When we went to Papa Pete's last month, Bev was so happy to go somewhere other than the same places Bob takes her to when they leave the house. Since her birthday was coming up, I asked her what she was doing on the day of her birthday. She said she had no plans because her family was taking her out the Saturday before. They were going on vacation during her birthday. I told her if she didn't have plans I would take her out for pizza in Centralia. She said she had to see what Bob was gonna do.
She did get back to me and she said she would be ready to go by 11 a.m. I told her I would pick her up around that time. She said that would be great. I asked Mom if she wanted to go with us and she said sure. I told her I would be by before 11:00 to get her and then we would pick up Bev.
I woke up around 9:45 and got ready for my day. Bev texted me that Bob took her out to breakfast at the Sandstone Café in Tenino so she wasn't going to be hungry until later. I said, we could do the caching and the Lab Adventure first and then have pizza. She liked that idea so that's what we went with.
I packed up paper plates, napkins, a couple of Pepsi's and a card. I made sure it got in the Escape and left the house by about 10:15ish. It took about 20 minutes to get to Rainier. Mom was ready and she hopped in the car and then we went to go get Bev. Bev was ready to go and Bob was working in the flower beds. He told her to have fun and that he would see her later.
I decided to go to Centralia through Tenino and Bucoda. As we were driving through Bucoda, we had to stop for a bunch of dogs wandering down the road and we saw no owner in sight or no one in their vehicle searching for them. I hope none of the dogs get ran over and their owner finds them soon.
I had two places I wanted to stop while we were down here. Last spring, Ben and I came down to do some geocaching because we were bored at home during the stupid pandemic. I had a few on our list that we wanted to find. Unfortunately, we didn't find three of them and it sucked because I hate coming back to these places twice. Two of them were actually missing once we logged a DNF and the other one the cache owner claims was there. It was an easy guard rail and we couldn't find it unless another cacher didn't put it back correctly. Oh well, we had a good time anyway. Today, I was determined to find the three and avenge the DNF's.
The first stop was at RED SKULL (GC5FJET) which was the supposed easy guardrail cache that Ben and I missed several months before. When I got to the area, Bev did remember kinda being here with Bob but it was many years ago and she said she can't remember all of them. I turned around at the dead end area and positioned the Escape to where the coords were indicating. I literally got out, while Mom and Bev sat in the Escape, and walked right to it. I told Bev that this is literally where Ben and I looked and we couldn't find it. I don't understand why or how we missed it the first time. Oh well, we found it now. I got our names on it, got a photo and put it back. I hopped back into the Escape and we were on our way to the second one.
We got back onto Hwy 507 and then got onto Big Hanaford Road and then took the other side of Halliday Road this time to WILL B. BACK (GC5EFNJ). The parking was the trickiest part of this cache as it was last time I was here with Ben. Mom stayed in the Escape, Bev got out for a picture and I searched for the cache. I checked the green box, as I did last time and it was gone, but this time it was there. I made sure to put this cache on my watch list so I knew when the cache owner replaced it. I signed our names and put it back for the next cacher.
I had Bev put the Adventure Lab on her phone so she could direct us as close as we could to the first waypoint of the adventure. We parked in one of those free parking areas near down town. We made sure we had everything we needed since most of the waypoints were within walking distance. The first place we walked to was the train station. We didn't have to go inside because we ran into a lady who worked there and she counted the seats for us. Then we chatted for a few minutes and we all went on our way.
The second waypoint took us to the Fox Theater where we had count the lights under the marquee. Between the three of us we counted the right amount and entered it into our phone app. We got it correct!
We walked a couple blocks to the old antique mall, which houses Berry Fields Café, The Branch Bar and a hotel upstairs. I've been into the antique store part of the mall and to Berry Field's once with a group of friends (life has changed so much since that moment in 2019). We had to find a date on the side of the building. Pretty easy. Bev started to get the hang of the Adventure Lab app and how to enter in the code we needed at each site.
The next waypoint was next door at the historical post office. We had forgotten the post office was closed on federal holidays, which they were observing the 4th of July on the 5th. We were very happy the doors were open to those who wanted to pick up or drop off their mail without having to see the front counter clerk. It took us a while to find the right PO Box number we needed for our app. We finally found it and we rejoiced!
Onto the last waypoint, which was across the street at the creepy George Washington Park. This is where the homeless people hang out. I try not to come here but we had to get a short phrase off of one of the stone plaques inside the park. We walked through the spot and found what we needed. There were many homeless people hanging out doing whatever they do. We ignored them and they ignored us.
I plugged the numbers we gathered for a set of final coordinates to the bonus cache, Hub City - Historical Centralia Bonus Cache (GC93QMZ). Once I got the new coords into the caching app, I told Mom and Bev we had to walk back to the Escape because this was like almost a mile away. So that's just what we did.
The bonus cache took us to an abandoned Mexican restaurant. I didn't feel bad about parking in their lot out front since no one was around. I saw the metal sign and the hole. The hint said the cache was magnetic so the most logical place was inside the hole. I really didn't want to stick my hands inside because you never know if you're going to get bit, stung or stabbed. Luckily, I saw the bottom of the hide-a-key so we didn't have to jam our hand in there. We signed our names and put it back.
From there, we drove to Papa Pete's and was disappointed the restaurant still wasn't open for indoor seating yet. They are severely understaffed and it's because people would rather sit on their butt and get paid by the government rather than working. They need to stop paying these people for being lazy. I've worked the entire time through Covid. So, we went through the drive thru, ordered it, then sat in the parking lot for 20 minutes until someone brought it out for us. Luckily, I planned ahead so we could just go eat it inside of Fort Borst Park.
We drove over to the park and had to wait for some stupid traffic because I-5 was starting to back up due to holiday traffic. I am glad there is a back way to get home because we may need it after we were done eating. We found a lone picnic table near our parking spot. We grabbed our stuff and sat down and ate. We talked about various things while we ate and when we were done I gave Bev her birthday card. It was a good time and I know Bev is stuffed.
We decided that the third DNF I wanted to avenge would have to wait for another time and drove back home through Bucoda because I-5 got worse. I dropped Bev off and she mentioned that Mike and Christina were going to take her out to Outback for dinner. She said she hopes she was hungry by then. I told her good luck getting into the place because for Ben's birthday, back in February, we had a heck of a time getting in so we ended up going somewhere else. She thanked us for taking her out for pizza and caches for her birthday. I told her she was welcome. I dropped Mom off and then went into Yelm to exchange stuff at the Walmart...apparently I got the wrong size. Then I went home.
Ben intercepted me and told me we were going over to the neighbor's house across the street for 4th of July leftovers. I told him I wasn't super hungry but I will eat something. We ate, visited and talked about Covid and teachers (since both, our neighbor and her friend were teachers). We spent two hours over there, we helped them put their decorations and tables away, she sent us home with a ton of leftovers along with desserts and we thanked them for inviting us over.
We came home, cleaned, vacuumed, showered, did the dishes and worked on my blog. Then we got ready for the work week. Three day weekends aren't long enough.
Next Adventure: Kayaking on McIntosh Lake and Two Caches
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