they said they did.  

We all hopped in the cars and drove into Lakewood, just down the street from PLU off of Pacific Highway.  We parked and went inside.  We got a lane, our rental shoes and I spent some time looking for a perfect ball.  I had the first strike of the first game.  

I think everyone had a strike except for Ed.  Of course we made fun of him.  We played for about two hours and got through three games.

We had an issue with buying beer because Ben's license was expired and they couldn't sell him any.  Oh well.  I told him he should have been more prepared and get it done before his birthday so we didn't run into issues like this.

We had some time to kill before our reservations at the Iron Chef Japanese Steakhouse so Ed suggested that we go to his apartment for some games.  His apartment was messy so he went on ahead of us to go clean it up really fast while we grabbed a cache at the nearby Walmart called Wally World Has Won (GC7YQYM).  We found the correct lamp skirt in the parking lot and saw there was a car sitting right in front of it with a girl passed out in the front seat.  It made for an awkward retrieval and putting it back.  I got out and grabbed it as quickly as I could.  We signed our names inside of the car, got back out, put it back and decided where to go from there next.

I suggested that we go to Bradley Park since it was just up the street behind the Walmart.  Everyone thought that was a good idea and so Trish took us there.  We parked, got out and started walking to the path around the lake.  

I saw there was a cache here but didn't read that it was possibly missing but we looked for it anyway and struck out.  Instead, we took some pictures with the lake in the background.

We thought we should probably go to Ed's apartment at this point so we made the short drive down the hill, parked and Trish led the way to his apartment.  His apartment is what I thought it would be.  A slightly messy bachelor with random stuff everywhere.  We spent probably about an hour here playing a couple games of dice.  

We drove up to the steak house on south hill and had a heck of a time finding parking.  It was chilly and glad that I had my vest and hat with me.  We met up with Walt and Wendy and chatted with them while we waited to be seated.  I hadn't seen them for a while so there was a lot to catch up on.  When we were seated, we were seated with some strangers who kept to themselves mostly.  They did say a few things to us but that was the extent of it.  Our hostess took our drink orders and asked us which meals we wanted.  I got the steak and chicken again with white rice.  I wasn't a big fan of the fried rice.

Our chef came out and he did the standard tricks with the knives, the egg juggling and popping it into his hat, the onion volcano and this one kept asking if we wanted yum yum.  I had no idea he was referring to the yum yum sauce.  I ended up with white and fried rice by the time everything was said and done.  I didn't mind.  Of course we ate way too much but it was sooo good.  They found out it was Ben's birthday so they brought him out his after dinner ice cream with a candle and an umbrella in it while they sang to him with a drum.  It was fun.

We thanked Walt and Wendy for coming out to dinner with us and then we drove back to Trish's house to gather up our things and head home.  Ben had a training the next day at the fire station at 9 a.m.  We thanked Trish for hanging out with us, gave out hugs and headed back to Lacey.  We picked up a cache on the way home off of Reservation Road (since it is easier at night, less traffic) called Nisqually Trains (GC8BMHB).  It was a guardrail cache and there actually was a train that passed by while we were finding it.  

We got home, got cleaned up, Ben got ready for bed and I stayed up a bit longer working on some stuff.  It was a good weekend.

Happy Birthday Ben!!

Next Adventure:  Leap Day 2020 at Woodland Creek Park and Some FTF's

Some President's Day Geocaching

I had a three day weekend and Monday was suppose to be nice so I decided to do some geocaching on my day off.  Over the past few weeks, I've been going through my old geocaching notebooks and notes and I found that I had a bunch of puzzles solved and some I needed to verify my solved coordinates with so I called Bev.  She and Bob had found most of them either got the coords from Frisbee'r or Wasurf or solved them themselves.  We went through some of them and got a good dent in the ones I needed to get north of the Hawks Prairie area.  Most of these puzzles I had solved back in 2012 and 2013 and then life just got really busy, stressful and emotionally painful.

I slept in but Ben had to get up to go to work since he didn't have President's Day off.  I ate breakfast, started pulled pork in the crock pot and then got ready to go out for a few hours.  By the time I was ready to go I noticed it was almost lunch time and mom was at the new dentist office, Nisqually Reach north of I-5 in Hawks Prairie.  I drove out, found her building and went inside.  Mom was getting some stuff finished before lunch time and Amy and Carrie were there doing their stuff.  Mom gave me a tour of the place and gave me a Nisqually Reach reusable bag.  I was probably there for about an hour or so.  Before I left, Amy, Mom and I talked about our upcoming trip to Ecuador and Peru and this stupid virus called Covid-19 that has been going around the globe.  I sure hope it doesn't ruin our trip.

