Memorial Day Weekend: Ellensburg to Yakima and Home

Ben and I set our alarms for 9 a.m.  Of course we laid there until about 9:30 because we are not morning people.  We did eventually get up, did our bathroom things, put on our clothes for the day, ate our cereal, bananas and chocolate doughnuts.  I put my bag on the bed and started packing up my stuff a little better than just cramming or piling clothes inside the bag.  I folded everything neatly so everything would fit.  The dirty clothes bag was just going to be put inside the Escape how it was.  Ben got his stuff all packed up including the bathroom stuff and the items we kept on the hotel table.  We made sure everything was unplugged and stored away.  

We took everything back out to the Escape and tetris'd it in the back as best as we could...making sure the cooler with our drinks was accessible.  Ben took the key cards through the hotel to check out at the front desk and I drove around front to meet him.  We got gas at the Chevron once again before we left.  I like having a full tank before we go anywhere.  While I pumped gas, Ben walked around the building and found the cache, Pit Stop (GC42Q59).  He said it was pretty easy but was very nervous because there were bees nearby.

Before we got onto I-90, we stopped at the trucker gas station/rest stop to get the one here.  Many years ago, there used to be another cache here that has since been archived.  I was not able to find that cache before heading to Yakima down Canyon Road.  I was hoping today we would find the newish one that was here. Broadway's Flyby Cache Cache N' Go (GC95MTE) was on the south side of the gas station/grocery store combo between the building and the first row of parked cars.  There was a picnic table, a green electric box and the random wires and electronics on the side of the building.  We have to be careful about muggles going in and out of their cars.  I stood there for a minute to decide where someone would hide a regular sized cache.  Ben was carefully looking and I had him come stand beside me.  I ask him, okay, where would a regular sized cache be?  What was out of place in this general area?  We noticed a black lid, one that would screw onto a PVC pipe, that was very out of place.  We open it up and there it was!  We sign our names quickly, get a photo and we put it back, hoping that we weren't seen.

We got onto I-90 and got off at the I-82 junction to head up the hill to Yakima.  I wanted to stop at the Manastash viewpoint on top of the hill to do the three caches up there.  We get up there and find a parking spot.  We choose to to do Kittitas View SB (GC7PR1Z) first.  We followed the coordinates to GZ and look for a few minutes.  We found out we were not in the correct rock pile so we walked to the one about fifteen feet from us and bam, there it was.  We signed our name and put it back where we found it.  We walked through the parking lot and noticed the great view of the valley and Mount Stewart in the distance.  We took a few pictures.

Inside one of the guard rails, was the second cache, View From the Top (GC46194) and of course guard rail caches are dumb but we also had to be somewhat sneaky with people coming in and out of this viewpoint area.  We did manage to grab it, sign it and put it back before anyone saw us.  We walked the short distance to the earthcache, Manastash Ridge Formation (GC98H75).  It had us analyze and estimate the different layers while answering the series of questions from the cache owner.  We wrote down a couple answers and some of them I could look up online.  We got a photo of the hillside so I could refer back to it later.  We walked back to the Escape and continued south on I-82.

About halfway there, I told Ben to text Willmarth to let him know we were on our way.  I decided since we stopped at the northbound Selah rest area on Friday night that we should stop at the southbound Selah rest area to use the restroom and get the cache that was here.  As we got closer to the rest area, I really needed to pee.  Ben said he was good.  I added, well while I am using the restroom you can go look for the cache, you know kill two birds with one stone.  He said, sure.  He went off and found Selah Creek Leg Stretcher (GC7FNAV).  He said some bees were also trying to make a nest at this location as well.

After finding the cache and using the restroom, we got back on the freeway and made our way down to Selah.  We heard back from Willmarth, he and Kevin were at basketball practice and had about an hour left.  He said he would be home a little after noon.  I told Ben we could find a few in town while we waited.  We looked at the map and found a few we could find.  We had to kill about an hour so we started at House in the Tree (GC4ZT4N) off of Pomona Road.  I was glad to see a place I could pull off the road.  We both got out and walked to this large tree.  I thought this was going to be an easy grab.  Haha, it wasn't because we both overlooked it.  We literally walked past it.  I could have hit us in the face!  We walked back to the Escape and off to the next cache!

We looked at the time and we had maybe enough time for a couple more.  I looked at the map and saw a couple caches just to the north of where we were.  I looked closer and it was a small trail in the Selah Cliffs Natural Area Preserve.  I ask Ben, you wanna go?  He said sure as he was nose deep into his Clash of Clans game.  We pulled into the parking area and there was one other vehicle here, most likely a family enjoying their day.  I told Ben there were three here but we probably weren't going to go get the third one which was at the end of this trail.  It was a mile away so a two mile walk there and back.  Ben said he didn't have the pizazz to do that much walking in this heat.  I agreed.  So we decided on just the two caches.

