Mom and I have been trying to go on a hike for several weeks but something ends up happening that we have to take care of or the weather was subpar and we didn't feel like being cold or soaked. She called and asked what I was doing this weekend and I said not much. God Damn Covid has pretty much taken away all the things I've had planned for the summer so far. It was frustrating.
She asked if I wanted to go do the Mima Falls Trail and I said sure let's plan on doing that. Then I asked her if we wanted to see if Doug and Erika wanted to go and she said sure, ask them. I called Doug and he couldn't because he was invited to go golfing with his co-workers and then I called Erika to see if she and Zach wanted to go and she said that would be fun and then assumed Dad would like to go if he wasn't busy. We decided on a time after Mom and Dad were done feeding Grandpa lunch the next day.
Saturday came and I texted Erika that we were going to be on our way soon and she said that she and Zach couldn't go now because he didn't tell her that he had secured plans with his brother Shane. They were going to meet Shane at Tolmie State Park and then have a video chat with their family. Probably stuff about the upcoming wedding for Shane and Linda. Dad couldn't go either because he had to take Grandpa to the bank. Ben decided to do a 24-hour shift that day and went in a noonish. The day basically deteriorated in about a half hour.
I called Mom and suggested we got on another hike. She sounded irritated but agreed into doing something else near home that wasn't a long hike since it was getting late now. I suggested Deschutes Falls Park or Sequalitchew Creek Trail in Dupont. We had recently been to Deschutes Falls so she said let's go to Dupont since we haven't been there in a while. She hasn't been there since 2011 when we did that CITO and I haven't been there since 2012 when I came to do some caching along the trail. We could see how much the trail has changed since we were there.
I headed out to Rainier to get rid of the recycle and then picked up Mom. We drove into Yelm and got onto Reservation Road and then Mounts to I-5 north. We merged onto I-5 and then immediately got off at Dupont. It didn't take us long to get here from Rainier and I was surprised since it was a nice day and there is usually traffic.
We followed the directions to the City Hall parking lot because I haven't been there in almost 10 years I had forgotten which road to take. When we got there, the lot was really busy and we almost couldn't find a parking spot. We managed to find one after a few minutes. We got out and I changed my shoes into my hiking shoes. We grabbed our packs with our water and other random supplies we might need inside, locked the Escape and headed to the trailhead towards the Puget Sound.
As we walked, we noticed that the plants are grown up now and there is a section of trail that is paved...we didn't remember a paved section of trail. That must have been added at some point spanning between our two visits.
We walked past many groups of people, some wearing masks and some not. There were a lot of people walking their dogs, hiking the energy out of their kids and some people jogging. It didn't take us very long to get down to the bottom where the train tracks separate the trail from the beach. We took some pictures of the graffiti on the trestle because some of it was pretty cool.
We got to the beach and there were lots of people on the beach. I've been down here a few times over the years to grab caches and have never seen this trail or beach so crowded. Yay Covid!
There were two new caches down at the beach area, one called Riding the Rails vs. 3 (GC6JF33) and one I had to come back again sometime for because you can only get it at low tide. It wasn't low tide unfortunately. I looked for the cache while Mom took photos. It was easy to find since I've been here two other times for the previous caches that used to be here.
We walked along the beach taking picture and enjoying the scenery. At one point Mom needed to pee so I told her to go hide behind some of the logs and go pee.
Afterwards, we continued along the shoreline a couple hundred more feet until we decided it was probably time to start heading back. We walked back up the beach and took a few more pictures of the tiny crabs running around the rocky beach.
Then we walked back through the graffiti covered tunnel under the tracks and then admired the small tidal marsh just on the other side of the train tracks.
The Sequalitchew Creek flows into the Puget Sound at this spot. Then you walk maybe 200 feet up the trail and it's so green!
I wanted to grab the other cache by the bridge over the small creek. That fork in the trail takes you on a switchback trail up to where the golf course is. I checked my phone app to see where exactly Take a Walk I - Kids Love to Play (GC5TPDG) was. I knew it was going to be underneath the small wooden bridge but which corner. It took me a few seconds to find the ammo box but I found it! I had to hurry and sign it because there were people coming and I really didn't want to explain geocaching to them. I put it back and we walked up the trail back to the parking lot and the Escape.
We did make one more stop along the way. I wanted to grab the puzzle cache, Fourth of July Celebrations (GC75BGW) that has been on my list to grab in Dupont for a while. We had to wander down a few unmarked trails to find a plaque that we had to get information off of it to find the final container. Apparently, this spot in Dupont was the first 4th of July celebration west of the Mississippi River back in 1841. I told Mom once we solved it we were going to have to backtrack. Sure enough, it was back about a quarter of a mile where the plaque was. We walked to it and I found the colorful container hiding in a stump on the tree line of the open area. I signed our names and put it back. We hiked back to the Escape.
We got back to the parking lot at City Hall and I took my shoes off and put my flip flops back on. I wanted to get two more caches in town so I could end the day with 11,700 caches. We picked up Bob's Hollow Cache (GC8GTRP) and It's Even Got A Log Sheet (GC8THJ7) which were both on the way back to I-5 and both were really easy to find.
We drove into Yelm and decided to go to the Goodwill and the Dollar Store. I found a few books at the Goodwill while we were browsing. I dropped the stuff off in the Escape before going into the Dollar Store. There, I found a few things and Mom needed some baby shower bags and cards. When we came out of the Dollar Store, we saw an ambulance, four cop cars and a fire truck in the parking lot. I said to Mom, wouldn't it be funny if someone got hit by a car in the parking lot? I was totally joking because it was pretty unlikely. We were boxed in and couldn't leave until the person who parked in front of us moved because the ambulance was behind us. Mom saw that one of the EMT's was one of her gym buddies so we talked to her for about 10 minutes or so. She told us that someone actually did get hit by a car in the parking lot and she was fine. I guessed it right!
The person who was parked in front of us finally left so we got in and then took Mom home. I dropped some stuff off at Grandma's house and then I drove into Lacey and went home. I took a shower, ate some leftover pizza and worked on my blog as I watched some movies I haven't seen.
Next Adventure: Port Townsend and the Surrounding Areas
No comments:
Post a Comment