Maris Farms, Tacos and Pumpkin Carving

Ben and I were talking a few weeks back and came to the conclusion we haven't been to Maris Farms in a while, and we haven't hung out with his family in quite some time either.  It's been since the middle of August since we hung out with his mom and sister.  I called Trish and asked if she would be interested in going to the pumpkin patch, eat food and carve pumpkins and she said she was.  We ended up choosing Sunday, October 24 because it was the only day open, with Ben's fire shift schedule, before Halloween and month's end.  She said that date would be fine, and we included Amy, Ed and Jean.  We just had to hope for decent weather.

A few days before, we discussed what we wanted to make for dinner, and we chose tacos because it was quick, easy and they're delicious.  No one hates tacos.

Ben was on a 24-hour shift the night before and I tried to help Doug get his life in order by going to the dump and helping back some of his stuff.  I stayed up way too late cleaning, moving stuff and doing laundry because we wouldn't be home Sunday to do anything at home.  I got all the food I was responsible for and stuff ready in a couple bags the night before, except for the guacamole, which needed to stay refrigerated.  

I woke up around 8:15 a.m. and started getting ready and Ben arrived home shortly after.  He got his stuff ready but is always slow when he gets ready.  It drives me crazy.  I packed the Escape, because it was my turn to drive, and we didn't leave until after 9:30 a.m.  I took some yogurt and grapes with me to eat for breakfast.

It didn't take us long to get there since it was Sunday morning and people were still sleeping off whatever they did the night before.  We called Trish to see if she needed anything and she said maybe some more lettuce?  We took note of that and stopped by the Dollar Tree for some pumpkin supplies.  I bought some Sharpies and glow sticks.  I didn't want to ruin Trish's Sharpies and I wasn't sure if she had any candles, but glow sticks seemed like a good idea.  We also had some time to stop by the Fred Meyer, so we picked up a pumpkin carving kit, because I forgot to grab mine out of the garage, some more lettuce and a drink for Ben.  I walked over to the sports stuff and found a Halloween Cougar decoration that was on sale for $8 instead of its original price of $25.  I bought it because it was a screaming deal.

We got to the house and unloaded our stuff, got ready to go and took two vehicles to Maris Farms, just a few miles from the house towards Buckley.  Jean rode with Ben and I and we got to the farm and found a place to park.  We wondered why Trish, Amy and Ed weren't behind us, so we waited for them to arrive.  They finally pulled up beside us and they got out.  Trish goes, funny thing happened...at the light we just looked for a blue Escape like yours and ended up following another person into a gas station.  We all just laughed at her.

We grabbed our jackets and boots and headed to the entrance so we could get in line to get in.  Ben had bought tickets for us a few days ago so he just had to show the receipt to the ticket takers.  We didn't have to wait in line that long which was nice.  We could start our visit before the inevitable rain showed up.  

We got a family picture and then did the corn maze since that was the part of our visit that would probably take the longest.  

We broke up into two teams.  Ed, Ben and I were a team and Amy, Trish and Jean were a team.  We did sports trivia, and they did movie trivia.  We were neck and neck for a while and then Amy wasn't being a very good team leader and tried piggy backing on us.  We told her to go find her team and not leave them behind.  She pouted but she did go back and find her team.  Meanwhile, Ed, Ben and I pulled out the win and waited for them at the finish, which doubled as the start.  We made fun of them when they finally did cross the finish line, mostly Amy though.

Then, we tried our skills at the zipline.  We even talked Trish into doing it and I told her I would do it with her if she did.  We stood in line and once we got to the front, I let Trish go first.  She should have been paying attention.  It went well until she tried to dismount.  She fell off the end of it, her pants got dirty and she pulled some skin off of her hand.  She was fine but mostly embarrassed because she did that in front of all of us.  I took my turn and demonstrated what she should have done.  

We played the wooden ball games and then Ed and Ben played human foosball with some kids while I went on the slide.  I walked back up the hill and Jean and Trish did as well.  We chatted for a bit, and I asked Trish and Jean if they wanted to do bubbles and then I saw the tricycles and called Ben to come race me.  But when he finally came up the hill a slew of kids bombarded and took all the trikes.  We had to wait.  Once they were available, none of the trikes worked very well so we decided not to race after all. 

