CITO in Vancouver, Geocaching and Papa Pete's

I was so disappointed in the weather and wanted to do something for Memorial Day Weekend since we had nothing planned and Ben worked a 24-hour shift (then later we found out he got Covid from Doug).  I saw the SW WSGA was hosting a CITO, Orchards Park CITO (GC9RHRX), in a park I've never been to in Vancouver that Saturday.  I was going to go rain or shine and was really hoping it would be sunny or at least dry that day.  I asked Mom if she wanted to go, and she said she would think about it, and I asked Bev if she was interested.  She said she was, but she would have to talk to Bob.

 We got everything squared away with a plan by Thursday night.

The day off, Mom called me at 8 to tell me she wasn't going to go because she got her second shingles shot at the pharmacy after work the day before and wasn't feeling all that great.  I told her she was lame.  She didn't care.  I hung up the phone and proceeded to get ready.  I got dressed, ate yogurt and my bagel, got the recycle together and made sure I had everything in the Escape.  I told Doug I would be home later that day.  I headed into Rainier and dropped off the recycle.

I drove over to Mom and Dad's house really quick to drop off the potatoes for Zach's birthday party we were going to have on the next Monday but since Doug and Ben had Covid we would have to postpone it.  I gave her the potatoes anyway.  She handed me money and told me to bring her back pizza from Papa Pete's.  I told her she was still lame she wasn't going but agreed to it.  

I picked up Bev and made sure we had all of her stuff.  So far, the weather was okay.  Bob and Bev were going to hit a milestone so we had to figure out which caches to get so we could make their 17,000th find a memorable one.  We got onto Hwy 507 and made our way to Tenino.  From there, we got onto I-5 at Grand Mound and merged onto the freeway.  Traffic wasn't that bad, and the weather was still decent.  I was hoping it would hold off as long as it could.

I looked to see if there were a few we could get in Kalama.  We got off the freeway at Todd Road and grabbed one along the river called, Outdoorsy #1 (GC5FXZM).  It was a quick find along a paved trail.  We drove further and parked near the McMenamins, Kalama Harbor Lodge.  We walked the short distance to Somewhere Along the Boardwalk (GC567BB).  We got to the coords and I immediately found the hiding spot by grabbing the loose rebar but didn't look at it closely enough.  We were there a long time until I grabbed the rebar again (because it HAD to be where it was) and looked at it better and found the nano cache.  I felt dumb.  We signed our names and put it back.

We drove to the other side of the freeway onto S Cloverdale Rd to pick up a few of them, we were only able to get one of them because Bev had the others.  They had DNF's Honey, Love Bears all Things #42 in I-5 Series (GC45K2K) a couple years ago and today, we found it.  It's always nice turning a frown upside down. 

 We got back onto I-5 to do the first part of Alien Broadcast (GC4WPTK) which was a pretty famous multicache in the Vancouver area.  You had to park at the coordinates, which was literally a one-car pull off near a stop sign.  I didn't realize that intersection was so busy. We had to have the radio on to FM and find the transmission between 88-108 MHz.  We were able to find it quickly which gave us the coords to the final location.  We didn't have enough time to grab the final since the event at Orchards Park was about to begin soon so we would get it on the way home.

I plugged in the coordinates to Orchards Park and away we went.  Neither one of us has been to that park in Vancouver before.  We arrived just before the event started.  I backed in the Escape into the questionable parking lot with water filled mud puddles.  We got out, changed our shoes into boots and waterproof hiking shoes, grabbed our garbage grabbers and walked into the park.  We looked for the WSGA banner and TheSuperKnotts, Vickie and Brian.  We said our hello's and they told us how the event was going to go.  We signed a waiver, they handed us our yellow Signal garbage bags and told us to walk around and pick up trash along the trails.

Bev and I started and walked along the eastern part of the park next to the road.  We found a pretty good amount of trash before we were done.  We also picked up three caches, Famous Adages (GC66164), Famous Aphorisms (GC66166) and Famous Epigrams (GC6616K).  They were all hidden near trees or stumps but because of the tree cover we didn't find them right away.  The coords jumped around a lot but with some persistence, we found them. 

