Both Mom and I had Friday off but we weren't sure what we wanted to do with that day. I asked Mom where she wanted to go and every time she said, I don't know. She did mention something about the Shop Hop when we went to Vancouver on Saturday though. I thought about that for a while and decided to ask her if she was interested in going to the north shops on the Friday. She said that would be fine. We planned what we were going to do and what time we were going to leave. They didn't have one last year because of Covid but decided to do one this year but it had limited hours. It usually lasts 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. but this year it will be 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. which seriously limits our travel time especially up north where they are more spread out and traffic is heavier.
We agreed that we would drive the Expedition and we will leave as close to 6 a.m. as possible. We will need all the travel time we could get since our first Shop Hop stop will be in Lynden. I was hoping we would get there a tad bit early so we could grab a few caches I need for the Towns and Cities Challenge I've been doing since I started caching in 2010. It has been an on going process since then. I would have been further along but didn't do a whole lot of local traveling from 2012-2015. Oh well, it gave me a goal to attain and pushed me to take weekend adventures.
The night before, I made sure I had everything written down. All of the shops and their addresses, the order and the caches I needed for the towns and cities I needed. We also talked about bringing our lunch and finding a place to eat dinner along the way...wherever that was going to be. We will see where we are at when that time comes. I set my alarm for early o'clock and went to bed.
The next morning I got up and got ready to go. Mom was a few minutes late because she got gas at the Nisqually Reservation before she got to my house. I got my Nalgene and food ready and put in the cooler with some ice packs. I made sure I had my GPS and my notebook with all of our stops inside of it. We left the house around 6 a.m. We drove down Ruddell and onto College and eventually to Martin to get onto I-5 North. I think we left at the perfect time because we didn't hit traffic until we reached Seattle. Along the way we talked about work, Peru, brainstormed where to go next spring with our JetBlue points, geocaching, the Shop Hop and other random things that came up as we drove.
We got to Bellingham at a decent time (around 9 a.m.) and got off on Hwy 542 and headed northeast towards Everson. We turned left onto Everson Goshen Road and with about three more miles to go, I had to go. I am not above stopping on the side of the road and going. I just had to find a good place to pull over. I found a place and parked the Expedition on the side of the road. I grabbed some wipes and ran across the road to someone's yard. They had a side yard that was covered in brush and trees. Perfect. I will be well hidden from the road and the people that could be in the house. I did what I needed to do and jumped back in the Expedition. We followed the road and made our way to a town I've never heard of until I started this challenge. It was literally a blip in the road. We know this area more by the name of Nooksack Valley.
There were a few caches in this town that met the criteria but I decided on the one in Riverside Park. I figured it would be easy to park and grab without being in the way or people seeing us. We pulled into the park and just as I thought, it was an easy park and grab. Test Tube Baby: Wendy (GC5NEN2) was underneath an old log. Mom sat in the Expedition while I jumped out to sign it for the both of us. I got a photo and we drove back into town to head to the next one.
We turned onto Hwy 9 and made our way north to Sumas. The only time I've ever heard of Sumas was this past winter when the river flooded and the people were stranded there for a few days. People were kayaking through town and everyone tried to keep the flood waters out of their houses with sand bags. Anyway, I had planned on looking for No Overnite Camping (GC1HEMC) but the nettles and sticker bushes were in full force so we decided to go find the other one in town, Bridge Over Troubled Water (GC8ZNRN) instead. We parked near the bridge, Mom stayed in the Expedition again while I ran over to the other side to go look for the container. Thank goodness it was easy to find and it was there! I signed our names, got a picture and realized I could literally see Canada from here.
We were not even a quarter of a mile from Canada. The main road in town was the border crossing. Just north of Sumas is Abbotsford, the city that was suppose to host GeoWoodStock in August 2020. But you know, Covid. We were hoping to go this summer but still, Covid. Maybe next summer?
I put our first address into Nuvi and then got back on the main road and follow it to where Hwy 9 turned into Hwy 546. We had about 15 minutes until the quilt stores opened at 10. We were going to time this perfectly. Hwy 546 took us into Lynden. We parked on the street and went into the first quilt store of the day, Tangled Threads Quilt Shop. I know Mom and several other of her quilting ladies have been up here in the past, I have not. This is uncharted quilting store territory for me. I told Mom that we can't spend a ton of time in each of these stores or we won't make it to all of them. She understood. We walked around, grabbed our free pattern, got our passport stamped and saw a Covid quilt. On to the next one!