It was almost time for the duck races, so we walked over to where we thought they were going to have them and turns out, we were wrong.  We got up and walked to the correct place and found a spot to stand.  The ducks were announced, and the race was on as soon as they pulled the plank up.  They swam through the lower level, ran up the ramp and then raced by foot down the track to the finish line.  The workers had to whack the side of the pen to get them to go sometimes.  Quackie Chan won.  They returned the ducks to their pen, and we walked around the farm for a little bit longer.  The rain was staying away for the time being.

Ben decided he wanted to ride the bull, so we found a place to sit, while he filled out the consent form (just in case he got hurt, they weren't liable) and waited his turn.  Ben got on the bull, got set up and they turned it on.  He managed to stay on for 32 seconds before he fell off.  We cheered for him because he beat most of the people's time that were in line before him.  We got a video of it.

It started getting cooler and the wind picked up a bit.  We all decided it was time to go pick out our pumpkins.  We grabbed a wheelbarrow and went searching.  I found a good one right away, but I wanted another one as well just in case we needed it.  As it approached 2:00, Jean wanted to go watch the candy cannon.  I walked over with her while Ben, Trish, Ed and Amy continued looking for their pumpkins.  The candy canon went off promptly at 2 and the wind blew it away from where everyone staged themselves.  Jean and I laughed at the herd of kids running to the candy.

Jean walked back up to the main entrance while I met up with everyone in the pumpkin patch.  I picked out one more and had to get after Amy to pick one.  She didn't want to, but we forced her to.  We told her we were doing something as a family and making memories.  She was being a Debbie downer for some reason.  Almost like she was punishing herself for having fun and living her life.  We paid for our pumpkins and took them to our vehicles but couldn't remember what row we parked in, lol.

As soon as we got everything loaded up and Ben took the wheelbarrow back, that is when the rain started.  It waited until we were done!  Thank you, rain!  I really though the rain was going to ruin our good time at the farm.  It was perfect timing.

We headed back to Trish's house, unloaded the pumpkins and went inside.  I asked everyone if we should start making food and everyone agreed.  Trish and I started making the meat and cutting up everything for tacos.  The weather got really bad, very windy and the rain was pounding down.  We got the meat on the stove, and I was so thankful Trish had a gas stove so we could continue to cook while the power went on and off like five or six different times.  I cut the lettuce, tomato, onion and tried cooking the rice in the microwave and had to try two different times.  We got everything ready, and people dished up.

I was hungry so I inhaled my food.  We cleaned up, put stuff away and brought in the pumpkins to get ready to carve.  Jean decided it was time to head home so she could make decent time and try to get home before it got dark.  We thanked her for coming and we hope she had a great time.  We staged the table with our pumpkins, knives, carving tools and bowls.  I knew I wanted to do a face but what kind of face?  I found one I sort of liked in one of the many carving books they had and away I went.

Ben free handed his, Trish did a page out of a book, Ed free carved a face and Amy carved her feelings into her pumpkin.  We activated all the glow sticks I brought and put them inside all the pumpkins once they were done.  We placed them on the edge of the table with all the lights off and got some photos.  It wasn't quite dark enough to put them on the porch yet, since we haven't had to turn our clocks back an hour.

Ben and I got ready to go after we helped Trish clean up the table.  We thanked Trish for a nice day and loaded up the Escape.  I stopped by Krissy's house to drop off some McDonald's toys I promised her about a month ago.  I met her through Brandon and his roommate Alan back when we were at WSU and have been Facebook friends ever since.  She and her family love Disney and I had some toys they needed to finish their collection.  It was a quick chat and she thanked me for bringing them by.  She handed me a thank you card, and I hopped back in the Escape.  Ben and I drove through town, which was a mistake, but I needed to get some gas before we went home.  The power was out in half of Bonney Lake.  It took us a while to get through town because people don't know what a foour-way stop is and how to navigate it.  

We finally got down the hill into Sumner and away from all the congestion.  I pulled off of Hwy 410 and went to the gas station by the Winco.  We filled up and got back onto 410, then 512 and finally onto I-5.  We got home just as the Colts and 49ers game got finished.  We unloaded our stuff, Ben got ready for work the next day and I watched some Sportscenter, blogged and then we got ready for bed shortly after.  It was a fun weekend making memories with family.

