Ben had a day off and it was suppose to be nice and we had nothing planned so I suggested to Ben if he wanted to do more kayaking and he said yeah, sounds like fun. We chose to do Lake St Clair again because it was close, there were still a bunch of caches left to go get and we invited Josh, Heather and Lilly over for dinner later.
I got up around 9:30 and got ready for the day. I ended up cleaning the bathroom just because we were having people over and it needed to be spiffed up especially if we were going to have company over later. I went to Costco the day before with Mom and I still had to put some of the stuff away including our blueberry muffins we get every once and a while.
Ben got up and ate some cereal and I had one of the blueberry muffins for breakfast. Ben tried to meet up with a guy on OfferUp for a speaker Ben was selling but he flaked out on us so Ben blocked him. It was a guy from the Rochester area and we were trying to get him to meet us in Rainier after we got rid of the recycle and filled up water jugs at my parent's house.
We loaded up the recycle into the Escape and headed into Rainier. We drove by the school just to see if the guy did manage to read the message Ben sent about the speaker but he did not the both times we drove by. We drove back home, put the kayaks on the Escape, got ready, packed up snacks, towels, our shoes and off we went. I had no idea how long it was going to take to do the caches I had on my list for today.
Joy (Ohjoy!) had a group of people on Friday check up on her caches since they wanted to come out to Lake St Clair. She gave them an assortment of containers, logbooks and baggies. Some of the caches were changed out, fixed or replaced entirely and the others they said were in pretty good shape. It's just no one wanted to come out this way, paddle out to the coordinates and find nothing so no one found these in a while. I don't blame them. This is why I haven't been out to do paddle caches for years. I didn't want to come up without a find.
We got to the public boat launch and it was busy! No parking spots available. We drove down into a truck and trailer spot just to take the kayaks off the Escape...I wasn't going to be a douche and take a spot for a truck and trailer. I helped Ben take them towards the lake. We grabbed the stuff we would need, sprayed Ben down with sunscreen and I told him I would try to find a spot above along the road. I found a spot in the shade, parked as far off the road as I could, locked up and met Ben down by the boat launch.
We shoved off and told Ben we were heading to the northwest part of the lake this time. I told Ben we were going to go underneath the trestle and pointed to where we were going because you can see the trestle over the lake from the boat launch. I told him the first cache, Procrastination I - Leading to Memories (GC78DEA) was by the trestle. I wasn't sure how it was hidden since it was missing and replaced by some of Joy's friends on Friday. We will be the first people to find it after its replacement. We paddled up as close as we could and Ben got out of his kayak because the water was very low. He reached up and grabbed it. He signed our names and put it back. He got back into his kayak and we had to wait for some boats before we could pass under the trestle.
We got through and passed many houses with people enjoying their day on the lake. There were a lot of boats in this area because this was the main part of the lake and jet boats were allowed to be out here at full capacity so we had to be careful with the wakes they produced. We tried staying away from them and close-ish to the shoreline. We had our sights set on Eeyore's Mini-Jasmer Challenge - a Paddling Cache (GC3TBQM) which was northwest of where we were currently. I had to make sure I qualified for this cache before I came out here to grab it. This cache was also checked up on last Friday so we knew it was here. We paddled around because we didn't quite understand the hint. Ben checked over by the tied down log with rope on it and he said nothing was here when he looked. So we checked the giant downed tree limb, which has been here in for a while because it was sun-bleached. We checked there feverishly. I even got out of my kayak to check the shoreline near the tree branch. Nothing. There were so many boats circling the lake that caused many wakes and when I was on the shoreline holding my kayak a bunch of water got inside of it. My butt's gonna be wet and soggy now. Lame. I got back in and paddled out of the tree branch and over to where Ben was searching. This cache has got to be here. It was replaced on Friday, three days ago. I went over there and looked amongst the rope and found it. I told Ben, you're really bad at looking. He said, I didn't see it. I said back to him, did you actually use your hands to feel or move the ropes? He said, no. I replied with, oh...well, there you go, we could have been done with this like ten minutes ago. We signed our names and moved onto the next one.