There were three in Lynden so when I originally put them in order I went from east to west since that's kinda the route we were going through town. Calico Country was the second quilt store on our list and we went in, got our free pattern, passport stamped and looked around for a couple minutes. Mom ended up finding some Seahawk fabric one of her quilt ladies was looking for so she bought a few yards of it. I walked through the parking lot because I saw a huge windmill and I thought it was cool. I walked back as Mom was getting her fabric cut. We drove to the last one in Lynden and were making pretty good time.
Folktales was a little rustic quilt shop kinda off the beaten path. It was outside of town and carried a lot of browns and greens...almost like they sold woodland creatures and forest colored fabric and knick knacks, kind of whimsical-like. They had a lot of Christmas stuff and gnomes. We got our passports stamped, bought the finishing kit because it had buttons we needed to finish the square and Mom bought some of the 2021 fabric and the fabric to finish the quilt here as well. We got back into the Expedition and drove to Bellingham.
The quilt store in Bellingham was in a really obscure part of Bellingham. We took some back roads from Lynden and popped us into the east side of Bellingham near Whatcom Lake. When I was researching caches in the area to grab, I saw a virtual cache and it was near Kori's Fabric Creations. As Nuvi took us closer to the store, we noticed we were in a residential area and wondered if we were going in the right direction. We made one more turn and there it was. The parking area was weird so we parked outside on the road and walked in. There was a raffle drawing for a quilt outside so we spent a few minutes hearing their spiel and then went inside for our free pattern and our stamp and ended up getting the finishing kit here too. We used the restroom before we left. We went back outside and I put in a dollar to their quilt raffle. As I filled out the ticket, the lady rolled her eyes at me when I accidentally put the used pen into the unused cup. Mom thought they were rude and I really didn't care that much.
I put in the coords for the virtual cache, Triplin' the Rock Fantastic (GC8DBEH). It was right up the road from the quilt store. We follow Nuvi's directions and make our way to a place called Big Rock Gardens. It featured a fenced off sculpture park (similar to the Monarch Sculpture Park near our town), trails and a parking lot. We find a place to park and I read the cache details. It was an offset one like most letterbox directions so we start walking down the trail. Turns out it isn't along the trail but inside the gated off area inside. We went inside and walk down to the sculpture that I needed to answer questions on. I got what I needed and we walked back to the Expedition. We ate our lunch as we drove ourselves to I-5 south.
We booked it down I-5 even though Sedro-Woolley wasn't that far away from Bellingham, a mere half hour drive, we just didn't want to waste precious Shop Hop time. We weren't even halfway done with the quilt shops yet, but with this one we would be half way done. I kept reminding Mom that the last time I did any Shop Hopping with them was with Grandma back in 2013, a whopping eight years ago, when we drove around Pierce and King counties. I also remember the finishing kits being like a dollar or two, not this five or six dollar expensive stuff. Mom said that it's a new thing because of Covid, a lot of these stores were closed down and didn't make much money the year before so this is how they are sorta making it up. I get it but holy cow.
I didn't need any caches in Sedro-Woolley because we basically got them all when we were here in September so our visit will be pretty quick and easy. We got off I-5 at the first exit that took us to Sedro-Woolley and that was a mistake. This exit didn't have a light for a left turn and there were tons of people getting on I-5 south. There was a huge back up on this road because people were stuck behind a tractor so it messed up traffic. We did finally manage to find a gap so we could turn onto the road. We got into Sedro-Woolley and found a parking place near the address of the quilt store. We got out and went the wrong way and had to turn around and walk down the correct side of the road. We walked into Quilting Foxes, got our free pattern, got our passport stamped and Mom looked around for a few minutes.
We drove down Hwy 20 back to I-5 south to our sixth quilt store, Cotton Pickin's, in Stanwood. Stanwood was another town and city that I needed for my challenge. We got off at the Lake McMurray exit and drove the back way to Stanwood on the Pioneer Highway. I had checked the area for caches when I looked up the address on the internet. I saw one that was the closest to the quilt store that I could basically walk to if Mom wanted to spend some time in the store. We get to the quilt store, we go in, get our passport stamped and our free pattern. I told Mom I was going to run across the street to get a cache and to check out a Scandinavian store called Uff Da. She told me if I had time to grab her some cold water and handed me a couple bucks.