We get out and lock the Escape and stopped at the one near the entrance to the trail head.  That one was called Enraging Daisies (GC7BCT5) and I was not sure what to expect.  It was located at a sign that talked about the preserve.  We started looking and I noticed a bolt and nut combo that didn't make sense.  I started unscrewing it and low and behold it was the cache.  Ben thought it was a pretty clever hide.  We sign our names and kept in mind the family that belonged to the vehicle were walking back down the trail and were almost at the trail head.  We stood there looking at the sign pretending we were reading up on the place before putting the cache back.  Once they left, we put it back and got a couple pictures of it. 

 The last cache of the day were down this neatly graveled pathway.  It was a little less than a half a mile and we walked past many flowers, some cacti, saw birds, insects, heard running water but there wasn't water in the small creek at the base of the cliffs and we thought it was weird, enjoyed the cliffs for a couple of minutes and found Selah Cliffs NAP (GC97JQD) which was tucked in the corner of a wooden structure.  It was a quick find.  We were the only ones out here which was nice.

I got a text message back from Willmarth stating they were home now so whenever we were ready to come over they were excited to see us.  Back in April, I dropped my phone on the ground, screen down and the screen hit a rock.  Of course, I didn't have a screen protector on it and that was because none of them would stay on my phone.  I went through two of them.  They would come off.  The Samsung Galaxy 9+ had rounded edges and it screen protectors did not stay on so I tried really hard to keep my screen safe.  It stayed safe for almost three years.  Anyway, there was a blemish on the screen and it slowly got bigger over the course of a month and a half.  While on our trip, it was hard to get it off of its sleep mode every time I wanted to use it or I got a phone call.  It got worse as the day went on.  I really didn't want to buy a new phone.  They are so expensive nowadays.

We walked back to the Escape and put in Willmarth's address into Nuvi.  She took us the quickest way to his house.  We got there just before 1 p.m.  Because of Covid, we have not seen them in almost two years.  We got to their house and saw different vehicles in their driveway.  We parked and went inside.  We were attacked by guard dogs, Fletcher and Zooey.  We sat in the living room for a while and visited.  We talked about Covid and the long 2020 we all just had, the vaccinations and how our bodies reacted to it, work, school, Kevin's school year and his basketball team, frustrations, the stuff they've been doing, the stuff Ben and I have been doing and dealing with all the estate stuff when you have a family member who passes away or who is in a nursing home.

Ben spent some time with Kevin while I chatted with Willmarth as he was watering his vegetable garden.  Shannon spent time spiffing up the place and trying really hard to get Kevin to start studying for his finals and last week of his freshman year of high school.  We usually aren't here until the end of June when school isn't in session.  He and Shannon did go into the back room a few times to work on online flash cards.  I went back there to see what kinds of subjects he was studying.  The high school he attends is a private Catholic school in Union Gap.  Kevin had to take an assortment of religion classes and that is what he was studying for when I went into the room.  We went through some of those flash cards and I ended up learning something as we went through them.

Around 3, is when Willmarth started getting lunch ready.  We had burgers and hotdogs he cooked on the grill with beans, chips and potato salad as sides.  We ate in the living room and tried to guard our food from the dogs.  We chatted about other random things as we ate.    

It was approaching 5:00 and we, unfortunately, had to get on the road since it took us about 3 hours to get home.  We thanked them for having us over, they were happy to see us almost after two years, we gave out hugs and told everyone we hoped to see them soon.  I was talking to Shannon about kayaking and she and Kevin went last summer and loved it.  I told her that we have kayaks but we needed to get the hardware to transport them on my Escape.  I added, once that happened we could come over and we could go kayaking.  She said that would be awesome and that we would talk about it soon.

Ben and I got in the Escape and had the AC on full blast.  We waved goodbye and got back onto Wenas Road to head to Selah.  Once we got into Naches, I stopped by Slim's Market, the creepy grocery store on the right side of Hwy 12.  I've stopped here hundreds of times throughout the years.  I wanted some cold drinks.  I grabbed a Cherry Coke because it sounded good.  I thought Ben would want something but he passed.  

We got back on the highway and didn't stop until we got home.  There wasn't a lot of traffic heading west on the pass, which was nice, I'm sure I-90 was a total joke with all the people heading home after the holiday weekend.  We got home around 9ish, unloaded the Escape, got cleaned up, called Mom and Trish to let them know we got home safely and the kitties were so happy to see us.  

