Ben and I haven't had any adventures away from home since the TriCities Geocoin Challenge in June 2019, which was terrible to think about. Has it really been that long? We looked back at our calendars and such and yes, that was the last time we took a trip together away from home. That is insane! A few weeks ago Ben had suggested that we go somewhere now that some of the Covid restrictions have been lifted.
Because it was winter, there was a long weekend coming up and we both haven't been snowboarding since the last time we went together, which was 2016--ouch, five years ago!? So we threw around some ideas on where to go. He suggested that we drive down to Mount Hood since we've never been there before. However, the weather didn't seem to be favorable and the hotels were so stinking expensive. Then we looked into going to Wenatchee to the smaller ski area called Mission Ridge. Ben asked if I've ever heard of the place and I told him that I had heard of it. During my first Cache Machine, back in 2012, which was located in Wenatchee, and I remember seeing many signs for Mission Ridge.
We spent the week gathering up all of our winter gear that we had scattered all around the house. We did laundry and tried to get everything ready the night before so we could pack in in Ben's Edge and head out. I also made an elaborate instruction "manual" on how to take care of our kittens for Erika to follow while we were going. I labeled everything with sticky notes, set everything out and even hung poop bags on back of the cat room door so she didn't have to go searching for them. I felt bad that we had to keep them inside the room the entire time we were gone because we just didn't quite trust them to be in the whole house just yet. We ran the dishwasher and took out the garbage so we came home to a clean house.
We got up around 8:30-9:00, washed my face and got dressed for the day. Ben shaved because his face was scary. He got dressed and got the rest of his stuff ready to go. We got all of our stuff piled up in the living room, fed the kitties their breakfast, finished getting the cats ready for the weekend (moving their cat tree into the cat room, etc.) and started to pack everything in the Edge as organized as secure as we could. We told Wade and Oliver to guard the house and that we would be back on Sunday. We left around 10:15.
We stopped and got gas at the Martin Way Safeway, since we didn't eat breakfast, I bought some maple bars, chocolate milk and some chips for later and then met Ben outside once he was done pumping gas. We headed out towards Tacoma so Ben could meet up with a guy he found on Offer Up. We got to the area pretty early so we drove to Wapato Park and tried to find a cache near the dog park. We had no luck finding Harley & Indie (GC4QRGM) while I talked to Dad on the phone the entire time...he wanted to talk about the stuff happening at Grammie and Grandpa's house.
We met the guy at the gas station just up the road and I stayed in the car while Ben made the trade. It was an entertainment device that they talked about and he gave it to Ben for free. We made our way back to I-5 north to Hwy 18 east. We followed the highway to I-90 interchange by Snoqualmie/North Bend. I remember telling Ben about the interesting stuff I've learned about serial killer Ted Bundy and the bodies they found out by the Tiger Summit area. I told him that they sprinkled his ashes somewhere in the Cascades nearby where we were in an undisclosed location.
As we merged onto I-90, we noticed a gray van on the shoulder and a semi fat kid looking like he was taking a pee so Ben honked his horn when we went by and startled the kid...we shared a laugh. Ben was getting hungry, the maple bar didn't hold him over very well, so I suggested that we stop in North Bend but he decline and told me that he could wait until Cle Elum so we started up the pass.
About three miles from the summit is where you started seeing snow on the side of the road. The other day, I read an article on Facebook that stated this winter was the most snowfall the Cascades had seen in 10 years. We will definitely need it this summer since our past few summers have been the worst wildfire and smoke season since I could remember. We made it past the mountain pass pretty quickly and saw the wildlife bridge just before Eason and we made some comments about it.
I looked at the caching app and decided to make a short detour before we got to Cle Elum. I've always wanted to stop in Rosyln and explore and cross another one off of my Towns and Cities Challenge. This town was made famous by the TV show, Northern Exposure. I've never seen the show but I heard it was very popular while it was on. We pulled off of I-90 and grabbed our first one of the day, Roslyn is the Other Way (GC5NVH3). Ben pulled over and I got out. The coords went wonky for a few minutes and then I walked over to the tree and found the container hidden underneath some bark. There were a few patches of snow on the ground as well.
I hopped back into the Edge and across the freeway we went towards Rosyln. I wasn't really sure what to expect. I knew it was a small town, a show was filmed here and there were a few geocaches. I just wanted to see it for myself and to get a picture of the mural. We drive through town, made a left at the main intersection in town and found a place to park. We found Roslyn Cafe: An Oasis (GC2FP2W) hidden next to the building. I feel the cache owner missed an opportunity when they hid this one.
We walked across the street and took a picture of us with the famous mural. We walked back to the Edge and left town following a back road towards Cle Elum.