The first one on my list was Zodiac Series:  Libra (GC8DCRB) which was at the LOTT Hawks Prairie reclamation ponds park.  

I have been here a couple of other times in the past grabbing caches.  This place has changed so much since I was here last.  There were a lot less trees and more buildings.  It wasn't as forested as it was last time; a lot more open space.  I parked in the little parking lot and made my way to the cache.  It had me looking at the wrong area at first but then I figured it out.  I stood there admiring how nice of a day it was for February.  

There was one more I wanted to see if I could find.  I got the coords from someone year's ago but never came out here to find it.  Don't Hate Me, the Devil Made Me Do It (GC1DEDD) was a really hard puzzle cache.  I walked around to the wooden structure trying to remember some of the diabolical ones I've found over the years to assist me in finding this one.  I was probably here for about a half hour looking everywhere...both high and low.  Some older lady came trotting by and she was bird watching.  She talked to me for a few minutes about birds and then she went on her merry way.  I continued looking while texting Bev for a hint.  She couldn't remember where it was so I wasn't able to find it.  I walked back to the Escape knowing I would have to come back here eventually to look for it again.  Bummer.

I looked to see what the next one was and it was The Pendleton Rescue (GC662GW).  It was located in one of the newer neighborhoods near the gate of the "members only" The Links golf course.  I found a street to park on and walked to the cache location.  I had to make it look like I wasn't being suspicious because there was a guy walking his dog so I acted like I was on my phone until he was gone.  The hint made it pretty obvious of where it was but the last person who found it didn't put it back where it was suppose to go so it was hard to find.  I had to look in all the shrubbery near the large rock.  I actually had to do a yoga move to retrieve the cache from a very obscure place under the rock.  How in the world did the last person put this back?  I got my name on it and put it back under the rock but not as hard for the next person.

The next few were part of the Ballard Fire Chief Series, I picked up numbers 2 (GC3AJFM), 3 (GC3AMFK) and 4 (GC3ARZV).  They were all over The Links Neighborhood.  They were all pretty straight forward, easy to find and there was parking nearby.  All of them I had to park and walk to and luckily there weren't very many people walking around so it made it quick.

There was one more up Marvin Road near Tolmie State Park that I didn't have yet.  It was hidden by the same geocacher, Ballard Fire Chief Forest Service Rock (GC887G4).  There was enough room to pull over on the shoulder.  I did notice another car near the cache.  Are these people geocaching too?  They were.  They had just moved here a few months ago from Texas (I assumed they were military but didn't ask) and I told them that I was a local cacher and the one (I pointed down the road) is one of mine if you haven't found it already.  We signed the log and his son put it back.  I told them before I left that there were quite a few good ones around here and to enjoy them.

The last one I had time for, before it got dark, was Zodiac Series:  Gemini (GC87QDW) which was off of the Hawks Prairie Road that connected with Johnson Point Road.  I parked down a residential road and made the short walk to the trailhead of a little neighborhood trail system.  I have not been here before.  I followed the dirt path to where the coords and hint led me to.  The cache was hidden near the base of two twin trees.  This was my 11,600th cache!  I probably should be at 12,000 by now but I haven't been able to plan for some trips to Eastern Washington to hit the power trails yet.  Walla Walla is in some sort of a planning stage but I don't have an official weekend scheduled yet.

I headed back home and checked on the pulled pork.  It was almost done just about another hour or so and then I can add in the BBQ sauce and set it on low.  Ben got home from work, did a little bit of cardio since he wasn't going to Jujutsu.  We ate dinner about an hour later, watched some TV and I logged my caches and worked on my blog that I was severely behind on.  We snuggled with kitty and cleaned up the kitchen.  Three day weekends go by as fast as normal weekends.

Next Adventure:  Ben's Birthday Weekend

An Afternoon of Geocaching in Olympia and Tumwater

At one point I had all the caches at LBA park cleaned out.  Slowly over the years I saw people publishing them.  Eh, maybe I will go get a few of them?  Then I forget about it, I don't go and then more get added to the park.  I was actually kind of happy I didn't go and just waited because there were now six caches in the park.  It's been about seven years since I grabbed a cache in this park.   The last one was with Bob, Bev and Mike in 2013.