Next Adventure:  My Birthday Weekend

Mom's Birthday Weekend: Geocaching, Washtucna, Bus and Palouse Falls

The next morning, I had set my alarm for 7:00 a.m. but didn't actually get up until about 7:40. Mom got up before me so she could get in a shower.  While she was in the shower, I got dressed and got my stuff all packed up in my duffel bag.  When Mom was done in the bathroom, I washed my face and gathered all of my bathroom stuff to put away.  I started taking our stuff down to the Expedition and had to take it in a couple trips.  It was pretty cold outside.  Mom finished getting ready and packing up her bags so I could take then downstairs to the Expedition.  We both took the rest of the stuff down and then decided to walk back up one more time just to check one more time, so we didn't leave anything behind. 

We went to the hotel lobby and got some breakfast.  They had a pretty good spread of food.  Of course, most breakfasts are loaded in carbs so I had to pick and choose what I ate.  I took a blueberry muffin (one of the Costco ones) and split it with Mom and I had my own yogurt I bought from Walmart the day before, so I ate that with it.  I had some orange juice with it and chatted with a lady who packed up her house in Florida and drove across the country to Washington.  She was going to see her daughter in Seattle.   

We finished our food, Mom got some ice, we checked out and headed out to the Expedition to start our adventure.  We stopped at the gas station across the street to top off and noticed L&I Moses Lake was across the road.  I took a picture and sent it to my co-workers.  

We got onto I-90 for a short distance and got off on Hwy 17 and headed south towards Othello.  I've been on this road a few times over the years, so I knew where it went.  

Mom wanted to stop at the Walmart in Othello to get some lysine and windshield fluid so it would stop beeping at us.  We missed the road and had to turn around.  We followed the road to the Walmart, parked and were in and out quickly.  I didn't realize Walmart was on the outskirt of town.  We got back onto Hwy 17, went a few miles and made a left turn onto SR 260.  I pulled over immediately in the open spot on the side of the road to find our first cache, Social Distancing in Franklin County (GC8PECF) which was a nut container hidden in some sage brush.  I hurried because there was a nearby utility worker working on one of the power grid stations and I didn't want him to ask me what I was doing.

We got back on the highway and followed it until we got to Connell, a small down along Hwy 395.  I've only been here one other time many years ago, when I was in college, to watch Naches play Connell in a basketball playoff game.  This is when Willmarth coached the Rangers.  I didn't need a cache here but we stopped anyway because the one I picked had over fifty favorite points.  I figured with that many points in a tiny town it should be a good one.

Wiild Life of Connell - Farmers and Bankers (GC2WCPP) was totally worth stopping for because it was adorable.  It was a nano cache hidden underneath the table of statues of animals.  We've seen these types of animals before when we were in Spokane.  Mom thought it was cool and we got our names onto the logbook and took a couple pictures.  

The weather was starting to warm up.

We got back on the highway and headed east towards Kahlotus, a town I needed for the towns and cities challenge I've been working on since I started geocaching, which is going on 11 years and counting.  While I was in college, at WSU, I noticed the signs on Hwy 26 that told me that the town of Kahlotus was nearby but never needed to go there.  Today, that would change. 

I knew this was the middle of nowhere, but this was the middle of nowhere once we finally arrived in the tiny town.  We parked near the cache that we had on my phone, got out and thought it was at the tiny library, which was adorable, but instead it was at the town's small jail.  

The cache, PSSST...The Jailer is Sleeping, Pass Me the Key (GC2BTEX), was a hide-a-key stuck to the back of one of the window frames.  It blended in well.  We signed the log and put it back.  Of course, we took pictures.  

We walked around a little bit and then got back in the Expedition to continue on our adventure.  We drove near by the high school, which I was surprised they had a high school because this town is so tiny, but I liked their Wylie E. Coyote mural, but they are known as the Kahlotus Koyotes.  Yes, that is how they spell that.

Before we left town, I had to stop and get the Welcome to Kahlotus (GC29F5P).  We had to be creative in how we pulled off the road since there wasn't that much of a pull out.  It was very deceiving of where it actually was.  I thought, probably like many others, that it was near the sign.  Nope, it was about 30 feet from the sign hidden in some sage brush.  The cache had also seen better days since it was so beat up.  I got our names on it and hid it a little better than I found it in the sage brush.