I ran across the street and into an old shopping center called Viking Village. It was once a thriving shopping center but time has crushed its spirits. There are still some businesses still functioning in the run-down mini mall but there are a lot of vacant store fronts. I found the nano, Velkomen to Stanwood (GCWH64) on the sign near the highway. I initialed our names, put it back and spent a few minutes inside of Uff Da.
I saw a winter hat I'd like to have but I didn't have my wallet with me. Just as well. I had to get Mom some water so I ran across the street to Rite Aid and got her a bottle of water. Afterwards, I walked back to the quilt store and she called me to see where I was. I told her I was almost there. We get back into the Expedition and put in the next address. I wanted to to get the virtual cache a few miles down the highway towards Camano Island but we were running short on time so we decided to do it another day.
The next quilt store was to Aunt Mary's Quilting Shop in Arlington. This shop was going to be right off the freeway but we knew there was going to be some traffic since it was now early afternoon. We got off I-5 and saw we couldn't make a left turn because of the cement barrier. We will have to go around the block at the light. That took way longer than it should have because of the traffic. We eventually got there, parked and went inside. We got our stamp, grabbed the free pattern, donated a dollar to the raffle for a chance to win a basket and we both used the restroom while we looked around for a few minutes.
We got back on the freeway and headed south to Marysville. We got off there and drove east on the 528 to Hwy 9. We followed Hwy 9 south through several stop lights and into West Lake Stevens. Hwy 9 took us over Hwy 2 and directly to Snohomish. We drove through the main part of town, which was 2nd Street, and we kept our eyes peeled for a quilt store named Quilting Mayhem. Mom saw the sign for it and it was a huge warehouse! We found a place to park and went inside. The place was ginormous! It doubled as a store and a retreat getaway. I'm sure people who do retreats here spend a pretty penny. We got our passport stamped, got our free pattern and entered in a contest to win a brand new Janome sewing machine. We looked around for a few more minutes but had to hit the road if we wanted to get the last two stores before 5 p.m. We had come through here last September to grab this town and city for the challenge so we didn't need to get another cache here.
We followed the road east out of town and got onto Hwy 2 towards Monroe. I also have cached in Monroe so we didn't need to make any extra stops while we were there. When we got within the city limits the traffic was terrible! This is what was going to eat up our time. Everyone was on Hwy 2 hoping to get out of town so they could head to Eastern Washington for the weekend. Ughhh! I hate traffic! We did eventually get to the Ben Franklin Craft Store for our free pattern and another stamp to our passport but getting out of town was gruesome. Somehow, we managed to get back onto Hwy 2 but it was so slow it was eating me alive! We inched our way to Hwy 522 and were able to get some of the time back we wasted. We had less than an hour left and we needed to get to Woodinville to our last quilt store. Dinner, gas and everything else would have to wait.
Gathering Fabric, was our last quilt store of the day. We got off of Hwy 522 in Woodinville and made our way onto the Woodinville-Redmond Road. We followed that through many distilleries, breweries and wineries. No wonder there was a ton of traffic on this road. That paired with high school graduations, weddings and extra people in town because it's nice and summer time made it really hard to find a parking spot near the fabric store. We actually had to drive around for 10 minutes just to find a sketchy place to park. We weren't going to be here for more than five minutes so I felt pretty good about it. We walked to the fabric store and we were literally the only people in there besides the owner. She stamps our passports and hands us a free block pattern. We engage in some small talk and she says she's been in the same location for almost 30 years and has seen this area grow exponentially. She says some days are crazier than others. We thanked her and run back to the Expedition before someone tickets it.
I ask Mom, where to now? She said let's get out of this crazy place and make our decision. I needed to get two more caches while we were up here so I plugged the coordinates into Nuvi for my Woodway cache. From there, we will decide as we drive past places. We got back onto Hwy 522/Bothell Way and meandered our way to Hwy 104/Edmonds Way. Once onto Edmonds Way, we both vaguely remembered being on this road when we helped Doug and Jenn move back in October 2018. We follow Nuvi and notice there was an Ivar's on the south side of the highway. I asked Mom if she wanted to eat there once we were done grabbing the cache. She said sure.