It was nice to get away for the weekend and explore an area we really weren't that familiar with.  I've been through the area tons of times while at school but never got a chance to stop and learn about the area.  In four days we found 227 caches, learned some history of Quincy and the surrounding area, went hiking, drove some historical roads, met up with a fellow cacher at a virtual cache, ate some good food even though the places we wanted to go were permanently closed or had Covid hours. The best part was that we got to spend time with each other and finally got to see and visit our friends in Selah.  I am looking forward to the next time we get to come over there to hang out and go kayaking.

Next Adventure:  In Bonney Lake for Amy's Birthday

Memorial Day Weekend: Ancient Lakes Trail, Ancient Lakes Road Series and Crab Creek Power Caching

For some reason I woke up before my alarm went off around 6:00ish, the night before I had set my alarm for 8.  I must have subconsciously thought I needed to get up earlier than intended so we could get all of the stuff done that I had planned...almost like I had anxiety that we wouldn't have enough time to get everything done.  The weird part was that I felt rested and didn't need to sleep anymore.  I got on my phone and checked my messages while I let Ben sleep for a little while longer.

7:30 rolled around and I started getting ready for the day.  I had to coax Ben to start getting ready.  The faster we could get ready, the quicker we would be out on the trail before it gets hot.  It was suppose to be 85ish degrees in the middle of the state today.  It's not bad because it's a dry heat rather than the moist or humid heat on the west side.  Ben eventually got ready to go.

We ate our little boxes of cereal, a few doughnuts and some milk for breakfast.  I made sure we had all of our stuff that we needed in the Escape with us including our lunch making stuff, drinks and caching stuff...like our notebook full of notes.  I've tried to be paperless when I cache but I just can't do it.  I write notes down of the ones we find so I can log them when I get home as well as having them for when I update my blog.

We loaded our stuff into the Escape and stopped at the Chevron to top of with gas.  That is the one important thing to do when you're driving in the middle of nowhere without cell service.  Make sure you have enough gas.  We got onto I-90 east and drove out towards where we were yesterday.  We got onto the highway to Quincy and followed Nuvi to the Ancient Lakes trail head.  I told Ben we would have to do the mini power trail when we were done hiking.  He thought that was a good idea.  We stopped at the rest area outside of Quincy to use the restroom since we weren't sure what kind of accommodations were at the trail head.

We followed Nuvi's directions through a series of roads through farm land.  We finally get onto Ancient Lakes Road, part of it is paved and the rest of it is a dusty dirt road.  There was a vehicle front of us so we gave them room so we didn't get completely dusted out.  Once we got to the trail head, we arrived around 9 a.m. and found a place to park.  This place was busy!  I expected it to be during a holiday weekend so I wasn't really that surprised.  I changed into my hiking shoes and socks, made sure we had everything we would need and shoved it into my back pack along with our Nalgene's.  We walked past a group of people and got a GO COUGS from them.  Of course I said it back. 

We walked to the entrance and followed the old jeep trail to the left towards Ancient Lakes and through the towering coulees (basalt cliffs on either side of the carved out valley.)  The views were stunning and it was nice to be out of the forest of Western Washington for a while.  

The middle of the state has some incredible geological features thanks to the Glacial Lake Missoula and the massive flood that came through here millions of years ago and carved out a lot of these cool features we see today.  It's amazing what erosion can do!  We stopped at several locations to take pictures and to take in the views.  We walked past a couple people walking back to the trail head.

We walked a little under a mile before we stopped for a giant rock nugget and a waterfall cascading down from the basalt cliffs.  I was surprised this spot didn't have an earthcache.  Other trails had them but we would have to come back another time to do the other trails in the Quincy Wildlife Recreation Area.  You could spend days here exploring.

We continued on towards the lakes and after a little less than a half a mile, we were overlooking one of the Ancient Lakes.  It was such a great view from here of the entire area.  We chose a path to take down to the lake.  Once we got down there, I took off my back pack and we relaxed a bit; taking in the views of this really cool recreation area.  A couple lakes over, we saw a bunch of people enjoying their weekend camping and hanging out.  We both ate a snack and had some water.  It was getting warmer.

On the way back, we took the same path and about halfway back to the trail head we were surprised by a a snake.  Luckily, it wasn't a rattlesnake.  We were on guard the rest of the way there.  

