My Adventures and Places Life Takes Me: South: Shop Hopping, Picking Up Caches, WSGA Meet and Greet and Pizza

Earlier in the week I let Bev know when to be ready since she wanted to go with us to Vancouver to the meet and greet. I told her that our trip was going to consist of the. quilt stores, the event and some caches along the way. I said I had a list of caches with a lot of favorite points and whatnot. She said she was happy to come regardless of what we were going to do. I told her to be ready between 8:45 and 9. I also told Mom when to be ready as well. She said she would be.

Ben couldn't go with us because he was on a 24-hour shift at the station. He got up around 6:30, got ready and told me to have fun. I said we probably would and told him to be safe at work. I got up around 8ish, got dressed, got the stuff in the Escape and headed into Rainier. I decided I should get gas before I picked everyone up so I got gas at the station in Rainier. I hoped that we had some Safeway points for a couple cents off a gallon but nope, they were all used up. Bummer.

I picked up Mom first. We got all of her stuff into the Escape including her quilting stuff and headed over to pick up Bev. We pulled up and saw Bob working in the yard. Bev came out with her bag of stuff and was super excited to leave the house for the day. Bob told us to have fun. We told him we will and for him to have fun in the yard. We got onto 507 and headed towards Tenino and down Ol' Hwy 99. Near the alpaca farm, we noticed the on coming traffic was driving weird and wondered what was going on. A cop car was in front of us and was driving very slow. We noticed a bunch of garbage in the road and a truck that had a poorly strapped down load. We had to sit there a few minutes while Sheriff Snaza helped the people get the garbage out of the road.

We got onto I-5 south and got off at the 13th Street exit because we had to waste some time before Sister's Quilt Shop in Chehalis opened. We had about 15 minutes to kill so we drove around the weird streets of Chehalis and Mom showed us the building she started working in when she began working at the dentist office. We drove around the block and down main street until I was able to find a parking spot in front of the quilt store. We got there just as the lady opened the doors. Mom and I went inside and got our passports stamped and she made a comment about having so many stamps. We told her we went north the day before and hit all of those up. She was impressed. We got the free pattern and we took the back way down Jackson Hwy to 508.

I feel like we've been to Onalaska a lot in the last year. Here we go again, this time for just the quilt store, Heavenly Quilts. It was a short 20 minute drive from I-5 to the middle of Onalaska. I've been here once before with Mom to check out the quilt store. The building used to be a train station but no one was sure if it was the original location or not. We all wandered around, got our passport stamped and our free pattern. Bev thought the building was cool since she really loves trains and train associated things. We jumped back into the Escape and made our way back to I-5.

We talked about several things as we made our way down to Castle Rock, which really wasn't that far from Onalaska in the scheme of things. We got off at the main exit and Mom told me where to go since she has been here several times over the years. I had forgotten to put in the address to Knotty Stitches. We found the road it was on, found a parking place and Mom and I ran in really quickly to get our passport stamped and our free pattern. We didn't want Bev to have to wait in the Escape for very long. After getting all that we needed to get, we got back in the Escape and got back onto I-5. Next stop, Kelso and the Paisley Duck Quilt Shop and then Longview and the Longview Sewing and Kitchen.

We took the first Kelso/Longview exit and followed Nuvi's directions to the middle of town. I was never a fan of how they built Kelso or Longview. I don't actually know where one ends and the other begins. The roads are super confusing and the city blocks are in the shape of triangles and there are many bridges because of the river that flows through town. We did manage to get to the quilt shop but had to go around the block where there was more parking. Mom and I parked the Escape and Bev stayed with the air conditioning on. We went through the back door, Mom browsed for a few minutes, we got our passports stamped and our free pattern. We were in and out in about 10 minutes. I considered grabbing the closest cache but Bev had already gotten it.

We drove to the other quilt store in Longview on our way back towards the freeway. That one also was a quick, grab a stamp on the passport and get the free square pattern while Bev guarded the Escape. We got back on the freeway towards our next destination.

We continued south and my first cache stop was at the Gee Creek Rest Area. We found a place to park, we all used the restroom and went and found the newest cache that was here. We've all been here many times throughout the years grabbing caches here. This won't be the last one here. One By Three (GC86RV0) on the map was out in the trees, where most rest stop area caches were. They were away from the muggles and usually well hidden. This one was dumb. We walked to where the coords took us and we looked everywhere. After about ten minutes, I checked the cache page and the coords were not correct. Turns out the cache owner didn't actually update the coords correctly on the cache page and cachers were going to the incorrect place. We put in the correct coords and it was hidden next to a large tree where, at time, muggles will see people looking for the container.