We pulled out of the awkward pull out on onto the highway.  Thankfully, this road wasn't that busy or we would have had a tough time backing out.  We drive out of town and Mom notices this really cool barn on the side of the highway.  I stopped in a driveway, she got out and started walking, so she could get a picture of it.  We had to walk along the side of the road to see it.  I parked the Expedition, grabbed Mom's good camera and both lenses and followed her down the road.  A powerline was in the way, so I tried to get up on top of the guardrail post and it moved.  I fell and scrapped my left shin.  It stung and left a mark and a deep bruise.  I have never had one move on me before, so it was a surprise.  I found one that didn't move and got a shot of the barn for her.  

We were there for a few minutes and a couple cars drove by while we were there.  I checked my phone to see if there was a cache nearby since we were here and there was one at the other end of the guardrail on the opposite side of the road.  I walked over to WACOTA (GC64XQZ) while Mom went back to the Expedition.  I found it on the very sad fence rather than the guardrail.  I signed our names and walked back to the Expedition.  

We followed that road all the way up to Washtucna and then drove across Hwy 26.  I thought it would be busier since the football game was in Pullman that afternoon.  It was kinda weird being over here again.  I think the last time I was out this way was before I started dating Ben, which was almost eight years ago!  Yikes!  I need to come over here more often.  There's nothing here really but I miss it and brings back happy memories of college.

We saw the bus and turned into the designated driveway.  We parked, grabbed our phones, camera and my Coug bucket of spray paint and started making graffiti art.  We took a bunch of pictures.

I honestly thought we would be the only people there but a guy in a truck arrived about fifteen minutes after we got there.  He talked to us but mostly kept to himself.  He had us take a few pictures and some short videos of him with the bus and his guitar with his phone.  We were happy to do it.  He drove down from Spokane to meet up with a lady who lives in Washtucna.

We were there for about an hour, spray painting, taking pictures and looking for That NW Bus (GC82WVJ).  It was hidden inside the bus, in a hole near the windows and ceiling.  I signed our names on it and hid it back where I found it.  

I had a can of spray paint with me, so I continued spraying random things inside the bus like, Val Wuz Here, Go Cougs, a cartoon kitty and a duck.  

We stayed for maybe another ten minutes before it was time to move onto Palouse Falls.  The guy thanked us again for the photos and conversation, we put our stuff away and got some snacks out to eat before we left the parking lot.

I ate my blueberry bagel, applesauce and Fritos and watched the lady, he was waiting for, pull up in her car.  She got out, the embraced and started chatting.  I hope she is what he was looking for.  We pulled out of the driveway, drove across Hwy 26, and stopped to take a picture of the Washtucna sign, and pulled over so Mom could get a picture of the old post office.

We drove down the highway and turned off to take route 261 towards Palouse Falls.  We stopped at the turn off to grab that cache that was there, SPERRY (GC64XRG).  It took me a while to find it and I was pretty embarrassed.  The coords didn't want to settle down and the hint was kinda confusing.  

I hopped back into the Expedition and down the road we went.  We reminisced about the last time we came to the falls, which was back in August 2003, when Mom and Dad took me back to school for the year.  They stayed for the weekend and then we drove over to enjoy Palouse Falls for the first time.  Since then, life has been pretty busy, and I've never been there since until this weekend.  

We pulled off on the side of the road to get an easy earthcache, Armada of Hills (GC6M80D) and answered all of the questions.  I got a couple photos for reference when I log them at home.  

We continued on to the Palouse Falls State Park turn off.  It was a gravel road all the way to the parking lot.  I had renewed my Discover Pass the day before, since it expired in September, so I had my temporary printed one in the window until I received my permanent one in the mail.  

We found a place to park, grabbed the stuff we would need, used the restroom and explored the area at the waterfall lookout.  There were three caches here I didn't have yet.  Mom enjoyed the view of the waterfall while I started working on the earthcache, Palouse Falls (GC6YCXV) and answered all the questions on the three pieces of signage.  

Mom wanted to walk around and explore the area so that's what we did.  We walked up to the southern part of the park, where a look out was, then walked around and grabbed WaStatePks100:  Palouse Falls (GC4B9MR) which I was glad it was still around to get after the 2013 geotour ended.  I was not able to drive over to Eastern Washington and grab these ones, when it was going on, because I didn't have a reliable vehicle or money at the time.  This state park cache was officially my 81st state park since the geotour came out.  It has since ended but some of the caches are still being maintained, if they cache owners decided to do so.

We walked to the north part of the park, and I grabbed Treasure Falls (GC12JBK) and then met Mom near the edge of the coulees to see what she was looking at.  