After about an hour of walking around, it started raining.  At least it waited until we were almost done but I still wasn't happy.  I was so tired of how this spring was going.  We hardly got to do any hiking because it was always raining.  It always was on the weekends too.  Luckily, we were prepared and underneath the trees to keep us from getting super soaked. We used the really creepy bathrooms at the west end of the park before heading back to the event area for a group photo and a raffle. 

We got back to the event, unloaded our garbage bags and waited a few minutes while everyone assembled for the group picture.  I'd say a good 20 people came to pick up garbage.  

We got right into the raffle.  I am not a WSGA member, so I only got one ticket while Bev got two.  I won a trackable tag in the general raffle while Bev won a CITO tag in the WSGA member's raffle.  She had a 50/50 chance at winning because there were two tickets, and she did.  She was excited.  I was also able to finish Let's Improve the Outdoors (GC8NEAT) --the locationless cache that was created to celebrate the 20 years of Geocaching, improve the outdoors and to earn a rare type of geocache.  

We thanked TheSuperKnotts and walked back to the Escape.  I wanted to grab at least one more before we left Vancouver, since the rain was not going to let up. We navigated our way through unknown Vancouver streets and finally to A Bug's Lodge TB Hotel (GC5BK9K) in the front of someone's house.  I tried putting in the code, which was the address to the house, and kept failing.  Bev said to try it backwards, so I did, even though the hint didn't say that.  It ended up working and thought the instructions were dumb.  I swapped two TB's for two other TB's and signed the logbook. 

We made our way to I-5 north, stopped and got the Alien Broadcast final at a cemetery three miles from the original posted coords.  It was a really small cemetery and of course there was someone there.  There always is. We walked over to the large tree near the fence line and made the grab.  We made Bev a sign in the Escape before we walked over to signify her and Bob's 17,000th find.  

We got back on to the freeway and continued north to Castle Rock.  The rain and mist made the freeway horrible to drive on.  

We stopped at Papa Pete's for some dinner.  We got there around 4:20 and it was hoppin'.  I bet their customer traffic has tripled since the one in Centralia closed earlier this year. We walked up to the counter and ordered.  The lady told us it would be at least a half hour until we got our pizzas.  We were okay with that.  Bev ordered our pizza and I ordered Mom's pizza to take home.  We didn't realize we'd be sitting there for an hour waiting for our pizza.  We had used the bathroom, washed our hands and went over the caches we found as well as chatting about random things.  Bev called Bob to let him know where we were. 

They finally called our name and scarfed up our pepperoni and black olives pizza.  It was so good and hit definitely hit the spot.  

We left just before 6 p.m. to head home.  We were there longer than we anticipated.  The rest of the drive was messy rain.  It made it hard to see when we drove past semi-trucks. I've said it once and I will say it over and over again, I HATE this weather!  

We got into Rainier, and I dropped off Bev after chatting for a little bit. I went over to my parent's house and dropped off Mom's pizza and filled up my water jugs. We talked about Doug having Covid so I didn't stick around too long, just in case I was an asymptomatic carrier.  I drove back into town, got gas and checked on Alicia's dogs.  I stopped by the store for chicken, ice cream and juice...among other things. I got home, brought everything in, put it away and got cleaned up.

I logged caches, ate popcorn, watched Thing Thing About Pam and then went to bed. I was so glad it was a three-day weekend even though the weather was terrible.  

Next Adventure:  Celebration of Life:  Remembering Tom McFadden

Adventure Labs with Bev in Tenino, Millersylvania State Park and Picking Doug up at SeaTac

A couple days before the weekend I asked Bev if she wanted to do some of the new Lab Aventure caches that popped up in Tenino and Millersylvania over the past couple days.  I told her the weather was supposed to be nice -- something we've been waiting for!  She said yes and we really needed to get out of the house since the weather had been keeping us indoors for the past couple weeks. We were all getting very tired of it!

