A Much-Needed Three-Day Weekend and Paint Day

I decided I wanted a three-day weekend because March doesn't have a holiday and I just wanted that extra day off.  So, I looked at the calendar and picked a weekend.  I blocked it off on my calendar and as it got closer, I let my co-workers know that I was taking some time to get a few things done.  I told Dad I would help him and Mom with some stuff at Grammie and Grandpa's estate on Friday.  The rest of the weekend was unplanned but glad to have that time to do whatever I wanted or needed to do.

Friday, March 25

Friday morning, I slept in because I could, and it was much needed.  I felt so much better after sleeping in until about 9:30 or so.  I called Mom and Dad to see what time I needed to be in Rainier.  He said sometime around 11.  I got dressed, ate some breakfast and gathered up the recycle...for some reason we acquired a lot of it this week.

I dropped off the recycle, drove to Mom and Dad's house to pick up Mom and we met Dad over at Grammie and Grandpa's house.  Dad wanted Mom and I to try and match up the receipts with the antiques in the house.  We were able to match up eight of the receipts up with various items and it took a few hours to do so.  Meanwhile, we were also able to go through some of the stuff to take home and sort at our own leisure.  Once we were done there, we drove down into Rainier so we could see what exactly was inside the storage unit.  We were there for at least an hour. 

Throughout the day, we kept in touch with Doug, who decided he was going to take a half day, meet up with some friends for lunch at a bar, play pull tabs and drink beer.  He really didn't need to be drinking beer.  Apparently, he won $400 on pull tabs and wanted to take his family out to celebrate Erika, who had just finished her thesis.  We tried figuring out when and where we wanted to go later on that evening.  It was like pulling teeth to get Erika to decide where she wanted to go.  We decided on the Cascadia Grill in downtown Olympia since Doug said good things about it in the past and no one else had been there before.

Mom, Dad and I went back to their house, and I told them since we were having dinner I should probably go home and get ready.  Dad decided he didn't want to go so he stayed home.  I got back into Lacey, changed my clothes and Mom said she would meet me at my house, so we didn't have a ton of cars parked in downtown Oly.  Doug decided he was going to go from the bar to the grill and that he would meet us down there.

We all piled into our cars and drove down.  Mom, Ben and I parked near the Farmer's Market since I had no idea where I was supposed to park and that was familiar to me.  Besides, it was only a few blocks away from where we were meeting everyone.  We went inside and they said it would be a wait.  I called Doug to find out where he, Erika and Zach were.  They were walking the boardwalk.  We told them we would meet them there.  I had Ben do three points of one of the Olympia Adventure Labs while we were there.

About ten minutes later, we got the phone call stating that our table was ready.  We walked back to the grill, and we were seated.  Doug said to get whatever we wanted.  We ordered drinks and I got a virgin lavender lemonade.  Doug ordered some poutine while we waited for our meals.  I ordered one of the burgers and fries.  We chatted about random things while we waited.  I've never had poutine even though Mom and I were in Canada back in the fall of 2018.  We just never had the chance to try it.  It was surprisingly good even though I am not a huge fan of gravy.

Our food came and it was pretty good.  I might have to consider coming here every once and a while when we are needing a different place to eat.  Doug paid for our meals, and we all went home.  I had to get gas on our way back to my house.  I was not too excited about spending over $50 on gas because of a pointless war between Russia and Ukraine.  Mom went home, Doug went to bed and Ben got ready for his 24-hour shift the next day.  I stayed up a little bit doing a few things before I headed to bed.

Saturday, March 26

The next morning, I woke up when Ben was getting ready for work.  We said our goodbyes and I went back to bed for a little bit longer.  When I did finally decide to get up, I got dressed, ate some breakfast, started some laundry and got ready to go do some errands.

I went to Costco first to get a few things like grapes, muffins, chicken and fruit snacks.  I went over to the Dollar Tree to get a couple more things for everyone's Easter baskets and then went over to Erika and Zach's house to drop off a few things.  I stayed there talking to Erika for about 15 minutes.  

I then decided I wanted to go find at least one cache while I was out.  I went for Don't Hate Me, the Devil Made Me Do It (GC1DEDD).  This was over by the LOTT reclaimed water pond park.  I have been here several times over the years for other caches that have been archived.  I had gotten the coords from RL Painter back in 2011 and never tried to go find this one for some reason.  The first time I did come try to find it, it was in February 2020 before the stupid Covid pandemic hit.  I had a day off because it was President's Day.  I asked Bev for a hint, and she couldn't really remember so I spent about an hour trying to find it.  I failed.

