This weekend was suppose to be the warmest weekend this year yet and I wanted to go do something since it was nice, I wanted to get out and drive the Escape somewhere. A couple weeks ago some caches published in Onalaska. Mom and I went down there this past October and walked partially around the Carlisle Lake and wondered why there weren't any caches there. That changed about six months later.
I asked Mom and Dad if they wanted to go first since I know they've both been there before. Then I asked Bev if she was interested in going. She said she was but wasn't sure about Bob. I told her Bob can go if he wants to. As the day got closer, it was just going to be Mom, Bev and I. Bob wanted to stay home and work on his yard and Dad had to go help Doug with some defective outlets in his house. I told them when I would be in Rainier to pick them up.
I got up around 9:30 and got ready. Ben was on a 24 hour shift in Tenino so he left earlier that morning. I put the recycle in the Escape and headed into Rainier. On the way to Rainier, two more caches published and guess where they were? That's right. The exact place we were going! I was hoping we would get the FTF's but I wasn't going to hold my breath.
I dropped off the recycle in Rainier, topped off with gas (my Escape has a capless gas hole), picked up Mom and then picked up Bev. We headed west towards Tenino chatting about various things as we drove to I-5. Traffic was stupid in some places and I let everyone know that I was irritated with it. The sun comes out and a lot of dumb people start driving around. We got onto I-5 south and then got off at the Onalaska exit. We followed Hwy 508 on the short drive to Onaslaska.
We turned off at the fire station and drove into Carlisle Park. We parked the Escape, got out and noticed there weren't very many people here like we thought there would be...especially the fishermen. There were probably four other cars here and as far as we could tell, non of them were geocachers. There is still a chance at two FTF's!
We walked to the first one on the east side of the trail, we walked the lake counter clockwise. First one was one of the FTF's, Sneaky Pete and His Dog Diego (GC984BR). We walked to it and it took us slightly off the gravel pathway near some sticker bushes. I doubt the cache owner wanted us to walk in a patch of sticker bushes. We fanned out either way and looked at the most logical spot. I found the tree it was hoisted up in. There was some fake dog poop nearby as well. The string was pretty long so that took a while to unwind. I lowered it down and had Bev open it up and the logbook was empty!! FTF! Woooo! We put everything back and moved onto the next one, just up the trail.
Stonehenge in Onalaska? (GC984CK) was a surprise. Mom and I did not notice this are the last time we walked along here...but then again we weren't looking for it. We knew it was going to be a rough search because it was a 4.5 in difficulty. We walked up to it and started searching. You could see that some people had pulled some of the moss off of it. We tried not to. I thought it was going to be a loose rock that had a tip clued on to it poked into a void in the wall. I was right and we all over looked the cache. Bev called Frisbee'r to get a hint so we weren't there for a long time. We found it soon after. It was poked in there good. I had to pull hard to get it out. We took a couple photos and we were on our way to the next cache.
Whistlin Willy (GC98554) was at the opposite end of the lake where we parked the Escape...right when you turn the corner to be on the west side of the lake. We all guessed it would be at the lone tree but what were we exactly looking for? It was hidden pretty well and when we moved the branch to see, we all thought it was a real bird. Haha! I unclipped it from the branch and we got the logbook out of it. We all signed it and said that it's been a while since we found a fake bird cache.
The second FTF was the next cache, Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum (GC984BT) and we never saw any other cachers walk by let alone anyone so far, so another FTF was in our future! We followed the lake trail until we came upon a well used side trail. We followed it past a large tree and a sharp curve in the trail that lead up the hill. I saw some downed logs and stumps in the curve and a spot perfect for a cache. I found the lock n' lock with the fake bread glued to the top. The fake bread threw me off for a couple seconds. We opened it and found the blank logbook! We signed our names, got a photo and put it back.
We walked back to the main lake trail and looked the next one up on our phone app. Twin Peaks: Log Lady (GC9838J) was slightly off the trail. We had to walk up a dirt hill about 300 feet. Bev decided she was going to stay while Mom and I walked up because she is not an off road vehicle. Mom and I walked up the hill and found an area of trees that looked like the cache would be nearby. We checked every tree and every downed log. It was a fake log that had been carved out to hide a container. We signed our names and put it back where we found it. We walked back down and joined Bev. We told her what we found and where it was.
As we rounded the next part of the lake, before we got back to the parking lot, was another cache named Fairies ONLY...NO TRESSPASSING (GC984A4). This one was slightly off the trail as well and Bev stayed behind once again but we could see her while we were trying to pinpoint where the cache was. We walked in and it could have been anywhere. Mom and I both saw the ivy on the trees but thought nothing of it at first because there was ivy everywhere. After a few minutes we walked back to the place where we saw the ivy and it looked off. Mom told me it looked fake so we inspected it and yep, it was fake. So cleverly hidden. Hanging off of the ivy was a small ammo can.
The last one, Are You Up For Trolling? (GC984A1) was at the end of the trail near the small fish hatchery. There was a small bridge that was half covered in tree limbs that the city had cut down recently. At first we didn't see the small bridge but when we got closer we saw it underneath all the debris. I saw where the cache was hidden. Someone had made a ledge for it and you had to awkwardly grab it from the west side of the small bridge. Mom and Bev thought the cache container was pretty cool. We signed our name and put it back.
It was a nice stroll around the park and we got two FTF's! We got back in the Escape and headed back towards I-5. Bev was telling us about a multi cache her and Bob did a while back and they couldn't find the final. I told her we could stop real quick on the way through and look one more time. She said sure, we could look one more time with more eyes. We stopped at Stan Headwall Park and looked to see if it was there and we couldn't find it either, even with a hint from Frisbee'r. Bev was going to email the cache owner.
For lunch, we stopped at Harold's Burger Bar because it had opened back up since it's closure at the end of 2018. I remember Dad sending us a photo of it earlier this year when he first visited it with his friend Randy after a day at the gun range. We parked, walked up to the window and all ordered the same thing except I got a soda and they each had a shake, Mom a strawberry and Bev a chocolate one. We ate it at one of the empty picnic tables. The food was delicious!
We drove the back way through Bucoda, stopped in Tenino to say hi to Ben really quick and then drove to Bev's house to drop her off. We hung out with them for a while in their yard visiting. Then I took Mom home and asked Dad if he could take me over to Grammie and Grandpa's house so I could borrow the truck for a dump run the next day. I really didn't want to leave the Escape at my grandparent's house unattended. I found some flower pots and then headed to Grandma's house to pick up her garbage cans. I dropped off the ladder with Doug and then went home. I loaded my garbage cans into the back of the truck, ate popcorn, watched Chopped, took a shower, worked on my blog, logged the caches and got ready for bed.
Next Adventure: New BBQ
No comments:
Post a Comment