Ben had planned a Mother's Day out with Trish and Amy up to Port Townsend and stayed in an AirBnB that was a docked boat!  I was kinda jealous.  He said he and his family were having a great time!

I woke up around 9:30, got ready, ate a quick breakfast, packed up the recycle into the Escape and could not believe how nice of a day it was finally!  I called Bev to let her know I was on my way and should be there around 10:30ish.  She said that sounded good and she would be ready when I got there.

I got into Rainier and stopped by the recycle.  It took me a couple minutes to dump off my stuff.  Then, I headed out to Vail and picked up Bev.  She was ready to go so she told Bob she'd be back later on, and we headed back into Rainier.  We drove towards Tenino and Bev asked if we could stop at one of her caches along the way.  I said sure, which one?  We pulled over near a driveway, got out and walked the short distance to a Regular Good Hide/TB Hotel (GC3GR0J). Bev recently picked up some TB's and wanted to drop them off. Since she uses Cachly, it was hard for me to figure out how to drop them off at the cache on that app, but we did eventually find a way to drop them.  

We got back in the Escape and continued on to Tenino.  A few days prior, Frisbee'r created his Adventure Lab, Tenino Sandstone History Tour, and decided to put it in Tenino with the sandstone theme.  I already knew of some of the places we were going to have to go.  The old Oregon Trail Marker, Tenino City Hall, Old Tenino Bank, Tenino Quarry Pool and the Tenino Depot with a bonus cache afterwards.  Bev and I made quick work of the Adventure Lab and had the coordinates to the final in no time.  For some reason I knew he would put it in the park where the large pieces of sandstone were stacked up.  I remember playing on those when I was a kid, many years ago.

We got in the Escape and drove to the city park.  We found a parking spot and made our way to the back of the park to look for the bonus cache.  The coords took us right to the Bonus Cache - Tenino Sandstone Adventure Lab (GC9TYBV) and a family of three decided to show up as we were signing the logbook, so we had to be sneaky.  Bev and I thought that this cache will probably disappear once summer actually starts but more likely when Tenino has their Oregon Trail Days.  There will be hundreds of people inside the park.  We will find out soon, won't we?

  

We walked back to the Escape and headed the back way through Tenino to Tilley Road.  Once on Tilley Road, we made our way to Millersylvania State Park.  We had to check on my state park cache, WaStatePks100: Millersylvania (GC4D5B9).  I've had to check on this cache a few times since 2013.  We grabbed the first point of the Adventure Lab, Millersylvania State Park by magtangle, upon entry.  There were a lot of people getting their fishing stuff out to spend time on the lake.

Then we drove further into the park to find a parking spot.  I figured we could do maintenance on my cache and do the rest of the waypoints as we walked around.  We did the orchard second, the kitchen shelter, found my cache inside the stump and the last person who found it didn't put it back very well, cleaned it out and put a new logbook and baggie inside, rehid it and hoped that it would stay put for a while.  

Bev and I walked to the boat launch area of Deep Lake to do that waypoint and it took us a long time to figure out the combo of words we were supposed to use for the answer on the app.  We were there for probably 10 minutes inputting answers. Finally, one of them took.  Our last stop was the boardwalk, which was at the sign, and it was a quick stop and log.  

We wrote down the bits of coordinates in each journal entry and assembled them.  We looked to see where the bonus cache was, and it was three miles away.  Was that right?  We were skeptical.  We got back in the Escape and made our way to Bonus Cache - Millersylvania Adventure Lab (GC9TV27).  It was down SR 121 towards Maytown.  We found a place to pull over, got out and ran across the road to check.  We thought it would be near the gate, but we had to expand our search zone.  We found the stump it was hidden next to.  I crawled into the brush and threw Bev the container.  She signed our names and we put it back. Yay, it was right!