The basin views were amazing after our almost two mile hike.  I saw we were getting closer to the trail head so I got my caching app ready to grab 3 Ancient Ladies (GCVCPQ) which was hidden in the rocks to the right of us.  It was a pretty easy find but we had to hurry because people were coming down the trail and they could see us.  I got our names written down and hidden back before they walked by.  

We walked back to the Escape but picked up the first cache, Ancient Lake Road #33 (GC5WWM5).  Yeah, we did the series backwards.

I drove but since the caches were on both sides of the road, Ben got out on the ones on the right side of the road and I got out for the ones on the left side of the road.  If we couldn't find them, both of us would look so we had two sets of eyes on them.  Some were very easy and we could see them from the Escape and some were harder to find.  My Escape got really dusty when people drove by.  When we got to Ancient Lake Road #28 (GC5WWKT) we freaked out a kid that was walking down the side of the road.  We blew by the cache and had to back up to where it was.  I'm sure the kid thought we were going to kidnap him.  We assured him that we were geocaching.  He nodded and continued on walking.

It was definitely hot as we both got out of the Escape grabbing caches on either side of the road.  There were a few that I had a hard time finding.  The coords weren't exact but they got us to the general area.  Most were hidden near a pile of rocks or tucked in a bunch of sage brush.  The sagebrush wasn't Ben's friend however, we were able to get him to remember to take his allergy medication that morning so it wasn't that bad.

As we approached the end of the 30+ cache mini series, I was ready for a restroom and some lunch.  Ancient Lake Series #1 (GC5WVPN) was the last one and it was where the dirt road part of the road met the paved part of the road.  It was near the sign next to the road.  We pulled off the road at the turnout, grabbed it, signed it and took a photo.  We finished this series of caches under an hour and a half.

We followed the farm roads back to the rest stop.  We both went and used the restroom and then I went to go find the cache, Quincy East Rest (GC3TVBH).  For some reason I had a rough time pinpointing where it was.  The coordinates kept going everywhere.  I eventually stopped looking at the phone and just checked every spot along the fence.  I turned around and there were three people walking towards me looking at their phone.  They must be geocachers.  I said, you must be looking for the same thing I am looking for.  Sure enough, they were cachers from Salem, Oregon on vacation to go see their grandma in Wenatchee.  We found the cache together because I originally overlooked it and felt really dumb.  We chatted some more as we walked back to the parking lot mostly about our travels and where we were from.  It was nice meeting them.  Ben was near the Escape talking to a biker guy, who was from Eastern Washington somewhere, puttering around on his bike for the weekend and they were talking about motorcycles. 

I made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches in the back of the Escape and handed one to Ben as he kept chatting with the guy.  I ate mine at the back of the Escape, put away everything, organized it and spent some time writing down some notes in my notebook.  After about an half hour, I asked Ben if he was ready to head to the next power trail and he said yes.  He thanked the guy for the chat and we got into the Escape to head to Beverly.  Beverly is southwest of Royal City.

We got onto Hwy 28 to Quincy and took the highway south back to I-90.  We got onto I-90 and at the interchange we got off onto Hwy 26 towards Pullman, however, we made a turn onto 243, if you stayed on that it will eventually take you into the TriCities.  We followed that road along the Columbia River until we reached Beverly and Lower Crab Creek Road.  Over the past few years I've heard people talk about this power trail and put it on my list of caches to do some day.  Well, today was that day.

This was Ben's first time doing a power trail this large.  So I told him about the last one I did which was years ago now but that was a few hundred in a span of like five days.  I also shared the concept of the rolling log to make these type of caches go quicker.  Usually it was the entire container and log but for today, it was going to be the logbook.  We found the cache, took the logbook, signed it in the Escape on the way to the next cache and we traded logbooks.  We continued on like this until we were done with the series.  We started at 01 - Crab Creek (GC73GP3) and ended on 97 - Crab Creek (GC73ZZN) with many caches not in the series in between plus the spur.  We switched off every 20 caches just so neither of us got super tired because it was hot outside.  It took us about 2 hours to do the entire thing.  

Some memorable points during the Crab Creek series:

My 12,000th cache was 17 - Crab Creek (GC73K3Q).  Due to the sheer amount we found so far and not knowing how many I needed before reaching this milestone it was not documented in photos.

A small truck carrying a load of garbage and scrap metal drove past us, stopped about a half a mile ahead of us, got out, then got back in the truck and drove off. It didn't look like they adjusted their load or was checking to see if there were any problems.  Ben and I thought it was weird.  We kept our distance until they were out of view.

A coyote ran in front of the Escape a little under halfway done with the series.  It was insane watching it dart from on side of the road to the other.  I had not been that close to a coyote before except at zoos and wildlife sanctuaries. 

