I took this week off originally because I was suppose to be in Peru on a tour but because of God Damn Covid I had to stay home during my week off. There was no way I would be able to go to work and stay focused because I would have been mad and disappointed the entire time.
I was very lucky this week because it was sunny and dry every day which is unusual for this time of year in the Pacific Northwest. Most of the spring time it is raining and windy. I figured this would be the perfect week to go fix a bunch of my caches. I had gone out with mom two weeks ago to fix my 507 series so why not the rest of them since I had the time right?
Sometime last year I spray painted a bunch of containers that I had been collecting for a while. I had them sitting in a tote ready to go when I found the time to do it. I went through some of the sizes I would need to replace my power trail on Waldrick Road. I crammed them all into my small red back pack, threw some zipties, different sizes of plastic baggies, a couple of pens, scissors, my mini notebook for notes, water, snacks and a couple of pathtags just in case I wanted to leave one or two behind.
March 16
On Monday, I got up, had some breakfast and met with mom (who had this day off) and we went to the store to grab some stuff before the stores were out of it. The Covid pandemic has caused people to freak out and horde stuff because they had control over that and not what was going on around them. It caused a toilet paper pandemic and it was so stupid watching people self destruct at the grocery store. A lot of the cleaning products were gone as well as some other items like rice, noodles and eggs. It was weird watching this pandemic get to everyone. I shopped like normal but was really annoyed when there was a product that we use a lot in our everyday routine missing from the shelves. It caused Mom and I to search elsewhere. Sometimes we had to go to three or four stores when we went shopping during that time. I bought a turkey and decided we were going to have it on Friday for a Covid Thanksgiving.
I came home and decided since it was a beautiful day to grab my bike, throw it in the back of the Escape and head to Waldrick Road. I chose to park at the trailhead lot near Waldrick and Steadman and do maintenance on #25-#15 of my Asphalt Adventures cache series.
I stopped at every single one of them to make sure it was still there, wasn't broken, had a logbook and a baggie inside. There were a few of them I couldn't find or were hard to find (it's amazing how far they migrate over the years) so I spent a while at some of them. I changed some of the containers but not all of them were damaged or missing. I changed out all the logbooks because you know, we live in Western Washington and it rains here most of the year and replaced all the baggies. I also made new caches for Asphalt Adventures #18 and #25. For some reason those ones disappeared a while ago and I didn't understand why.
I had a nano tucked in the bark of the tree for Asphalt Adventures #25 and could not understand why that one would disappear. I had to make a new cache for this one and republish it. I stopped putting nanos out because they seemed to disappear easily even though those are the hardest to find. Instead, I made this one really easy. It was going to be a micro behind the tree with some stuff over it to keep muggles from seeing it. I wrote down the coords, made some notes in my mini notebook and continued on down the trail.
There were a lot of people on the trail because of social distancing and Covid. I've been on this trail a lot over the years and have never seen this many people on a weekday let alone on the weekends. It was an unusual time and I was already ready for it to go away as quick as it showed up.
Asphalt Adventures #18 was pretty unique. When I placed it back in 2012, the coordinates were fine and the reviewer published it. I tried putting a new one in its spot with the same coords and they wouldn't publish it because it was too close to a puzzle cache that has been here since 2009 so why did they publish my cache in the first place if this one interfered? Whatever. I found a new place for it and there was just enough room between the other caches for it to work. I wrote down the coords, the hint and other stuff into my tiny notebook. I moved onto the others until I got to the end of my goal for today. Asphalt Adventures #15 was just before the trail crossed over Waldrick Road. I turned around and rode my bike back to the Escape. I rode by bike roughly around 8.5 miles.
On the way home I stopped by the Lowe's parking lot to grab Eeny Meeny Miny Moe (GC8JW5X) and I parked like 10 feet away from it and was disappointed that I had to find a micro cache in these bushes. I had digging through bushes to find a cache. Then mom called me to tell me that she didn't get the rest of this week off because they want her to come in. She was disappointed because she really wanted a week off after not going on our trip we were looking forward to. This March just sucks! I found the cache, signed my name and went home. It was almost time for Ben to come home and I had to make some dinner.
March 17
Tuesday, I got up, ate some breakfast, got ready to go, grabbed my caching stuff, threw my bike in the back of the Escape and headed out to complete the rest of my maintenance. This time I parked at the trailhead of Military Road and where the trail crosses over. There was plenty of spots so I backed in nearest to the gate. I pulled out the bike and decided to head towards Rainier first and then work my way back. It didn't take me long to get to my first spot.