We ran back across the road, got back into the Escape, opened the app to see where the last one, Travel Bug Rest Area (GC9TVZT) was going to be.  It was in the open field area near the on ramp to I-5.  We found a place to park and walked the rest of the way to it.  It was hidden among some concrete slabs piled up.  We made the quick find, and I took a TB to move along on its adventure.  We got back in the Escape and made our way back to Tenino.

We got back to Rainier, and I asked Bev if she needed to go to the post office, she said it would be nice to stop by since we were here...it would avoid another trip into Rainier.  I took Bev home after a visit to the post office.  I loitered around for about an hour while we chatted, and I helped her finish Doug the Pug puzzle.  We went outside and ended up talking to Josh and Rhett, who was playing in his toy police car.  He was chasing bad guys.

I thanked Bev for a good time and headed home to Lacey.  I made sure Charlie went potty, fed the cats and Mom showed up.  We got into Doug's car and headed to SeaTac to go pick Doug up.  He should have been here last night but was redirected to Connecticut due to bad weather, delays and missed flights.  He had to spend the night at JFK so he could get a flight to the west coast the next day.  

He decided he wanted to take some time off of work to go on vacation.  He had no plan.  He stayed a few days in Nashville, Tennessee, lost his phone, wasted four hours of my workday making me help him find it...he left it in an Uber the night before and he barely made it to his next flight to Kansas City, Missouri.  There, he visited a gaming friend that used to live in Portland, Oregon who he and his family moved to KC for work.  He found out his friend Ross, was there for a week on a work function, so he hung out with him as well.  He concluded his trip in a resort down in Miami, Florida. I'm sure he got drunk every night, spent more money that he should have and didn't wear his mask like he was supposed to.

We got to SeaTac and had to sit in the cell phone lot until we heard from him.  Once we did, we drove to the JetBlue area to pick him up.  We had to wait a very long time for his luggage which didn't end up coming.  I dropped Mom off and went back to the cell phone lot because I was being yelled at for sitting in the arrivals area. I didn't think it was going to take that long. After about 20 minutes, we found out his luggage did not get on the plane at JFK, so we got to bring Doug home but not his luggage.  Doug was so done with flying, airports and traveling.  He was mad that he may have to go back to SeaTac to get his luggage.  We got home at a decent time, Mom went home, we started a fire, ate cheese wieners and kettle chips for dinner. 

We got cleaned up, I worked on my blog for a little bit, logged caches from earlier that day, watched some TV and went to bed.

That Monday, Doug had to go up to SeaTac to pick up his bag because he was tired of waiting to hear back from them.  Once he got there, it took him two hours to get a hold of someone to actually get his bag because he got the runaround. He was not happy.  

**Within the next few days Doug managed to bring Covid into the house.  I was angry because I DID NOT WANT COVID due to my brother being careless on his vacation.  I went to Peru and NYC and did not bring back Covid to my family members or friends, so it is possible to go on vacation and not bring it back.  Then a few days later he gave it to Ben, so Ben and Doug had Covid in the house.  I microbanned the crap out of the house, they were not allowed to touch anything, they had to wash their hands, wear a mask around the house and stay in their rooms.  We tested them often and by some miracle, I did not get Covid.  They had it for about two weeks after their last test said they were not positive anymore. Doug got it the worst.**

Next Adventure:  CITO in Vancouver, Geocaching and Papa Pete's

Mother's Day

A couple weeks ago I asked the mother's what kind of food they wanted for Mother's Day, and they said lasagna.  I told them I could make some lasagna. Trish went further and suggested that we have angel food cake, strawberries, whipped cream and ice cream for dessert. I told her I could do that too.

I got everything organized and sent everyone and email on when it was, who was coming and let them all know I was making and providing all the food.  They had to bring a couple bucks for the party fund jar.  The Friday after work I went shopping for all the lasagna ingredients, the garlic bread, the stuff for salad, some strawberries, ice cream, whipped cream and a box of angel food cake.  I have never made angel food cake before, so we were going to see what we were in for and how it would turn out.  I am not a huge fan of angel food cake, quick side story:  I actually got scolded by Lauren's mom when we were kids for not wanting any of Lauren's angel food birthday cake.  I am just not into the texture or the taste.  I discovered that I didn't have a Bundt cake pan so I had to find one of those at the Goodwill.  I got lucky at the first Goodwill I went to.