There were a few along the road that were hidden pretty good and a couple times both of us had to get out and search for them. 

Ben finally got to experience somewhat of a power trail and he said that he would like to to more in the future.  I have my eyes set on Walla Walla soon and maybe take a day to do some of the TriCities ones when we are there in September.

We turned around and grabbed Lower Crab Creek (GC73MAF) and Crab Creek Cascade (GC2FQDM) on Road E SW.  We drove north towards Royal City picking up caches along the way.  We picked up two at the intersection of Hwy 26 and Road E SW.  The first one was a lamp skirt called Chubby Girl 30 Just Had to Do It Today (GC2BFW9) and the other was across the highway at a guard rail called Chubby Girl #3 Air Time (GC1A1DY).  Both were pretty easy.

We get onto Hwy 26 and start driving west back towards I-90.  We stopped for Small Town Cache (GC73JYR) which was another guard rail cache right off of the highway and F SW Road and then grabbed the last one in Royal City, Chubby Girl #6 Royal City (GC1GK4T) I wanted to pull off near the gas station (the one with the large American flag) and get it from there but Ben wanted me to stop off next to the highway.  We knew it was in the guard rail.  I decided to pull off next to the highway, Ben got out, found it and signed it.  We got back onto 26.  We continued west looking for Beverley Burke Road to the left.

We turned left onto the side road and grabbed the Peanuts series.  We found all of them (there are 6 all together) except for Peanuts - Snoopy (GC2BGQD), that one hasn't been found since last September and it could have blown away in the wind (the wind gets pretty strong in this region) because it wasn't hidden back correctly.  Bummer.  

The final cache, Peanuts - Hey Hey The Gang's All Here (GC2BGQK) except the gang wasn't all there.  We were missing Snoopy.  At least this cache was here.  We parked in a driveway and walked the hundred feet or so to the rocks that it was hidden in.  The container was crammed with toys and other knick knacks.  We walked back to the Escape and decided where to go next.  It was almost 4:45 and getting close to dinner time.  I told him that we can grab a few more back to I-90 and he said sure.

We pulled back onto State Route 243 and followed it north to I-90.  The next cache, RPS 1 Wanapum (GC204W6) which was in the parking lot of the dam visitor's center.  When Ben and I arrived it was empty so we didn't have a tough time finding a place to park.  We followed the phone to a beat up log that's seen better days.  We made the find and got a photo of the dam from this vantage point.  We walked back to the Escape.

There was one more, Wanapum Lake (GCNDCN), along this road that we wanted to stop and grab.  We pulled off the highway onto this very sketchy rocky side road.  We parked and walked the 300 feet or so to the cache.  I am glad we decided to walk instead of driving to it.  It was on a cliffside overlooking the Columbia River and Ben and I had a really hard time trying to find the cache.  It was listed as a regular so we looked for a place that would hold a regular.  After a while we were convinced it was muggled.  I started looking through past logs to see if anyone could shed light on it.  I saw a photo of a rusty beat up Altoid can.  I told Ben we were looking for a small and not a regular and that it was an Altoid can.  Within five minutes Ben finally made the find.  We admired the view of the river.

We got back onto the 243 and merged onto Hwy 26 and then eventually got onto I-90 west towards Kittitas.  I wanted to get one more cache.  We put the coords into Nuvi and she directed us to the nearest exit of the freeway.  We followed the road through downtown Kittitas and down one of the side roads that leads to the freeway but there is no on or off ramp.  Bison on the Bridge (GC7J64F) was a bison tube hidden in a post hole near an irrigation canal next to I-90.  It was literally a park and grab.

We got back on one of the side highways that took us into Ellensburg.  There, we decided on a BBQ place, not our original place we wanted to go to because they closed their doors in January 2020 to pursue just catering, but at least it was a BBQ place.  We drove up to it and it looked like it wasn't open.  There were no cars or trucks.  We were disappointed.  We drove up to the door and it was closed on Sundays.  How lame!  Ughh!  I asked Ben what he wanted to do now and we both decided on teriyaki.

We went to the only teriyaki place in town, ordered and went to the nearby grocery store while we waited for it to get done.  We had about 15 minutes to kill.  We went inside and grabbed some drinks, allergy medicine and a pint of ice cream for after dinner.  We went back to the teriyaki place and picked up our food.  We drove back to the hotel, unloaded our stuff, got comfortable and ate our food.  We watched the Sounders and Austin FC tie 0-0.  They took a goal away from us because we were supposedly offsides.  We ended up watching TV, logged some of our finds, filled out my blog a little bit, got cleaned up and relaxed.  My arm still hurts.