Essentially, this cache was poorly executed and will probably go missing soon. We got back to the Escape, ate our sandwiches and chips and got back onto the freeway. I wanted to get at least on of the two quilt stores out of the way before we did our small hike in the Minnehaha neighborhood. We followed Nuvi to the first quilt store, Quilted Treasures in the Hazel Dell area. There wasn't a lot of traffic around so it made it easy to get in and out of there since it was on a busy highway. We went inside and tried to make it a quick stamp and pattern visit. The lady was nice so we chatted with her for a few minutes. It was getting warm and we had our air conditioning on the highest setting it would go.

I put the coordinates in for the first one along the Ellen Davis Trail. I saw this line of letterboxes on the map when I was writing down caches to grab and I wanted to get them. We followed Nuvi's directions to the Minnehaha part of Vancouver and saw where the trail began. I thought there would be another place to enter but we had to turn around and park along the side of the road. I told everyone before we got out to grab important things and throw them in my back pack. Off down the trail we went. It was nice to walk around after sitting in the Escape for most of the day so far.

The first cache on the trail was Ellen Davis: BUCK (GC5CDJ3). We read the hint because this was a pretty green area and the container could be anywhere once we started looking for it. Luckily, it only took us a few minutes to find it. It was behind a small stump hidden by some of the brush. I was hoping that they all were going to be pretty easy to find.

On the way to Ellen Davis Trail: "DYNO" MITE (GC5BY4X) we walked past a guy and his daughter. She was gathering bugs and plants in her little container. It was nice to see a kid wandering around the trails with her dad instead of sitting inside on the computer, TV or video game. This cache took us a little bit of time to find because we couldn't locate the "twins" that was noted in the hint. There were a lot of possible "twins" so we fanned out and looked. We checked one more spot that barely qualified as "twins" and we actually had to leave the trail a little bit into the brush. There, we found the letterbox cache we were looking for. I threw the container to Bev to sign and she threw it back for me to hide.

We continued walking the next one, Ellen Davis Trail: Hear Me Roar! (GC5BY5Q) and we all noticed an orange cat up in one of the trees. I thought it was ironic we were going to a cache with roar in it and we found a cat in a tree. He looked like he wanted to come down but was hesitant to. We really hoped that he eventually got out and went back home to his family who was probably missing him. This cache was in the brush hidden amongst a pile of sawed off tree limbs. It made it really hard to walk through here because you couldn't see all of the limbs. We got our names on it and put it back.

The next one, Ellen Davis Trail: Curious George (GC5BY60) was at the top of a small hill. To prevent erosion, someone had put like a cobblestone path down on the trail. I went to take a picture of Mom and Bev and almost fell off the side of the trail. Luckily, I caught myself. No one has time for a rolled ankle! Anyway, the cache was tucked behind a set of trees. I had to find a way down there without falling down the hill.

The last one we were going to, Ellen Davis Trail: ALIEN (GC5C2AH) took us forever to find because we were in the wrong spot. The powerlines definitely affected the GPS and where we searched. We left the initial spot and checked a spot further up the trail and what do you know? We found it instantly. So dumb. The last one of the series, Ellen Davis Trail: we chose not to look for because other cachers have noted in their logs that the cache was hidden in the sticker bushes and this time of year those spots are very overgrown which resulted in many of them with DNF's.

We turned around and walked back down the trail to the Escape. We plugged in the address for the last quilt store, Fiddle Sticks. I can tell you that I do remember coming here with Mom but it's been many years ago. It takes us down I-205 and we get off on the wrong exit and had to back track but Nuvi helped us out. We got to the complex with the quilt store and Bev stayed in the Escape with the air conditioning on. Mom and I went in, got our free block pattern and our stamp. The lady admired that we've been to a lot of places and told us that we had enough to put in the drawing and gave us some new ones. I told Mom that wouldn't it be cool if we won that drawing? We probably won't though.

We got back into the Escape and realized we were going to be late to the WSGA-SW Meet and Greet (GC9B11W) but it was okay. We meandered our way onto Hwy 503 and painstakingly drove north through all the traffic lights, through Battle Ground and finally made our turn into the Lewisville Park. Bev provided the $3 entry fee and we drove to the end of the road, found a place to park and walked down to where they had the table all set up. They had me pull out two cards for a mini version of a poker run and I actually got some good cards and ended up with a new trackable.

We signed the logbook, chatted with the The SuperKnotts (I follow them on Instagram) for a while, wandered down to the river, came back and talked to Harvey's Pack for a little bit. Our phones didn't work very well inside the park so we decided we didn't really need the rest of the caches inside the park (we've been here several times over the years) or the Adventure Lab caches so we walked back to the Escape and left. We were there for about an hour on a really nice, hot day.