I started at We Don't Do That Here (GC4ZT8D) just to check up on it. A lot of people have been finding it but then there are the ones who don't and that makes me wonder if it was missing or not. It was in its spot and it gave it a little TLC and found a different rock to set over the top of it. A biker rode by and asked if I was okay because he saw my bike laying on its side. I told him I was good and he peddled on.
There was a gap I needed to fill with a new cache. I figured out some coords, scribbled down the information in my mini notebook and named it Rainier Trail Cache II (GC8MYQR).
Then I started in on my Asphalt Adventure caches and I knew this was going to be a daunting task because so many had issues. Whether it was a missing container, a wet logbook, a missing baggie, etc., I still had to search for them and make the fix. There were a few I absolutely could not find. Either they walked away or someone put them back in the wrong spot. I started at Asphalt Adventures #1 and ended with Asphalt Adventures #14. I ended up riding another 8ish miles and fixed 16 caches. I rode back to the Escape, threw my bike back in there and decided to go fix Near the Trail (GC3MB1G) just before the S-curve towards Tenino. I gave it a new container, log and a new baggie.
On the way back home I noticed I had a cache to look for near McIntosh Lake. I stopped at the boat launch and made an attempt for McIntosh Lake CITO Bonus (GC89R6X). There were a few people out on the lake fishing so it made it easy to look for. The coords kept taking me to a tree and I remember Bev saying something about a cement structure. I was striking out so bad so I texted her pictures and she said it was hidden in one of the parking curb cement structures. I checked all the holes twice and found nothing. She said it was probably gone then. Ugh, a DNF. I would have to come back later to look for it.
I got back into town and mom asked me to go to the store to pick up a few things for Grandma and Grandpa since we didn't want them to go out in the midst of Covid. While I was at the store, I grabbed some stuff to change the oil in the Escape since it needed it. We made dinner when Ben got home, I logged the maintenance on the caches and relaxed the rest of the night.
March 18
Ben took the day off from work and since it was a really nice day again, we decided to find the rest of the caches at LBA Park...essentially blacking out a park. We ate breakfast and then got ready to go. We drove out to LBA, parked in the same lot and decided which cache to go get first. I knew I would be looking for a cache again that I found years ago. I remember having trouble finding it.
We walked through the fence and onto the trail system. I had the phone set to find Johnny's Scented Smedium (GC74ZDH) so we walked down that trail towards the cache. It took us to a wide open hilly area and when we got there we knew which tree it was hiding next to. I had Ben grab it. It was an old Johnny's Seasoning Salt container which they had taped camo duct tape on its lid. Ben quickly jotted down our names and we put it back where we found it.
We moved to the next one, Zodiac Series: Scorpio (GC8EH2B) which took us a while to find because it wasn't hidden in the correct spot. We were almost ready to call it quits when I started looking in not so obvious spots on the wrong side of the trail. I actually spotted the container shoved in-between two trees on the opposite side of the trail away from the coords. I messaged Harvey's Pack on the phone to ask where it goes because we found it not where it was suppose to be. She explained where it needed to go so we followed instructions. Before we could hide it back, a mom and her kid saw us and wondered what we were doing. I explained geocaching to them and they said it sounded like a lot of fun they should start doing it too. We wished them a good rest of their day and they hiked on. We hid the cache back after we signed our names. Off to the next one!
Like I mentioned before, I solved the Brought To You series by Ohjoy a few months ago and saw where they all were. They were pretty much scattered in Thurston and West Pierce county. Brought To You From Colombia (GC80TYB) was in the western part of this park. We took the appropriate trail and made sure not to step in any of the various puddles on our way there.
We found the area described in on the cache page and made the grab. It was a small glass jar from Colombia inside a plastic peanut butter jar. We signed our names, put it back and hiked on to the next one.
The Woods II (GC2C3Y3) was a 10 year old cache, hidden in the southwestern part of the park. I have no idea why we never went and found this one sooner than we did. I saw the beat up half a tree that had been pocked by woodpeckers. I told Ben it's gotta be over there by the "tree." We walked over there and there was the ammo can. We signed our name and put it back before the hikers got closer to us. We could hear them talking nearby.