Today, I was bound to try and find it once and for all.  I spent a good 20 minutes or so climbing up and down the railing trying to figure out what I missed last time.  I ended up calling Bev again to see if she remembered anything about it.  I sent her pictures to jog her memory.  She still told me the same thing.  I wondered if the container had changed since they found it back in 2013.  I looked some more and then decided to walk away from it for a while, talking to Mom.  Then I had an idea.

I walked back over to it, stood on one of the light boxes and took pictures of the top of the beams since I wasn't tall enough to see or feel up there.  I thought maybe the pictures would reveal something out of place.  I looked at my series of pictures and I saw my "something out of place."  I got really excited because this cache has had me wondering about it for two years.  Did I actually find it?  I got back on the light box and stood on my tippy toes as far as I could and grabbed the flat painted magnet under the beam.  The logbook was stuck to it.  I did not think to check under the beam.  The cache owners did a great job concealing this because you wouldn't have known to check underneath. It really did look like it belonged there.

I took a bunch of pictures, signed the log and put it back.  It was harder putting it back than it was retrieving it.  I got it back up there after two attempts and then walked back to the Escape.

I finished my grocery shopping at the nearby Walmart, came home, unloaded groceries, put them away and decided since it was a nice day to pot my new flowers I bought.  I wanted to make the yard pretty again after the dreary winter.  

I ate some pizza, vacuumed, finished my laundry, got cleaned up, watched some crime documentaries and even got a chance to read my book before bedtime.

Sunday, March 27

The next morning, I woke up around 9:30, got dressed and had a quick breakfast.  I packed up my Fritos and cheese dip, my apron, threw my wallet in my bag and did a few things before heading off to Tumwater.  Before leaving, I threw in some of my spring decorations I bought for Grammie since I was going to be on that side of town and would visit after paint day.  I told Ben I would be back later since he was working on some stuff since he only got one day off this week.  

I headed over to Nicole's house and I like to be early so I can chat with her and get a good seat at the table.  I unloaded my stuff, paid her my money and took my Fritos and cheese into the kitchen.  She had a nice set up of cheeses, crackers, veggies, fruit, cookies and some candy.  Sarah showed up, then Tara and Lindsay and her baby Wes.  We picked out our canvasses and got our little paint stations set up.  

The painting wasn't going to be too hard because it was more of an abstract painting than a paint by numbers type of painting.  The unusual part about this painting was the two techniques we've never done before.  The first was using margarita salt and saran wrap.  Those gave us our unique textures for our layered painting.  We brushed off the salt and padded down the saran wrap in a couple places and took it off.  Once that dried, we were able to add happy little flowers in various colors to our canvasses. 

 

We added various colors to our paintings for about three hours.  It was fun chatting and seeing our paintings turn into masterpieces. We put the final touches on them, let them dry a little bit, used the paint marker to sign our work and Del took a photo of us all holding our works of art.  It was fun being able to do this again and see everyone since we didn't have one in February due to people's schedules.  I cleaned up my area and thanked Nicole for great time.  

I packed up my stuff and drove to the cemetery to visit with Grammie.  I changed out her decorations and left some Easter and spring looking ones instead.  I told her about what's been going on lately and stuff about our upcoming trip to NYC and DC.  She enjoyed listening to my adventures and I enjoyed sharing them with her.  It still makes me sad that she isn't here anymore and hasn't been for almost four years.  I can not believe that time goes that fast after someone you've spent most of your life with is gone.

I got home and because it was a nice day, I went to Lowes and picked up some more flowers and some potting soil and added those to the front yard with the others.  I had Doug pick up his dog poop and I mowed the back yard for the first time this year and did the front yard again just to do them both at the same time.  

I got the leaf blower going and cleared off the driveway and the cement pad in the back yard.  Ben fixed the piece on the BBQ and we had grilled chicken for dinner.  

We watched some TV and did a few things before getting ready for the new work week.   

Next Adventure:  Cleaning Up Caches in Centralia, Chehalis, an Adventure Lab in Castle Rock with Mom and Bev  

A Quick Trip to Ocean Shores

We were supposed to be going through furniture at Grammie and Grandpa's house, but Dad decided he was going to go to a gun show in Castle Rock instead.  I wanted to go to Ocean Shores last weekend, but the weather was too poor.  I saw that we had a glimmer of hope for Saturday and so I had that plan in my back pocket.  

I woke up around 9:45, checked the weather radar on my phone and called Mom to see what she was doing and if she wanted to go with me to Ocean Shores for the day.  She said sure.  I told her she would have to drive out to my house.  Meanwhile, I did some laundry, ate some breakfast and turned March Madness on to see how the morning game was going.  I looked at my caching app to see which ones I wanted to get.  There were so many caches I didn't have since Ocean Shores isn't a place, I go to that often.  The last time I was in Ocean Shores was July 2019, the summer before stupid Covid hit.