We drove back into Battle Ground and we all decided to stop at the Fred Meyer to use the restroom and wander around the air conditioning for a bit. Mom ended up buying some new dinner plates and a tub of black licorice for Dad. Bev went to go see if they had any good puzzles. Mom paid for her stuff, we found Bev and got back in the Escape. I had a few more caches I wanted to get while we were down here.

The one that's been on my list for a long time was called Excalibur (GC66A7X). It has been found over 400 times and has over 260 favorite points since November 2015. I've heard people talking about this one over the years but we always managed to not have the time to go and grab it. I've been down to Vancouver/Battle Ground quite a few times over the years but never remember to grab this one. I changed that today. I didn't realize it was in a cacher's yard. I always thought it was on a cacher's property but not in their literal yard. We found a place to park, we got out and walked to the sword in the stone. Mom and Bev had me do it. With a series of twists and turns, I managed to pull the sword out of the stone! Victorious! The container was screwed into the tip of the sword and wrote our names on the logbook. We got a few photos and we put it back for the next set of geocachers. I definitely gave that one another favorite point.

When I was writing caches down, I made sure I was looking for ones that were going to be memorable and had lots of favorite points. Another one I saw that had a lot of favorite points was Pinball Wizard (GC5RCB5). I knew it was going to be similar to the one Mom and I found in Salem, Oregon a few years ago. I put the coordinates into Nuvi and she directed us to the west side of I-5 near a Birkenstock shoe store that was gated off. We found a place to park, we got out and saw the pipe. I had Bev pull the lever so the cache would pop out of the top. Similar to a pinball machine. We thought that was so fun we did it a few more times just because. I even took a few videos of us.

The next cache, You Blockhead! (GC59QCX) was within the same complex of buildings just down the road. It was along the side of a Rodda Paint store. It was weird there was a car back here just chilling. We ignored it and found the cache that looked like a Lego head. From the title, I thought it was going to be Peanuts related. I was wrong! We got it signed and put back.

The next few caches were bonus finds. I did not have these on my list but they were alongside the road we were going to be on so we said, sure, let's get these too!

The first one was called In Memoriam (GC7QT7J) and it was literally on the side of the road. We had to pull over as far as we could on the side of the road and hopefully no one will come. Of course, there were a few cars that drove past. Mom stayed in the Escape while Bev and I got out and found the bison tube. We signed our names and put the cache back together. We piled into the Escape and made our way down the road to the next one.

T&A Overpass Two (GC4AW13) was an interesting stop. First, we pulled over near the overpass in a wide open spot off the side of the road. Bev and I got out and Mom stayed in the Escape. Then, we followed our GPS to its location. We walked past several dead chickens someone had discarded. Some looked freshly dead and the others looked like they've been there for a while. It stunk so bad. It took us to a wooded area so we thought it might be in there. I went in there looking for something unusual but saw nothing. Bev hollered at me to come over to where she was because she saw something that could be the cache. It was a hole in the ground covered up by a lid that was deteriorating from the elements. We took the container out and signed our names. We walked back to the Escape and the stench of dead chickens permeated my nostrils.

We drove further north up the side road to the Cache and Dash Series (GC959WX), There were nine of them and an extra one in the mix called Evil Little Hide #2 (GC959W3) which was a carefully placed stump with the cache inside of it. It would probably "stump" newbie cachers. Anyway, all of the Cache and Dash containers were placed inside of guardrails. Some of them were really easy and some of them took us a couple minutes to locate because they weren't hidden in the typical spots inside of guardrails. One we almost walked away from because we couldn't find it. We did check one more spot and there it was. Between all of us we got this series done pretty quickly. We were motivated to finish because we were getting hungry.

Since we were down by Ridgefield, we had to go have dinner at Papa Pete's Pizza. We were hoping that they were open for eating inside because the Covid restrictions had been lifted. We didn't get to eat inside but we were able to go in and order it. They told us they would bring it to us outside in the parking lot. We waited the 20 minutes in the Escape and some kid brought it out to us. He didn't give us plates or napkins. Lame. We had to be creative. We drove across the street to the RV park and sat at one of the picnic tables. We ate our pizza and drank our Pepsi's from the cooler. It sure hit the spot.

On the way home we stopped in Woodland and went to the Safeway so people could use the bathroom. I grabbed Gotta Do the Pee Pee Dance (GC7HY19) out of one of the lamp skirts in the parking lot. It was a quick grab and no one saw me.