That morning Ben and I slept in way too late.  We ate breakfast and I asked Ben if he wanted to go to LBA park to go grab a few of the caches.  He said sure but it was really hard to get him motivated to go.  It was a nice day after all.  We asked Josh if he and Heather wanted to go with us but Heather didn't get off work until later on that afternoon so they would join us at the historical park in Tumwater.

We jumped into the Escape and headed to LBA Park and got there around 1.  The parking lot was pretty empty but there were a few people walking their dogs or running the trails.  We decided to find the ones in the park before we start walking the trails for the others.  We grabbed LBA Park (GC8JXQ5) which was at the sign.  It took us a few minutes to find it after climbing all over the sign.  We eventually spotted it, got our names on it and put it back.

We walked to the other entrance to the park to get Summer Fun #6:  A Picnic in the Park (GC79KVV) which took us a while to find because the coords were off and the hint was misleading.  We felt dumb that we didn't find it right away.  I started to look at the obvious spots and didn't find it.  Then we moved on to the less obvious spots and finally found it.  We also had to be careful because there were a bunch of muggles around probably wondering what we were doing.  It was a nano and we sat at the picnic table and logged our names.  We made sure no one was looking when we put it back.

We walked back across the field and made our way to the corner of the fence and entered the trail systems of the park.  I looked at my phone and decided the best way to go to get a bunch without that much walking and back tracking.  We chose to get Boing Boing (GC8K3C6) first.  We were not expecting to see a container like this but surprise!

We walked down the main trail and found a secondary trail that would take us to Happy Trails (GC8FW0G).  We followed the trail and could hear children wandering around close by with their mom.  I told Ben we needed to find it quickly just in case they decided to take this trail and wondered what we were doing.  We found the Altoids tin hidden in the tree.  I had Ben sign it and put it back where we found it.

The next one, Fright Night (GC85PVQ) took us to the loop on the eastern part of the park.  We decided to get this cache first and then finish with the one on the north end of this trail loop.  We were running out of time since Josh got back to us telling us to meet them at the park in Tumwater around 3.  We walked past two other ladies walking the trail.  Other than that, we didn't really see anyone else the rest of the time we were out here.  We found the cache, took the travel bug to move it on its journey and headed on to the last one we had planned on getting in the park. 

I had seen this one, Cache Register (GC8K3CA) publish a few days ago and was excited to go get it.  I knew we were looking for a toy cash register.  Both Ben and I had this exact same one as a kid.  We signed the log, took pictures and even a video talking about how this cache makes us feel nostalgic. I'm pretty sure we still have this toy in our family and its over at my grandparents house somewhere.  As of today, I have not come across it yet.

We walked back to the Escape and drove to Tumwater Historical Park to meet up with Josh and Heather.  I had found Watching the River Flow (GC8A3GV) last summer but they hadn't found it yet so we spent a few minutes letting them find it and sign the log.  Heather had brought a handful of unactivated trackables and asked us if we wanted them, she added that she would never use them and she wanted to give them to someone who wanted them.  I told her we would take them and put them out into the wild.

I then explained that there is another cache in this park, Brought to You From Brazil (GC7212K) that won't show up on their phones because it was a puzzle that I had solved last year.  In fact, I solved all of the Brought to You Froms that Ohjoy had put out from her various trips over the years.  I had them follow me to the north side of the park near the Sound.  We walked past some kids who were dinking around near the cache zone.  We found the container and saw that the container was indeed in Portuguese.  We signed our names, got a photo and put it back where I found it.

They wanted to go to the other one I found about a month ago off of Deschutes Parkway at the Capitol Lake Interpretation Park.  I was going to have fun watching them find A Capitol View (GC82QN5) off of the dock.  It was a tricky one.  We took the short drive, parked near the cache site and watched them look all over the place before I gave them a hint.  It was hilarious.  They found it after looking for about five minutes.  I wanted to go to Marathon Park (GC7CHB9) to do the multi and Josh and Heather said they did that one already but didn't have Percival Bridge (GC2WCVC).  We drove over and parked in the lot.