It's amazing that there are still greenbelts and areas of open land restricted from building amongst the concrete jungle still around. I bet it's nice for these city people to have some sort of haven to retreat to when they are tired of the hustle and bustle of the city and traffic. Once we arrived to the Woodway parking lot where the coords took us, I was happy to see this small trail system was in such great shape. There was hardly any graffiti, no garbage thrown about or drug paraphernalia littered along the ground. Mom sat in the Expedition while I walked the short tenth of a mile to the letterbox, Welcome to Woodway (GC95B4G). It took me a few minutes to find it because my GPS jumped around so much. I let it settle down and found it inside of a downed log with small mushrooms on it. I got our names on it, got a photo and put it back. I imagine most of its finds were people finding it to meet the requirements of the Towns and Cities Challenge.
I hopped back into the Expedition and we were on our way back to the Edmonds Highway to get some food from Ivar's. We knew we were getting close but couldn't remember where exactly we saw it. Mom saw it and we pulled in. We weren't sure if they were allowing indoor seating or not so we grabbed our wallets, phones and masks and went inside. We both ordered the three piece fish and chips and drinks and waited at our table for our name to be called. Once we got our food the place lit up! It got super busy really quickly. Between families coming in to eat, to Uber drivers picking up food for their customers, it was like a small ant pile with sunshine on it. Mom and I ate our food and planned our next stop.
We threw our garbage away, used the restroom one more time and went to go find some cheap Arco gas nearby. I got out my gas buddy app and there was one nearby. I had Mom relay me the address so we could put it in the Nuvi. We were in and out of the gas station quickly and then made our way back over to I-5 south. We knew I-5 was going to be a train wreck. It always was through this part of the state.
We merge onto I-5 and inch our way through Northgate, the University District, downtown and we managed to get in the correct lane to get onto I-90, I knew I-90 east wouldn't be that bad at this time of the evening. Sure enough, it was smooth sailing through the tunnels, Mercer Island and onto the bridge to the other side of Lake Washington. We followed Nuvi's instructions off of I-90 and to some side roads leading to the small community of Beaux Arts Village, the last of my Western Washington Towns and Cities. Once we got into the neighborhood, the roads were very narrow and there were tons of houses crammed into this development. I betcha these houses were super expensive as well.
It was really hard to find a place to pull over and get out. I did manage to find a place about a quarter of a mile away so Mom stayed in the Expedition while I walked to Qualify (GC5JCR7) which was hanging in a tree. I had to make sure no one saw me because there were a bunch of people taking their nightly walks through the neighborhood and a few people walking their dogs as well. It was a camoed bison tube hanging in a tree. I signed it and put it back as quickly as I could. I walked back to the Expedition.
We got back onto I-90 and made our way to Seattle and merged onto I-5 south. It was smooth sailing through Burien and Federal Way but when we got to Fife it was awful. Mom also wanted a strawberry milkshake from Dairy Queen and Fife was the closest place that had one. I was gonna get off the free way anyway because it was gross.
We exited at Fife, went over the freeway to the Dairy Queen on the east side of I-5. We were going to go in and order but we had to go through the drive through. We had a butthole and his wife cut us off at the drive through. We hoped that he and his wife choked on their food and or ice cream for being jerks.
We decided to drive to Puyallup instead of getting back on to the train wreck of an interstate. We made our way around the roads, we weren't familiar with the road we were on, but I knew it eventually went into Puyallup. Ben had taken me down this road before so it wasn't like it was unknown. We got into Puyallup, got onto Meridian and got onto 512 and followed that to I-5 in outside of Tacoma. There was no traffic. It didn't take us very long to get back to my house. We pulled in, I took out my stuff and told Mom I would see her tomorrow for our trip down south with Bev. She went home and I got a shower and then logged the caches we found. It was a long day but fun to go to places I've never been before.
As of today, I need 25 more for the Towns and Cities Challenge. Majority of those still left are in Eastern Washington.
Next Adventure: South: Shop Hopping, Picking Up Caches, WSGA Meet and Greet and Pizza
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