We went to bed around midnight again.  I was tired from getting up early and being out in the sun all day.  We forgot about our ice cream, Ben put it in the refrigerator and it melted.  I am not sure why he put it in the fridge but we had to toss it.   

Next Adventure:  Memorial Day Weekend:  Ellensburg to Yakima and Home

Memorial Day Weekend: Old Historic Hwy 10, George, Quincy and Ellensburg

We got up around 9:10 when the alarms went off.  I got up, put some clothes on (it was going to be warmer today), did my bathroom stuff and got out my cereal, milk and a couple of chocolate doughnuts.  I surprisingly felt okay so far.  I wasn't sure if it would progressively get worse as the day went on or not.  My arm hurt pretty bad though.  I had to yell at Ben a couple times to get out of bed and get ready to go.  He eventually got ready and ate some breakfast.  We grabbed the stuff we would need with us and headed out to the Escape.

We got gas as the Chevron next door and used the Safeway points to get a couple cents knocked off the price per gallon.  Ben went inside and grabbed some Kleenex, since he is allergic to like everything during the spring, and some ice for the cooler.  We got onto I-90 and headed east towards Vantage.  I had my GPS set to our first one of the day, which was another mini power trail called (V) Old Historic Highway 10 series, among others.

We got off of I-90 at Silica Road and followed Nuvi's directions to the other side of the Old Vantage Highway to the Quincy Lakes Wildlife Area to the Old Vantage Highway Boat Launch at the end of the road.  As we were driving down the road, I recognized this area.  I have been down here before with Bob and Bev back in 2012.  There was a small power trail (that has since been archived) along Frontage Road and part of this road.  We parked in a well manicured parking lot, bathroom and boat launch area.  We were not the only ones enjoying the day as we watched a guy and his son back up their boat into the water.  The cache, Wanapum Lake (GCN1Y0) was about a quarter of a mile from where we parked down a set of sandy trails.  We made our way towards the cache.  We noticed it started getting warm and shed our sweatshirts.  The cache was easy to spot, we signed our names, put it back and made our way back to the Escape.  We had to be really careful not to run into rattlesnakes. 

We hopped into the Escape and made our way to the first one of the (V) series.  (V-1) Old Historic Highway 10 (GC922RK) was the first one of seven (in that series) that day that we grabbed along that road and one near George.

We found the first three and then stopped for Historic US10 Viewpoint (GC91FWX) and that was a quick park and grab with a great view of the Columbia River gorge.  

We found a few more of the (V) series before we came upon Coulee Spire (GC3JEEH).  That one we had to park the Escape near the gate and walk in.  There were a bunch of "rock nuggets", rock piles and spires as well as random flowers here and there as we searched for the cache.  The coords bounced around so we had a hard time pinpointing what rock pile it was hidden in.  Ben finally found the cache and we both thought it was stupid to make a cache out of a glass jar...especially hidden in rocks.

We walked back to the Escape and went to the earthcache that was up ahead.  Frenchman's Basalt Columnar (GC4M1MK) was amazing and how have I not stumbled upon this the first time we came down this road?  I looked at when this was placed and there was not an earthcache here yet so there was no real draw.  I vaguely remember these formations.  Anyway, Ben and I parked the Escape and had to find a place to take a picture without all the people, campers, vehicles and tents all over the place.  This location was hopping!  Most people come to "the feathers" to climb and there were a ton of them out today.  The cache page asked us to count the feathers and estimate the height range of these formations.  Pretty easy.  We made our notes and moved on to the second to last of the (V) series.  

(V-6) Old Historic Highway 10 (GC9249Z) was a little further off the road.  We actually had to climb up the side of the small cliff to get the cache.  Ben made the grab.

We got back onto Silica Road and headed northwest to get a few along that road.  Cold Turkey (GC2XD1M) we knew was going to be a guard rail and we almost decided not to grab it because we are not a fan of guard rails.  Something told us we should stop for this one though.  I pulled over to the side of the road near the guard rail, I got out and found where it was hidden, pulled it out and I was not disappointed.  It was a plastic turkey toy someone had made into a cache.  It was pretty cool and I am glad we stopped for this one.

We got off of Silica Road and turned onto a road that took us to a hidden private community down by the Columbia River.  We picked up one down there but didn't go any further because there were a lot of people driving around and I just didn't want to be around a lot of people. Sunland Surprise (GC1GZG2) was on a hill down by the boat launch and it was really busy.  We parked above and walked down to it.  We were probably seen but everyone was busy doing whatever they were doing they probably didn't care.  We left the community and drove back up the hill.