The last cache we walked to was 3 Months...One Week or 94 Days (GC2P0DY) and I remember back in July 2011 having a hard time finding it. So I was telling Ben about it and tryin to remember where it was. The coords jumped around all over the place so I tried reading the hint and instructions to find the cache. We eventually found the stump it was in and Ben made the find. Yay! I never have to come to this cache again. We walked back to the parking lot and drove back towards home. We walked about 2.5 miles.
We drove to Lowes to find a new shower head because ours was leaking and the shower wasn't able to dry out properly. Our shower curtain and plastic lining was molding. We found one we liked and took it home with us. We ate sandwiches for lunch.
After lunch, I moved some stuff around in the garage for a bit and came across a bunch of containers that haven't been spray painted yet. I took the table out, put newspaper over the top of it and spent some time spray painting them. The next time I do maintenance I will have a lot more containers to choose from.
The rest of the day was spent in the garage and then I washed the Escape. I came in and we made dinner and chilled out the rest of the evening since all of our sports were canceled due to God Damn Covid.
March 19
I knew I had to go out to Eatonville eventually to fix my caches. Since everyone was at work and I wasn't so I asked Grandma if she wanted to go for a ride to Eatonville to check up on my caches and she said sure.
I got all my stuff ready, ate some food and drove over to Grandma's house to pick her up. To keep up with the theme of the week, I stopped by BobBevLacie's 50th Wedding Anniversary (GC4F2FP) just to make sure it was still there and if anything needed to be changed out of it. I added a new baggie since the rest of it was still okay.
We drove out to Eatonville via McKenna and Hwy 702. It didn't take us long because it was a weekday in the middle of the day so not as much traffic out and about. I went to Rainier100 3: Ohop Pioneers (GC6KEW0) because people were having trouble finding it or it was soaked. I found it right away, wiped it out, added a new log and baggie and called it good. We moved onto the next one in the Pack Forest.
I tried to remember where we parked last time we were here when we placed Rainier100 2: Pack Forest (GC63GN3). I eventually remembered, parked and we walked to the trail head. From there I just remembered which turns we made. The phone got us to where we needed to be and I checked up on it. The cache was doing well but the spire I hid it next to wasn't. I may have to find a new spot for this one eventually but until then it stays. We walked back to the Escape and drove into the town of Eatonville.
There, I fixed Rainier100 4: Eaton of the Ville while Grandma sat in the Escape. I ended up changing out the log and adding a new baggie to the cache. Water had gotten in it and molded the previous log. Grandma had mentioned that she needed to use the restroom but now with God Damn Covid, most public restrooms were closed until further notice so that was a bummer if you were out and about. I kept that in mind and we tried to find a store in town that would let us go in. Nope, Covid. I was so frustrated with this whole crap. I told her that I needed to go grab one while we were here and she said it was okay.
Gnome Home (GC7MN48) was off of the Bud Blancher Trail next to Smallwood Park and the Mill Pond. I ran up the small hill and grabbed the cache and came back down to the park to see the Mashel River before we headed back to Rainier.
I thanked Grandma for coming with me and dropped her off at her house. She said it was nice to get out of the house for a while. I told her there might be many more times in the future to get out of the house for a while if this Covid crap gets out of control. I saw it getting there.
I went home and made my updates to my caches. I worked on my blog, made dinner and relaxed the rest of the evening.
March 20
We have reached Friday. That meant my week off was coming to an end and it depressed me a lot. I had to go back to work without going on my trip I so looked forward to. I went grocery shopping again because I needed to get some stuff I didn't get the other day for a Covid Thanksgiving. I came back and prepared the turkey.
While the turkey was cooking, I mowed the front and the back lawn, weeded the flower beds, planted the lavender that I got from Grandma's house and played a little bit of hoops in the driveway. It was such a nice day and I felt like I had to get some stuff done while it was nice.
I invited everyone over but Doug and Jenn decided to stay home so it was just me, Ben, Erika, Zach, Mom and Dad. The food was delicious and I think this was the first time I had ever had a turkey or a Thanksgiving meal for that matter during the spring time.
My week off was nice. I enjoyed not thinking about work however, it really was really disappointing not being able to go on my trip I paid for. I really felt like this Covid crap could have been avoided but "higher ups" wanted it to be worse than it was. For some reason I knew I was going to have to be really patient until the next time I could travel. This was seriously going to set me back on my plans for the next few years. These experiences we can't get back. We can't get this time back and it was killing me. I was so angry about it and I think I will be for a while.
I literally can not wait until this goes away and I can travel and have experiences again.
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