I asked Mom when her next few Fridays off were, and she sent me a list of dates. Her first Friday was going to be the 21st so I asked her what she wanted to do on that Friday. Of course, she said, I don't know. I thought about it for a while. We weren't sure how the weather was going to be so we probably couldn't do anything outside, so I didn't plan for an outside gathering. Instead, I knew we all needed our Covid boosters, so I asked Mom and Doug if that was something they wanted to do. Doug was all for taking a half day and Mom said that would be fine.
I got onto the Walmart app and logged in. I chose the Yelm Walmart because it would be easier for Mom. I filled out the form and picked a time. I chose around the noon hour since it would give people enough time to get ready and drive out there. I told both Doug and Mom so they could book their appointments. They did about a day or two after I did around the same noonish hour.
I took off that Friday and put in sick leave for it.
That day I slept in until about 9:30 and snuggled with the kitties. I got up, ate some breakfast and semi got ready to go.
Then the Walmart Pharmacy called and told us they had to cancel our appointments because they were short staffed due to Covid. How ironic was that? I was like, of all the days we could have picked, we were the lucky ones. I was so annoyed. I picked this Friday because the weekend wasn't going to be that busy and if I were to feel bad afterwards, I would be able to rest and not do anything. The lady told me that they weren't going to be doing boosters until after Monday. So that meant I would basically have to wait a week to go after work with Mom the next Friday. The lady also said that we didn't need an appointment and we could just walk in.
Well, now what am I going to do today? I didn't want to waste a dry day. I called Bev to see what she was doing and if she wanted to go with me to Centralia to get two caches, I've had my eye on for a couple weeks. She said that it sounded like fun, and it would get her out of the house for a while, she just had to go ask Bob. She said it was fine with him. I told her I would be out there in a bit. I called Mom to see if she also wanted to go for a ride and she said sure.
Before I went into Rainier, I had to drop off cat poop samples by the vet's office. Oliver and Wade went to their annual appointment to check up on how their health was doing. They both were doing well. Oliver wanted nothing of it and Wade was cautious but skeptical. They got their shots, and the vet tech gave them some treats. They didn't eat them until they were safe and sound at home. The doctor handed me some containers to put poopies in and told me to drop them off the next day.
After dropping the poops off, I went into Rainier and got Mom first. She said we better be home before it was time to go to the gym. I told her we would have plenty of time. We drove down to Bev's and picked her up. She had a sliver I had to dig out and Danny showed us his new boom machine. It was loud! We left and headed towards Tenino.
We got stuck following a slow guy down Ol' Hwy 99 and eventually passed him. I hate going 10 mph under the speed limit. We got into Grand Mound and made the turn continuing down 99. We followed that road for a few miles and then turned onto Prather. We followed that road over the river and reminisced of the other times we've been down this road for several caches over the years. We found the side road that took us up to the Michigan Hill area. The phones were spotty up here, but I had the cache loaded just in case.
We followed the directions to a dirt road that took us on someone's property, and we always hoped that the person knew about the cache or that the cacher that hid the cache lives here. We noticed all the old trucks and farm equipment that has since been taken over by nature. I turned the Escape around, so I wasn't blocking any driveways just in case one of the property owners needed to leave. We all got out and found The Hobbit House (GC9KZT3). I saw this publish a couple weeks ago and have seen photos posted of it on the geocaching Facebook group pages. Mom went to go take photos of the old vehicles while Bev and I went to the cache.
It was a very well-crafted and maintained little hobbit house. It was very cute. You opened the door and inside was an ammo can. We got our names on it, took a TB or two and got some photos of the cache. Both Bev and I were definitely going to give it a favorite point. We hopped back into the Escape and headed to the other one on our list.
I've been to this location, the small, unincorporated town called Galvin, at least twice since I've been geocaching. I'm sure there used to be a cache here many years ago that we grabbed but I can't remember what it was. I do know there was a series out here that started near this area and followed the road to Adna. It was called the Lincoln Creek series and I'm glad I got to do it before it was archived.
We found a place to park. We walked up to the unique corner, full of old antique signs, gas pumps, machinery and tires. Galvin (GC9J1M4) was a straight-forward puzzle cache. We had to fill in the numbers we needed and do some simple math for the coordinates to the final container. I read off the numbers while Bev wrote them down. Mom wandered around taking photos of the old stuff.
We got the final set of coords and walked the short distance to the container. We found the micro cache near a telephone pole. We got our names on it, got a photo and put it back. We all got back in the Escape and headed back to Rainier the back way through Bucoda.
We got into Rainier just as the school busses were driving into the high school. I told Bev we would stop by the post office to get her mail. On the way back to 507, we had to wait in traffic for a little bit. We took Bev home first, and she was really happy to get out of the house for a few hours and I told her we had to do it again soon. She agreed. I took Mom home and stayed for about a half hour. We talked about going on a family hike the next day to get Doug out of the house. Mom got Erika and Zach on board. All the dogs were going to come too. Dad sent me home with a turkey since they somehow had two of them. I guess there is a turkey dinner in our near future.
I headed back home, got the mail and Mom called me to tell me something I never thought I would hear from her. Someone I used to hang out with passed away suddenly the week before and we found out through his Facebook. The rest of that night (and the rest of the weekend) I thought about Darren Best and how outgoing and friendly he was. I really enjoyed being around him. The world lost another good person.
I then decided to go to Costco and Walmart for a couple things (for Doug's birthday party on Sunday) and then asked Ben what we wanted for dinner, and he said, since it was Friday, just get a pizza. So, I came home with pizza. We ate pizza, watched Cobra Kai and The Book of Boba Fett. He went to go play his video games with friends and I ate popcorn, watched random movies on Netflix and worked on my blog. I was so glad for a weekend.
Next Adventure: Another Hike Up and Down the Sequalitchew Creek Trail
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