I had planned on doing the Ancient Road series but I misread the cache page and thought we had to hike them.  I was like, we don't have time for something like that today we will do it tomorrow or some other time.  I found out later that they were drivable and we had to take that road anyway the next day for our hike. 

We got back onto Silica Road and back under the freeway to Frontage Road.  We picked up a couple along there and then I looked at the map and saw a three caches to grab at the Caliche Lakes wildlife area.  We grabbed the one at the entrance, (V-7) Old Historic Highway 10 (GC924A3) and  then followed the dirt road and parked in the lot.  We decided which one to get first and then walked out to, Washington Wildlife A-Z Sandpiper (GC4K4GV).  It was hidden amongst the basalt rocks.  We enjoyed the views of the lakes from here and saw someone kayaking.  The second one we decided to park over by the entrance and walk through the gate.  It was a .40 mi round trip from Washington Wildlife A-Z Zerene (GC5DB9F).  That one was also hidden in the basalt rocks with a great view of the small lakes.

We drove into George and stopped at the gas station to see if they had any plastic knives or spoons so we could spread our PBJ we brought for lunch.  We both went in and found some spoons.  While we were in there we both thought Icee's sounded good because it was getting hot outside.  I didn't plan on buying anything while we were inside but luckily Ben had a few bucks to pay for our medium Icee's.  I got a red one and he mixed blue and red together.  We walked back out to the Escape and decided where to go next.

We picked up five around the George area and ended up replacing a container that was obviously missing near I-90 at a stop sign.  We made sure we let the cache owner know we made the change.  Later on back at the hotel, I checked that cache to see if someone had found it since we were there and someone had stopped there to get it on their way to Spokane.

We decided to start heading to Quincy, a town north of I-90, east of Wenatchee and deemed the "center" of the state.  Ben and I haven't technically been here before but drove through it in the middle of the night a few years ago while visiting the Grand Coulee Dam area.  Today we were going to go on a mini cache machine through here because we needed at least one cache for the Towns and Cities Challenge.  I spent some time making sure the caches were here before stopping at them.  Along the way, we picked up Crop Signs (GC4E19E) and pulled off of Route 281 to get 19th Hole (GC4E19E) at a golf course.  While we were here, we decided this was a good stopping point to make our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  We got our food out, made sandwiches with our gas station spoon and enjoyed our lunch from the back of the Escape.  We were here for about 20 minutes.

We got back on 281 and made our way into the southern end of town.  Most small towns have Welcome To caches.  This town had three of these.  This one we parked on the there side of the canal and walked to the sign since there wasn't a lot of room to park and grab.  Welcome to Quincy No 2 (GCPGQV) was the easiest of the three to find that afternoon.

We went to the next one, To Protect and Serve (GC890CB) was a virtual cache near the fire station.  We turned at the next available street, parked and walked up to the statue that we would be answering questions about.  As we started reading the cache page, another car pulls up and parks in front of us. She gets out and we both ask each other if we were geocaching so we continue answering the questions the cache asks us to.  I get a better look at her and she looked very familiar.  I didn't say anything though.   I would have to see her caching name later to confirm.  She had driven up from the TriCities to do the Manson tag challenge and wanted to find a few caches on the way home.  We chatted for a few minutes and then she left.  Ben and I soon followed suit.  

We drove around town for a few hours gathering as many as we could.  Memorial Park (GC1AA3Y) was at a veterans memorial.  It was a small tiny space between Hwy 28 and a side street.  We parked and checked a ton of potential hiding spots.  We eventually made the find.  It was a nano hidden away very well.

We got back in the Escape and drove to the veterinary clinic in town for Canines and Felines (GC7972A).  We found a quick place to park and started looking for it as quick as we could because the dogs out in the kennel were barking at us.  I knew it had to be on the sign and it had to be a nano to keep it hidden from muggles.

Rotary Park (GC3NNX1) was closer to the middle of town near a fountain.  The art in the fountain was pretty cool.  The cache, eh...not so cool.  It was a magnetic container hidden in one of the nearby trees on part of a metal fence pole.  We signed our names, put it back and got a picture of the fountain.  We moved on to the next one.

  As we moved west down Hwy 28, we stopped at several others heading out of town.  One of them was 1 - Room Geo School (GC30QVF), which was a bird house painted like a school house, we got a trackable out of this one; Welcome To Quincy (GCPEAR) was the third of the Welcome To caches we found in town, this one was the harder out of the three, Ben found this one after I overlooked it and the last one before we left town was Welcome to Lauzier Park (GC600K7) was hidden amongst rocks.  Luckily, it had a good hint of where it was or we would have been here awhile looking underneath all the rocks.