The next cache, 100 Earthcaches Challenge - a Paddling Cache (GC4NEFJ) was to the northwest of us around the next finger of the lake. We paddled along the shoreline and saw the Madrona trees poking out of the bank hanging over the lake. This area was familiar to me. I knew Bob and I have been here doing a multicache many years ago. We floated past them to see if we could see something hanging from the branches that I could have Ben sign. We didn't see anything so we moved onto the cache we paddled over here for.
We kayaked past a few guys coming out of the swampy lake area. Ben thought they were geocachers but they weren't. They were just exploring the lake and haven't been out to this part before. We continued around and a lot of the land around it was raw land. No houses, no nothing. There weren't any no trespassing signs either so we thought this was just lake shoreline. As we got closer, there was no place to get out of your kayak without getting knee-deep muddy. I found a place near some logs, parked the kayak and got out with my paddle. I used the logs as a bridge so I didn't have to step in the mud.
I got onto the solid ground and my GPS was leading me astray up the hill. Then I heard some dogs come down and they started barking at me. I told them to go home and waved my oar at them. They kept their distance. I thought this can't be the right way to the cache and went back down towards the shoreline and walked along there until the GPS started going down I saw the maple tree indicated in the hint. The dogs came back and barked at me some more. I found the cache, quickly wrote our names on it, put it back and got the heck out of there. The dogs went away.
I got back in the kayak and had a hard time getting away from the logs and debris in the lake. Ben had to come pull some of the stuff away so I could get out. I was ready to get out of there before the owner of the dogs came down and threatened us with a gun or something. We got out of there finally and paddled back to the finger part of the lake. The owner walked down with his dogs to his dock and stood there watching us. Ben said something to him about his dogs and he said something back like, you're on their land. I told Ben he should have kept his mouth shut. The guy had the audacity to take our picture with his cell phone. There weren't any no trespassing signs or beware of dog signs so the guy had no case if he pursued anything.
We got back to the main part of the lake and there were still a bunch of boats circling the area with inner tubes attached. I looked at the time and we didn't have a ton of time to get the other ones just south of here so we went to go get the one in the other section of lake near the boat launch and to fix the one I've already gotten but Ben didn't have since I had the replacement cache with me.
We paddled towards Happy Father's Day (GC7R080) where I had Ben reach for it because the pipe poking out of the water was too tall for me to reach it. He signed our names, put it back and there is where we decided to have our snack for a few minutes while we drifted.
I told Ben there was one more, There are Things I Can't Resist (GC4G0BZ) we had to go find. I found this one a few years ago when I came out here by myself one afternoon. Ben was the first one to sign the replacement log. We paddled out to the north of the lake near one of the other fingers or coves. There was really only one place it could be with the stump sticking out of the lake. We got closer and start inspecting it to make sure the previous container was indeed missing. It was missing so we got our the replacement, had Ben sign his name and the date and we found a good place on the stump to re-hide it. We tied it to the top so it wasn't submerged in the lake and covered it with bark pieces. We called it good and made our way back to the boat launch.
We got back to the boat launch and it was still super busy. We pulled the kayaks out of the water and set them on the grassy area. I went to go get the Escape and parked it out of the way so we could load them back up. I dumped so much water out of the bottom of my kayak. I was basically soggy from the waist down when I got out of the kayak. So glad we brought towels to sit on. We got them strapped back on and secured.
We got in and I realized it was July 11th. I asked Ben if he wanted to go to 7-Eleven for a free slurpee. He said yes!
We got gas at the Arco nearby, cleaned off my windshield because it was bothering Ben and Dad because it was so dirty. We got home, unloaded the kayaks, rinsed them off and let them dry off in the front yard.
We went inside and started getting dinner ready before the Pablo's got there. I did have to run to the store really quick to get more chips and a tomato. We had chicken burgers, short ribs (Pablo's brought those) the rest of the hotdogs, beans, salads (Pablo's brought) corn on the cob and a couple different desserts (Pablo's brought.) The food was delicious. Josh accidently broke Ben's chair when we were sitting in the back yard. They went into the house to iron on Ben's Bastard patch on his vest. We ate dessert and chatted for a bit in the yard...you know enjoying the nice warm evening. They had to go home because Heather had to work the next day.
Ben and I hung the kayaks back up on the rafters, cleaned up the kitchen, got ourselves cleaned up, logged caches, worked on blog, got ready for the upcoming work week and eventually got ready for bed.
Next Adventure: Tenino Pioneer Days and Our First Game Night Since Covid Started
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