On Saturday night, after helping Mom and Dad with some stuff in Rainier, I went home and spent a couple hours putting together the lasagnas.  Ben was on a 24-hour shift, so I had a bunch of time to get some stuff done.  I knew I wasn't going to have time the next day, so I made it easier on myself.  All I had to do was put them in the oven before everyone showed up.  I felt like I accomplished a lot going to bed that evening.  Oh, and I also did some laundry while getting the food ready.  

I got up on Sunday just after Ben got home from shift.  He decided to play his game for a while before I got up and started finishing up everything before 2 p.m.  I ate a light breakfast and told Ben to wrap up his game so he could help me do some cleaning and get the tables and chairs ready.  I mentioned I have never made angel food cake before, so I got it out of its box and followed the instructions.  I made sure I sprayed down the Bundt pan every generously and put it in the oven.  I really hope it turned out well. 

Ben brought chairs in and wiped down the tables.  Since the weather was cold this year, we had to have the party inside. We put the table covers on and decorated a little bit.  I got out the plates and silverware and put them on the dining room table.  The cake turned out fine and put it in Grammie's round glass cake container with a lid.  We cut up the strawberries and just before 1 p.m. I threw the lasagnas in the oven so they could cook. Ben got the bread out and put them on a sheet pan.  The bread would have to wait until the lasagnas got done. We got the stuff out for salad and assembled all of that, put some shredded cheese in a bowl, got the croutons out and various salad dressings. 

Everyone showed up around 2.  Ed, Amy and Trish got there a little bit earlier since they were coming from further away. Trish helped me put stuff on the table.  The lasagnas came out perfectly and I let them sit for a few minutes because they were hot!  I cut them as the bread was getting done in the oven.  I had Ben cut those.  We put the rest of the food onto the table and yelled, IT'S DONE!  We let the Mom's go first. 

We ate, hung out, chatted and carried on. Of course, we laughed.  Some people went back for seconds but I only had room for firsts.  We cleared off the plates and got out the presents.  Last summer I bought two carts with wheels from a haircut and lash place in Tacoma.  You could just about use them for anything.  I would probably use mine for my scrapbooking supplies.  You can buy them at Michaels or JoAnne's for about $40 brand new.  I got two of them for $35.  They sat in my garage for almost a year.  I had planned on giving them to them at Christmas time but totally forgot about it.  

I cut up the angel food cake, put them on small plates with some strawberries, a squirt of whipped cream and a scoop of ice cream and handed them out.   They ate most of the cake and ice cream.  It was a hit!  Everyone helped clean up a bit, people got their stuff ready and went home since most of us had to get ready for the upcoming work week.  Mom and Dad stayed behind for a bit to help Doug organize so he could pay his bills. We had to get him caught up with his stuff before he went on vacation in the next few days.  Everyone went home afterwards.

We cleaned up some more, put the tables and chairs away and vacuumed again.  Ben did the dishes and then we relaxed for a bit.  I decided with the daylight we had left to vacuum out the Escape since it was a dry day.  I wanted to get at least one thing accomplished before the new week started.  We got cleaned up and got ready for bed.

Happy Mother's Day!

Next Adventure:  Adventure Labs with Bev in Tenino, Millersylvania State Park and Picking Doug up at SeaTac

Geocaching Community Celebration Event Priest Point Park

So far, my week back after vacation has been very busy.  First a celebration of life and now a geocaching community event, Geocaching's 22nd! A Community Celebration Event (GC8JZW0).  I was so glad Ohjoy decided to have it after work instead of in the middle of the day.  I mean, she did also have a CITO that day during work hours but that was okay...as long as I got to go to the community event.  We got special geocaching icons for attending those type of events.  After I logged this one, I will have two community events under my belt.   