I usually bring a notebook to write caches, our adventures, stops and other necessary information inside and the one I brought was full.  We saw a Dollar Tree while we were driving around Quincy and told Ben I was going to stop inside and grab a new notebook.  He said sure, and sat in the car while I ran inside.  It felt weird just getting a notebook so I got Ben some peanut butter cups as well.  

We both were tired from being in the hot sun and getting hungry because it was almost dinner time plus my head was starting to hurt from my body fighting off the Covid shot I got yesterday.  If the headache and minor fatigue was the only thing I had to deal with then I would consider myself one of the lucky ones. 

We got back onto I-90 and made our way to Vantage.  We got off at the Vantage exit and drove the Old Vantage Highway to the Ginkgo State Park interpretive center so we could finish the earthcache we started the day before.  We park and there weren't very many people there so there were plenty of parking spaces.  I didn't think we were going to be here for a long time but just to grab some answers for the earthache.  I was wrong.  I should have worn my wool socks and hiking shoes and brought water with me.  We had to have walked over a mile just to get three names of petrified wood that was scattered all around the hillside.  There were some great views from up here but we were both ready to go eat dinner, shower and rest.  We walked back down to the Escape and drove down the highway to Ellensburg.  We still needed six more caches for an even 40 for the day.

I checked the phone app and saw there were some along the way we could pick up somewhat quickly.  First one was Puget Sound Energy:  Iron Horse to Wild Horse (GC73WRZ) which was at the Iron Horse Brewery.  It was closed for the weekend and opened on Monday.  That made Ben sad.  We also found out they closed the pub in town as well.  It was one of the places we were going to eat.  It was a bummer.  Anyway, Ben got out and found the cache next to the sign.

We drove further into town and saw another one we could grab.  Sitting on the Fence (GC19600) took me a while to figure out which street it was on because it was a confusing triangle with a canal running through it.  Ben sat in the Escape and was talking to Josh.  It was a fence end cap hide.  I quickly signed it and walked back. 

 We got onto CWU's campus and tried for one that no one could find but we thought we could.  We looked for a short amount of time, gave up and went to the one across the street, Daniel's Tree (GC7V0EH).  The sprinklers were going in the lawn when we got there so we had to carefully tiptoe around them.  This park had a couple of sculptures, a creek that ran through here plus a really cool bridge.  Unfortunately, when we got to the cache, we saw why it was called Daniel's Tree.  Back in 2014 a college student named Daniel took his life next to the creek.  That is all we know according to the plaque.  We signed the logbook and went back to the Escape.

The next one, Puget Sound Energy:  My Ellensburg (GC752GT) was near the City Hall building in the middle of town.  I missed the turn the first time so we had to go around the block again.  We got to park right next to it.  The cache, was found on the covered wagon.

The last one of the evening was on our way to dinner since the Iron Horse Brewery's pub closed since we were here last.  We checked the internet for popular places to eat in the Ellensburg area and The Red Horse Diner popped up.  We both agreed that we would go there for dinner and it was on the other side of town.  Old Hwy 10 (GC301TF) was at the other burger place in town.  The ammo box was stuffed with toys and knickknacks.  We signed our names and off to dinner.

When we drove up the place looked pretty busy but we failed to realize how big this place really was.  It was a gas station that was converted into a restaurant.  We walked through the door and into the back yard of the restaurant.  We really weren't sure where to go so we walked to where all the people were and a waitress came out and welcomed us.  She said we could sit anywhere and she would get us a menu.  I went and washed my hands.  Ben and I picked seats and perused the menu.  She got our drink orders, I got a root beer and he got an Irish Death from the Iron Horse collection. I went back out to the Escape to grab the notebook and a pen.  She came back and got our orders.  I ordered chicken strips and fries and Ben ordered the turkey club sandwich and fries.  Our food sure hit the spot.  We paid and then drove back to the hotel.

I was so ready to get cleaned up, put some comfy clothes on and relax a bit.  My arm hurt so bad but my headache finally went away.  We watched TV, logged our finds, spent some time looking over which caches we wanted to do next on the map, went over the hike we were going to do tomorrow, ate cookies and milk for dessert.  We got ready for bed and passed out around midnight.

Ben and I both finished the Wonders of the World Challenge.

Next Challenge:  Memorial Day Weekend:  Ancient Lakes Trail, Ancient Lakes Road Series and Crab Creek Power Caching