Mom got here just before noon, we asked Doug if he wanted to go and he said no, we got everything packed up in the Escape and made sure everything was squared away before we left.  I wanted to top off with gas before we left town, so we stopped at the Arco along Yelm Highway.  We followed the road to Tumwater and got onto Hwy 101 from there.  The traffic wasn't bad, so it didn't take us very long to get to Aberdeen.

We got into the correct lane to follow the highway up and over the bridge into downtown Aberdeen.  We reached Hoquiam and then for the last ten miles towards Ocean Shores, we followed a line of cars.  I knew there would be a bunch of people heading to the coast since it was a nice day.  We made the turn towards town, and I saw there was a cache at one of the tiny state parks just before you drive out to the beach.

Our first stop of the day was at the Oyhut Rest Area (GC7E40R) at Oyhut State Park.  Part of it was underwater so we found a parking spot that wasn't.  There was a truck nearby who were probably using the bathrooms.  The public bathrooms at our ocean beaches are very questionable.  I came for the cache.  I saw it was a micro and looked up and down the signage structure.  I figured it had to be a bolt.  The only bolt was near the dilapidated roof of the structure.  I tried moving it to see if it was that and it barely moved.  Maybe it wasn't that?  I tried again several minutes later but this time I turned it and it did unscrew.  I took it to the Escape with Mom because I felt eyes staring at me from the truck.  I signed our names on the tattered logbook.  I rolled it back up, shoved it in the rusty bolt and walked to the sign to put it back.  The guy in the truck finally left.

I checked the Adventure Lab app for the Ocean Shores Fun lab to see what the locations were around town we had to get.  The first place was Sharkey's, the building that looks like a shark just down the street from the other popular beach access road.  I got out and counted crabs and starfish like I was supposed to.  I came back and asked Mom if she wanted to go inside for a minute or two.  She said sure.  I got a couple of postcards, and she got some saltwater taffy for Dad and a sweatshirt for herself.  Mom is a sweatshirt person.

Then we tried finding a place to park.  There were tons of people at the convention center, and we had no idea why.  Eventually, we found out it was the Razor Clam and Seafood Festival--which was the opening weekend for the start of the tourist season.  I did find a place to park on the back side of the convention center.  We got out and walked around since everything was pretty close.

We walked to the next few Adventure Lab spots, which took us to Paradise Golf, with big foot, where we counted flag poles and found the cache, Big Foot Paradise (GC8ZJJ1) and Playtime Family Fun, where we counted light poles.  Mom said she was hungry, and she led the way to a place she's had fish and chips at a few times.  I've never eaten fish and chips in Ocean Shores, so I had no idea which one was good or not.  She walked me to a place called Mike's Seafood.  She said she's been here with Dad a few times over the years and liked their food.

We were seated in the back part of the restaurant, handed menus and Mom and I chose to do the two-piece cod with fries and a lemonade.  We ordered and then I went to the bathroom, mostly to wash my hands.  We waited about fifteen minutes and our food came out hot and fresh.  It was pretty good.  I liked how the batter on the fish wasn't over seasoned and it had a hint of sweet to it.  Of course, we ate too much but I told Mom we'd be walking it off in no time.

We thanked our waiter, paid for our food, left him a good tip and headed outside for our next adventure.  I asked Mom where she wanted to go, and she said she wanted to go to the quilt store.  We walked the block-ish to Beach Tyme Quilts.  Mom said she's been here before.  We browsed around yes; Mom did find some fabric to take home.  We chatted with the guy a little bit and with our purchase we got a free rubber ducky.  We chose the beach themed one since we were at the beach today.

I opened up the other Adventure Lab, WCAS:  Ocean Shores to Aberdeen, which has ten locations, to see where we needed to go in Ocean Shores before we moved on to the southern end of the peninsula or the isthmus.  We saw there were three locations in Ocean Shores we had to get.  We walked to the mural on the side of the convention center to find out our answer and then we walked to the back side to get back in the Escape to finish the rest of it.

I saw there was one more cache nearby and it was in the parking lot.  What Sign?? (GC8ZAJT) was stuck to the side of a sign less pole.  The shrubs hid it from view.  Meanwhile, Mom wanted me to unlock the Escape so she could get in.  It was a quick grab, sign and replace.  I walked to the Escape and told her what the rest of the day would look like so we could get everything we needed to get and still enjoy the beach.