I did my normal work routine throughout the day and was pretty tired after being on vacation for a week.  It was really hard to get back in the monotony of work again...and it was only Tuesday!  I logged off at 4, got changed and headed out to Priest Point Park.  I haven't been there in a year during the last event Ohjoy had up there.  This spring has been very disappointing, lots of rain and cold weather, and I had to wear warm clothes.  Luckily, it didn't rain but it was still chilly. 

I got to the park and had to park on the other side of the bridge in the "overflow" parking since a lot of people were already here for the CITO from a few hours earlier.  They had spent some time walking around looking for some of the other caches in the park. I still have many to find but I knew it wasn't going to happen that day.  I would have to come back a few times to clear it all out.

I signed the logbook and noticed Bob and Bev were there, so I talked to them for a bit, Wayne walked over, and we chatted with him for a bit and then some of the Lackey's came and we visited with them for a while.  As the event time approached, Ohjoy got up and spoke to everyone.  She thanked us for all coming and especially thanked the people who were able to come to the CITO earlier that day.  She said we were going to do two raffles, both had a FTF prize so whomever got those got access for FTF's and the basic coins, tags and geocache containers. 

The first raffle was a FTF for a cache called Into the Heart with Courage (GC9RRQX) and that went to PNWcarrots, an older married couple from the Kent/Covington area.  Ohjoy handed out a couple tags and geocaching containers as well.  We waited for the cache to finally publish and whoever wanted to could go with the FTF winner out into the woods.  A group of us followed her down the trail into the woods to find it together but she was the only one that could log it as a FTF.

It was hidden in a a large old growth stump.  Ohjoy had hidden it high, so you had to climb, and it was tied off, so it dangled from one of the edges of the stump. PNWcarrots signed it first and then we passed the logbook around to everyone.  We took a group photo, put it back and walked back to the event area.  I stayed behind a bit with Gabe and talked about my NYC trip.  I noticed that I was going to walk past a puzzle cache I had solved last year and decided to grab it on the way back.  Brought To You from Sweden (GC861ZT) was hidden alongside a large tree right off the trail.  I made sure we were the only ones there because I knew Ohjoy wouldn't want everyone to log it if they hadn't solved the puzzle yet. 

At the event site, people continued visiting and sharing stories.  Bev and I talked to Rhonda for a bit and then we did the second raffle. The first prize was the second FTF and that went to runhills.  Ohjoy continued raffling off prizes until they were all gone.  I actually won a raffle item.  It's been a while since I got a prize at an event. 

Then the FTF cache published, and everyone followed runhills to its hiding spot.  It didn't take us long to find it and again, we all passed the logbook around for Celebrating Community Circles (GC9RA7Q) so people could write their names on it.  We walked back to the event site.

At this point, it was almost time to head home because I was getting hungry.  I knew Ben was going to stop by Tenino after work to clean his bunker gear.  I wanted to find a couple more caches but decided to do it on a different day when the weather gets a little better.  It was nice to see everyone, especially the people we haven't seen a while.  I told Bob and Bev bye as they drove their hamster car towards home.  I stopped by Fred Meyers on the way home to pick up a ready-made chicken and potato salad because I wouldn't have time to make food because it was so late.  Ben got home about the same time I did.  We ate, watched the Penguins beat the Rangers in 3 OT's to take the first game of the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. 

I logged my four caches, worked on my blog, got cleaned up and ready for bed.  

Next Adventure:  Mother's Day

Celebration of Life: Remembering Helena M. Wilson

Two years ago, I saw a post from Shari about a former Elementary School teacher that I had and the sad news that she had passed away.  I haven't thought about her in a long time, but I did every once and a while when something reminded me of her.  Covid had prevented people from having a celebration of life right away, so they had to wait two years.  