There were quite a few people here this afternoon jogging and walking their dogs.  We were only going to be there a short time because it was slowly getting dark.  Josh and Heather walked over to do the bridge one while Ben and I did the park multi.  This one was straight forward thankfully.  Most multis I have done either have a piece missing or is misinterpreted.  So I don't do very many of these too often unless they are straight forward.  We found out, off of the sign, that the very first Olympic trials for woman's running was held in Olympia in 1978.  It was pretty cool.  We got the necessary information, plugged them into the phone and found the final.

Josh and Heather were still over by the bridge and Ben didn't have it yet so he went and found that one as well.  We walked back to the parking lot, thanked them for coming out with us and then we all went home for the evening.  At home, I made fajitas for dinner while we watched some TV and then I headed to Mom and Dad's house to drop off money and pick up some Valentine's Day cookies to bring to work this next work week.  I came back home and we did some chores before bed.

Next Adventure:  President's Day Geocaching

More Geocaching in Hawks Prairie and Palindrome Day (Super Bowl LIV)

February 1, 2020

I've had some of these caches solved for a while so I asked Ben if he wanted to go out for a bit and grab some caches in the area.  He said sure.  Some of these puzzles I've had solved in a notebook from 2012 and never went and got them.  We slept in and then had some breakfast.  My cat Calvin is adorable.

Grandma and Mom were at their retreat and I told Grandma I would get her mail and feed her cat while she was gone.  I drove into Rainier quickly, did what I was asked to do and headed back into town to get Ben and go grab some caches since it wasn't raining.

Our first one, A Few of Her Favorite Things:  Beadwork (GCPRRZ), I knew the general area it was located in before I even solved the puzzle.  I knew it was going to be over by Shipwreck Beads in Hawks Prairie but where exactly.  I solved the coords sometime back in 2011 or 2012 and just never went and got it.  I finally got a little bit organized this past winter and went through all of my pieces of paper and notebooks and was going to make an effort to go get the puzzles I solved but haven't gotten before they disappeared.  Sadly, some did before I could get them.

We drive into Hawks Prairie and I follow the coords to the parking lot of the Shipwreck Beads building.  I can't remember the last time I was in this area but it was probably with Grandma when we actually went into Shipwreck Beads.  The area has changed a lot over the years.  Lots of new buildings and less trees.  We find a small trail that follows the retention pond over near a grouping of trees.  We were looking for a camo peanut butter jar hanging from a tree. Bam!  There it was.  We signed the log and walked back to the Escape. 

Our next two took us to Meridian Park just off of Willamette Drive.  The last time I found a cache here was probably 2011 when I was pretty new at this geocaching game.  Wow, that was so long ago now.  Where does the time go?  Anyway, we parked in the lot and made our way to Zodiac Series:  Virgo (GC8C8E8) which was right off of one of the social trails inside a stump.  It took us a few minutes to find the right stump but we grabbed it, threw our names on in, got a picture and put it back without any of the kids seeing what we were doing.  Nobody likes muggle kids.

The next one, Where Oh Where Has My Painter Gone? (GC10Q6K) was also near-ish to the park.  This was another cache I solved many years ago and am now just going and getting it.  I think we went in the hard way but it was okay, we had no where else to be.  However, we were soon going to be fighting the darkness.  We find the path described on the cache page so we knew we were in the right direction.  As we got closer we looked for the rock the hint told us to find.  It took us a few minutes to locate the rock and once we did we had the cache in hand.  While we were looking for it, I told Ben about the cache (it was created by Lars's wife) and how I met Lars while geocaching.  It was so much fun going after FTF's with him.  Sadly, we lost him in 2018 from stomach cancer.

We followed the trail into an open area to grab one more for the evening before the dark consumed us.  Where the Wild Things Are (GC5PHVJ) was a quick easy one near a stump.  We signed our names, took a picture and put it back for the next cacher.  We followed the trail to the road and walked down the road back to the parking lot to head home.

We ate dinner, logged our caches, I worked on my blog and we watched some movies.

February 2, 2020

The next day I had to get a cache for Palindrome Day so Ben and I headed back out to Meridian Park and grabbed the other one in the open area near the one we found last yesterday.  We knew it was going to be an easy grab so we saved it to get our souvenir. 

Lost Adventures (GC8AWH3) was just off the road so it didn't take long to find it.  We did have to wait a few minutes while a guy walking his dog strolled by.  We got our names on it, got our photo and put it back.  

We headed home, made nachos and watched Super Bowl LIV.  Chiefs beat the 49ers 31-20.

Next Adventure:  An Afternoon of Geocaching in Olympia and Tumwater