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