Along the way we noticed we were driving near Suncadia, a place I've heard of but never been. I see posts all the time from people I know who has stayed here. I've always wondered where it actually was in regards to Cle Elum. I also noticed there was a cache nearby so I had Ben stop. I got out and found Progress Path (GC8DMP9) and I noticed a name on it I recognized, Papa Ski. I remember when he and his family were enjoying a weekend at Suncadia. I walked back to the Edge and we headed into town.
We stopped at a small park to find Log It (GC6KW5Z) and then Double Welcome (GC8GMRN) which was right before you drove down the hill into down town Cle Elum.
We called the Cottage Café to find out what their Covid rules were and they said we could order it to go and pay and pick it up inside. We drove through town talking about the last time we came through here which was a while ago. We arrived at the restaurant, went inside, ordered, used the restroom and both Ben and I paid for it. I had a bunch of cash on me from watching Alicia's dogs back at Christmas time. A few minutes later, we had our food. I ordered a burger and fries and Ben ordered the club sandwich with fries. There were a lot of fries. We ate it outside at the picnic table since it was dry but it was chilly when the wind blew. We drank the drinks we bought at the store earlier that day. We hung out, ate our food and talked about random things.
We threw our garbage away and got back on the road, continuing down SR 910 at the SR 10 junction, we stopped once again for a cache, this time it was a multi cache called SR10 - A Rest Stop No More (GC8EG9A). This was my third time grabbing a cache here over the years. I got out, got the numbers off the sign, plugged them into the equation and then put them in the coord checker. BAM! We did it right, added the waypoint and the cache was literally 50 feet from the posted coords.
We linked up with US 97 and drove up Blewett Pass (we were slowed down by having to follow a semi truck for about 10 miles) and there was a bunch of snow on the side of the road. It took us roughly 40 minutes to get up and over the pass to our Hwy 2 junction to either Leavenworth or Wenatchee. We made our way to Leavenworth. We got into town and loved how it wasn't busy. The last time I came here was December 2018 with Erika, Mom, Trish and Grandma to see the tree lighting and the place was so busy you could hardly walk around without bumping into people's shoulders. Before we found our hotel, Ben wanted to drive me down Icicle Road to show me The Sleeping Lady, apparently he's stayed here before many years ago and would like to again someday. We drove back into town, parked at the gas station and attempted to find Welcome to Der Place (GC47TG7) which we couldn't get to because of the snow, it was too high...lame.
We went to our hotel, The Enzian Inn and checked into our room. We parked closer to where our room was and brought in our stuff to room 133. The room was so nice!! It smelled good, the bed was comfy, the bathroom was amazing and it was so totally worth it. We got settled in for a bit and then decided to walk into town for a few hours. We went into a few shops and got a couple of things including penguin dice so we could play some dice games in our room later on this evening. We also tried finding Blackbird Boulevard (GC76WM1) which was behind the buildings down by the river. Ben and I walked down there but couldn't find it because it was indeed missing.
We walked back up and decided to eat a pretzel with cheese and drink a beer from a place called Stein. We both had a pint of Kickstand Pale Ale made by the Icicle Brewing Company, a local brewery in town. Because of the Covid rules, we drank and ate outside at a picnic table in the freezing cold weather. We were bundled up pretty good so we didn't mind. It was part of the experience. We talked about various things including eventually getting some sort of van or old ambulance and remodeling it and driving it around the country while we worked from home. It's only a dream so we will see if it actually happens.
We decided it was probably time to walk back to the hotel, because it was getting late and colder, but first we were going to pick up two caches along the way. We grabbed Washington Native Plants A-Z: C is for Cottonwood (GC77NZ7) and that one took us a while to find because it was dark and hidden near a very large snow bank which was made when the plows pushed the snow away from the park and ride lot. I was glad we managed to find it!
The last one, Cap, Seek 'Um (GC7E46C) was just up the trail from the park in the middle of town. Since there was snow everywhere, it made it really hard to walk around in some places because it was deep. The ice also made it hard because you didn't want to slip and fall awkwardly in the dark. We found the cache zone but had to wait for this car to leave because it was parked right where we needed to look. They eventually left and we started looking near the rocks and Ben made the find. It was a green plastic bell pepper with a log book and trinkets inside. We signed it, put it back and walked down the trail back to the main sidewalk to our hotel.
We got settled in once again, got cleaned up, dressed in our comfy clothes and got set up to play Yahtzee (I had bought dice from one of the stores but didn't buy enough for 10,000 so we played Yahtzee instead) and I destroyed Ben in all three games. I got a total of five Yahtzees and have never done that before in my whole life. I was super jazzed about it. We ate snacks and watched Sportscenter in the background. We got ready for bed and didn't go to bed until about 2 a.m.
It was nice to get away from work for a while and to finally go somewhere after being stuck at home all year long. It's just too bad it goes by way too fast.
Next Adventure: A Mini Winter Vacation: Mission Ridge Snowboarding
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