We got on the main access beach road and stopped at Chance A la Mer State Park, where the other tiny state park was with the bathrooms.  Our second piece to the second Adventure Lab was here.  It was a quick park and answer.  I was not expecting it to be the recycling fish statue.  Haha.

I asked Mom if this is where she wanted to access the beach and she said it was fine.  We drove out and went left because you still could up until Memorial Day Weekend.  We drove about a half a mile and found a place to park the Escape.  We got out and walked along the beach taking pictures, watching the seagulls beg people for food and the sandpipers running around with their little legs.  We were surprised to see as many people out walking their dogs, flying kites and even walking around barefoot in the sand.  It was cold outside!  

Before we left that area, we stopped by Chance A la Mer State Park so we could use the really awesome public toilets.  Just about every single stall was missing toilet paper.  Good thing I have a roll in the back of the Escape.  

After frolicking on the beach for a little bit I asked Mom if she was ready to go down to Damon Point and she said sure.  We got on the main road and drove south to Damon Point, but first we stopped by the interpretation center to finish the first Adventure Lab, Ocean Shores Fun.  We got to the interpretive center, parked and got out.  The actual interpretation center just closed as we got there but we needed the information outside.  The employee came out to get her moped ready by taking the cover off of it and then it started raining.  She looked defeated.  Mom and I got the last lab we needed and took a few pictures.  

Before we left the interpretation center, I checked my app to see if there were any caches nearby with a lot of favorite points and there was one just up the road called Dock by a Bay (GC6N688).  Mom decided to stay in the Escape while I went and got it.  I had to open the gate to get onto the dock.  I knew the cache would be underneath the dock out of sight.  I went down the stairs and immediately saw it.  Clever.  I saw there were two bags, one full of used logbooks and the other one had some trinkets in it and two inactivated tags.  I couldn't help myself.  I took the tags home with me.  I walked back out to the Escape and joined Mom.  I showed her the picture of the cache.

I asked her if she wanted to stop just up the road at the Damon Point beach access and she said yes.  It's been a while since we've both been here to explore.  We walked along the beach and took some photos of the waves crashing into the rocks.  There were people there getting ready for the razor clam dig at dusk.  I saw there was a cache on the far side of the spit. 

Convert Crevasse (GC6YK6T) was zip tied to a wind thrashed beach tree.  I originally thought it was going to be hidden in the rocks, but I looked at the size and knew it was going to be in the tree.  Mom spotted it before I did, and I went around to get a better angle at it and stepped in some poop.  I wasn't sure if it was human or dog.  Yay people who don't pick up after themselves!  I signed our names and put it back where I found it.

We started back to the Escape since it was getting late.  We got back on the highway and headed north up the peninsula to leave town.  I told Mom we would have to come back here with everyone one weekend this summer.  They could bring their dogs.  We made one more stop before leaving town completely.  The third and last spot for the WCAS:  Ocean Shores to Aberdeen Adventure Lab.  It took us into a small Oyhut neighborhood parallel to the high school.  It took us to a mailbox with "air mail" written on the side of it.  Yes, it was one of those tall mailboxes.  

We got back on the highway between Ocean Shores and Hoquiam and started heading east towards Aberdeen.  We stopped at Lytle Seafoods to pick up another piece to the Adventure Lab and there was a cache here called We Shuck'em, You Suck'em (GC1VVN7).  I am so glad I keep a crate in the Escape for just such caches.  I am vertically challenged, and I had to use the crate to grab the container on the sign.  Mom took a couple pictures of me retrieving the cache and some of all the oyster shells everywhere.  

We got back on the highway and got to Hoquiam.  I mentioned there were three more places here to stop at for the Adventure Lab, but we knew we wouldn't get all of them done on this trip because it was getting dark, and we'd have to finish it when we came back out here.  Mom did want to stop at Hoquiam's Castle just to see it.  She said Dad might have taken here out here once.  I told her I've never been here.  We answered the question and took a picture.

We stopped at the Aberdeen Walmart because Mom wanted to pick up a few things.  We noticed this Walmart was stocked better than the ones in Thurston County.  We were impressed.  Mom found what she needed, and I asked Ben if he needed anything from the store.  I got some Vitamin water, a couple of cheap tank tops and some Fritos.  We got home around 8:30, unloaded the Escape, Mom put her stuff in her Expedition, and she went home.  She called to let me know she got home safely. 

I got a shower in, ate some popcorn, logged my caches, watched The Dark Knight with Ben and eventually went to bed late.  It was nice to finally get to the beach after two long years.

Next Adventure:  A Much-Needed Three-Day Weekend and Paint Day