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  There was a small power trail (that has since been archived) along Frontage Road and part of this road.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