There was a really cool part of the river down below and she wanted to go down there.  We had to figure out where we needed to go.  We saw some people a few yards down the way, so we walked towards them.  We found out this was the way down, but it was steep.  We had to wait for a family with little kids who just couldn't decide what they wanted to do.  We should have went in front of them but we didn't.  I was getting impatient because it was so slow.  We finally got around them and down to the bottom of the coulees to explore.  

We were down there for about 40ish minutes enjoying the scenery and the river.  It was such a nice day!  

We headed back up when we saw the time.  We needed to start heading back west soon.  We got up out of the canyon and back on top, followed the trail to the overlook where the falls one, took a bunch of pictures, used the restroom one more time, got in the Expedition and left the state park.

I wanted to get a cache in Starbuck since we were over here.  We, as a family, have been here one before, many many years ago.  Probably, when I was in middle school.  It was about a 30-mile drive round trip but totally worth it.  This town was included in the towns and cities challenge and since we were so close, I decided we needed to drive down here.

We crossed over the Snake River, around a few corners and we were in the sleepy farming town of Starbuck.  We stopped and took a photo of the star buck image on the side of one of the buildings and then drove to a small park near the elementary school.  

Starbuck:  Then and Now (GC8YX9Y) was a micro hanging from a branch of a tree.  I made quick work of it, signed our names and ran back across the street to the Expedition, where Mom was sitting in the A/C.  

As we were leaving town to get back on the road, we saw at a nearby house someone had caught a buck and had it hanging upside down from a tree in their front yard.  Mom and I thought it was ironic, so we took a quick photo.

We continued the on the same route back to Washtucna.  We got onto Hwy 26 and turned on the radio so we could listen to the WSU-Stanford game.  I told Mom if we were better prepared this weekend, we could have gotten tickets to go to the game.  She said, yeah...we could have.  Why didn't we?  Oh well.  I haven't been to a home WSU football game since 2011, which was a very long time ago.  We were pretty bad back then.  We didn't start off playing very well and got down 13-0 really early in the first quarter.  Mom and I passed Judy's and aw that it was open again after I saw a post that it had closed down.  We were glad to see it was open again.

The second quarter was better for us, scoring twenty points to their three before halftime.  It gave us a 20-16 advantage going into the third quarter.  I needed to stop in Hatton, another place I've driven past a thousand times but never stopped to check out, for a cache.  We got off of Hwy 26 and followed a mile-long road to a small, really small, rundown town of Hatton.  There wasn't much of a town here and it was mostly residential.  We tried going for one of the caches but was stopped with the train charging through town.  I turned around because I didn't want to wait for the train.  Instead, we grabbed Xoriat's Playground (GC6K0KQ).  This was a film cannister shoved into a downed power pole.  It was a quick park and grab. 

We got back onto Hwy 26, which wasn't busy at all, so we made good time, to the I-90 interchange in Vantage.  We merged and headed into Ellensburg.  We weren't going to make it in time to go to the Thorpe fruit mall before it closed so we came up with a different plan when we got into Ellensburg.

We got off of I-90 and went to a store along the strip called Big Apple Country and Gift for some apples mostly, but we found some other little things for my elf on the shelf and Christmas.  

Afterwards, I took Mom to Rossow's U-Tote-Em for some burgers and fries to go.  I paid with my extra cash I had from Peru.  We ate as we headed back to I-90 but stopped and got gas first at the Love's.  It was a quick gas and go.  We got on the freeway, ate our food, chatted about random things.  The Cougs pulled off the come from behind win against Stanford 34-31!  It was crazy!  Traffic was smooth and we didn't have any trouble getting home. 

We arrived at my house around 9:30 and then Mom went home.  She texted me to let me know she got home safely.  I unpacked my stuff, got a shower in and ate some popcorn while I watched Sportscenter for a while.  I worked on my blog and then got ready for bed.  This was a busy weekend so far and I had one more day to go!

I need 22 more towns and cities as of 10/16/2021.  They are mostly in Eastern Washington and will require a few trips back and forth.

The next day, I went to my friend Lindsay's baby shower party at Nicole's house, Doug decided to dump Jenn and move in with Ben and I and we had Mom's birthday dinner at my house later that evening.  

I was exhausted and we had a long month ahead of us.  Happy Birthday Mom!

Next Adventure:  Maris Farms. Tacos and Pumpkin Carving