I decided that I would attend the day after I got back from vacation.  That morning I got up, got ready and headed over to downtown Olympia to First Christian Church.  I've driven past it many times but never knew it was a church. I found a place to park and went inside.  I found a pew to sit on.  I didn't recognize anyone.  I figured at least another RES teacher would come.  Then I saw Kenny and Shari, so I sat with them.  Their connection to Mrs. Wilson was church and their wedding back in 1996.  Shari and her sister played the hand bells growing up.

I got to see some of the people who were in Mrs. Wilson's life including her friends, her son and daughter and the people she went to church with.  She even had some of her neighbors and former girl scouts show up!

We sang hymns and people played the hand bells.  Her son and daughter said a few words and then some of the people who attended said some stuff.  I thought I should say something because I was the only student from RES that came.  I told everyone who I was, how I met Mrs. Wilson and shared some of the stories written down below. 

To finish off the celebration, we sang more hymns and then went to another room to partake in refreshments and chat with people.  I went home shortly after to get ready for the work week since I was gone for the entire week on vacation.  Since I am friends with a lot of people who knew Mrs. Wilson, I posted this on Facebook along with her program:

"To those of you who had Helena Wilson as a 5th grade teacher at Rainier Elementary School, she was one busy lady who absolutely loved teaching kids. 

An original Hoosier, who was transplanted in Washington State because it was easier to obtain a teaching certificate here rather than California at the time...it may still be true today, I am not sure.  She and her husband, called Olympia home for the next several decades, he a dentist and she, an elementary school teacher.  She was very active in her church community including a successful hand bell choir, was a girl scout leader, a neighborhood advocate and a great family member and fried to those around her.

I first met her as a 5th grader.  I had no prior knowledge of her or who she was until I was in her class during the 1994-1995 school year.  To be honest, she was intimidating at first, but you knew she cared about students and the material she was teaching.  I was very shy and hated speaking aloud and answering questions in front of the class.  I think she knew that when I never spoke up, I was the kid that if you asked a question and didn't get a response from anyone, she would find that kid (me) who looked away to avoid eye contact.  Of course, on occasion, she would call on me and I was mortified when she did so. Sometimes I knew the answer and other times I had no clue. 

We had a lot of fun in her class though.  We were out in the red building (as we called it) that was attached to the old gym and cafeteria (behind the old red school that is now the district office.)  At the time, Mrs. Wilson, Mr. Boyer and the music room, which was headed by Mrs. Rogers, occupied the three rooms out there. 

The couple of things I remember from her class were:

• The "egg drop" from the top of the red building and yes, my egg survived the fall.
• Riding our bikes to and from Millersylvania State Park with the DARE officers.
• Meeting some of my good friends in that class.
• The awkward videos we had to watch during the sex education segment of the curriculum, the girls were in Mrs. Wilson's classroom and the boys were in Mr. Boyer's classroom.  Pretty sure they scared us enough to never have to worry about being a teen mom.
• Having our parents sign off on our homework and me forging my mother's initials because I forgot one week, and I thought I would be caught. 
• She was the one and only teacher that made us brush our teeth after lunch because her husband was a dentist.  The fluoride we called "swish" also reminds me of this time.
• We had a Christmas tree in our classroom, and she organized a gift swap with our classmates and made everyone feel included.
• I now have context of the hand bells used at the Christmas program where we played and sang, I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.  I still remember practicing with those white gloves.  I was the "E" bell.
• Playing games like connect four, bean bag tic-tac-toe and guess who, kept us busy for an hour while the kids who played band had to go to band practice.  We also played these games when we had to have indoor recess when it rained too much.
• Turning the red building in a three-classroom haunted house, dressing up and going from classroom-to-classroom trick or treating. 

Most of all, she had an impact on me growing up. That year spent in her classroom was tough but an educational experience. She was one of the good ones. I had her sign one of my high school yearbooks. I enjoyed school, my teachers and learning.  I thought it was important to show up for her today since she showed up for all of us during her time in Rainier.

RIP Mrs. Wilson, you will be missed by many.

Next Adventure:  Geocaching Community Celebration Event Priest Point Park