My Adventures and Places Life Takes Me: TriCities Geocoin Challenge: Lacey to Selah

I have been waiting for this weekend since June 2020 when it was canceled for the first time because of Covid. We did hold the 2021 geocoin challenge but in September and it was different (I was glad we had it though) and this year we finally are heading somewhat back to normal. I was so glad to see they allowed camping again, even though we really weren't a fan of the park it was being held in (there are no showers available for campers) and wished they would go back to Lake Sacajawea State Park.

I made sure to post my will attend log when the event published and saved my personal leave day like I do for this event every year. It was nice to look forward to our events again because two years is too long! As it got closer, I let my coworkers know and put in leave for a day and a half. Ben did the same thing for his job.

On the Wednesday before we left, we put the new battery into the Escape, went grocery shopping for the food we would need over the weekend, we washed our clothes and started packing the camping gear, chairs and other things into the back. I didn't want to forget anything because this was our first time camping since June 2019. We really did waste a bunch of time, didn't we? The sad thing was though is that we won't get that time back.

The day of, I got up and went to work, tried to get as much done as I could so I wouldn't have anything left over for me to do later or anything left for my coworkers to do, except the afternoon phone calls. Ben got up around 8, packed the rest of his stuff, put stuff into the Escape and he took it to Les Schwab to get a safety check done on it because of the battery issue we had early in the week. He picked up ice and Meconi sandwiches to take with us on the road. He came back and the Escape had a clean bill of health.

I took a quick shower at break time to maximize my time. I worked until 11:30, logged off, packed up the rest of my stuff and made sure the dishes were done, the cat box was clean, the kitties had food and water, we turned off the stuff we weren't going to use until we got home and went through the house one more time to make sure we had everything.

As we finished, Doug (he had the day off and was helping Dad) called me to ask if I could drop the truck off in Rainier on my way out of town. I told him we didn't have time for that and should have asked sooner. We needed to get on the road, so we didn't get stuck in weekend traffic. He said it wasn't that big of a deal. We said bye to the kitties and told them to guard the house. We finally left at noon and headed towards Yelm, munching on our sandwiches. We called Trish and Mom to let them know we were on our way. Trish had the day off and Mom was on lunch break. It felt good not to be at work.

We made it through Yelm and turned in McKenna on the 702 towards Eatonville. This year, I didn't have to stop at any of my caches to fix them. We opted to go around Eatonville and we got stuck behind some slow people making the fun mountain highway pretty boring. I saw there was an Adventure Lab in Elbe, so we decided to stop and grab it. It took us less than 10 minutes to finish Brown's Junction Adventure Lab. We stopped at the visitor's board, the store, the locomotive and the church, where there were two places to answer questions.

I asked Ben if he found the Addiction Cache #2: Big Nose (GCPTR9) and he checked and said no. I told him that I found it over 10 years ago, so I had him run back across the highway to go look for it. I told him that it was probably an Altoids tin hidden in the front somewhere. It took him longer than I thought it would for him to find it, but he did eventually find it. I almost had to go help him.

We continued onto Morton and got onto Hwy 12. It seemed like we were making pretty good time and we were able to pass slow people and semi trucks along the way. Just before the grade near the entrance to Mount Rainier, I got a text from Willmarth stating how our plan was going to change. He wrote:

"Ok, so things here are going to be a little crazier than normal. We are leaving early tomorrow morning for a basketball tournament in Illwaco. Yes...Illwaco! Just where I wanted to spend the weekend. I didn't know until Kevin's coach called to thank me about 15 minutes ago that Kevin "volunteered" to have the team stay overnight tonight at our house! WFT? So now we have 10 teenage boys coming over here tonight. So...here is what we will do. I already rented a hotel room (at the only hotel in Selah) so the team could use the pool tonight after practice, but nobody is actually using it. So how about you and Ben use the (free) room tonight. Is that okay wiht you tow. It is a nice hotel with a pool. Our house is going to be chaos tonight. I didn't know about all of this until 1:30 today, and I've been trying to figure out what to do. We can get together this evening. Sorry about all of this. Having a teenager is crazy! The hotel is the Quality Inn. It is the only one is Selah. Let me know what you think. Again, I apologize for all of this mess."

We texted him back letting him know that we were on our way up the mountain pass, and we would call him on the other side. We got stuck behind some slow people, but some pulled off at viewpoints and others didn't want us to follow them anymore, so they pulled over and let us by. I did have one cache, Rimrock Rail...(GC2P6A9), on my list of caches to grab on the way over. I probably should have gotten this one years ago but just didn't for some reason.

We found the pullout and of course it was a guard rail. This would be the only spot a container would survive all the snow during the winter months. We found it, signed it, got a pic with it as fast as we could so we didn't have to follow any of the people we had passed earlier.

We got back onto Hwy 12 and continued into Naches. We tried calling Willmarth but he didn't answer. I figured he was busy figuring out his day.

We called our Mom's to let them know we made it to Naches and they thanked us for letting them know. We stopped one more time off Hwy 12 just after Naches for River View (GC7MRMH). We found the pullout and parked as close as we could. I got out, thinking it was going to be hidden by the large rocks, but it wasn't. It was hidden at the signage. We got our names on it, hopped back in the Escape and continued on to Selah.

I have their address saved on Nuvi, so I just pressed the right address and away we went!

We arrived just after 3:30, visited for a little bit and helped them bring in stuff from their Costco run about an hour before we got there. Shannon was going doing laundry and going through Kevin's clothes...trying to thin them out. We talked about a bunch of things including that he finally had to put his dad and stepmom into a home. I found out later that they were literally across the hall from Grandpa at Bonaventure. Willmarth gave me a bunch of Mariners baseball cards and Griffey things that he had from cleaning out their house.

He still had some stuff to take care of before a bunch of teenaged boys came rumbling into their house. We hopped in the truck with Willamrth and went to Fred Meyer, ordered pizza from Round Table, went to BiMart and then back to Fred Meyers because we forgot something.

We picked up our pizza, stopped at the grocery store for popsicles, the teriyaki chicken place for Shannon and back to the house to eat dinner and watch part of the NBA draft. We hung out for a little bit longer and around 10 p.m. he had to go pick up some of the teenagers, so we gave out hugs, thanked them for the visit and dinner and headed to the Quality Inn.

Ben checked us in, he got the keys and we drove the Escape over to where the door was to our room. We brought in our things and was impressed with the room that we got.

It had a woodland feel to it. There were two beds, a TV, a sink, bathroom, a couch and a table with chairs. We got settled in and played two rounds of 10,000 and three rounds of Yahtzee. Ben won the night 4 to my 1. I was upset because I hate losing.