A few weeks ago, I was watching a D.B Cooper series on Netflix called D.B. Cooper: Where Are You?! (2022) and while watching it, I saw there was a D.B. Cooper themed brewery in Vancouver. I needed to go to this brewery!
It was also my 12th geocaching anniversary, so I needed to do some caching on the way down as well. I was on a quest to hit 13,000 soon, so as many as I could get would help. I asked Mom and Bev if they were interested in going with me. I gave them until Friday to let me know. I told them some of the places we'd be geocaching and the brewery we were going to go to afterwards. Because it was mostly a brewery; we really weren't interested in the food they were serving so I told them we could go to Papa Pete's in Ridgefield on the way home.
Over the next few days, I looked at the caches and Adventure Labs I wanted to do and which towns we were going to stop and do them at. I wrote them down and sent Bev a picture of which ones I had planned on doing. She really didn't care as long as she got to go instead of wasting a nice day at home. They both told me on Friday that they wanted to go. I told them that I would be in Rainier about 9:30-10 a.m. and they said they would be ready.
That morning I got up around 8:45, got ready and packed up the Escape with whatever I thought we needed. I grabbed my notebook, pens, backpack, water and threw some extra drinks into a cooler with ice since it was supposed to be hot. Ben also got up around the same time because he was invited by Josh to do a "poker run" in Centralia with a bike gang. The purpose was to raise money for a fallen comrade who was a part of that motorcycle gang. You didn't have to be a part of the gang to participate. I told him to be safe and send pictures.
I headed into Rainier and picked up Mom first, then Bev. We had to stop by Grandma's house along the way to drop off a quilt so she could finish it. After, we headed towards Tenino and then to I-5. We had to follow three trailers all the way to the freeway which delayed us. We finally got onto I-5 and got away from the trailers as quickly as possible. The traffic on the freeway was slow in some places...congestion where the freeway goes from three lanes to two mostly because people don't know how to merge properly.
We were getting close to Longview, and I asked everyone if we wanted to stop here and do some Adventure Labs. They all said sure. I told them one of them involved the squirrel bridges. That enticed Mom to want to go even more. I said the last time I came down to this section of Longview was with Bob and Bev was like almost 10 years ago. I asked Bev if she remembered, and she said vaguely. I asked her, you don't remember the squirrel bridges or the sidewalk chalk arrow pointing in front of the sewer grate that said, "this way to Narnia?" She said, maybe?
We got off at the first Longview exit, the one we don't take too often, just north of town, because there were some caches along that road we didn't have yet. It was hard to come up with caches we both didn't have because Bob and Bev pretty much got them all over the past 10 years or so. Our first one was called Stockport Cemetery (GC8PR1T). We parked in the little parking lot, Bev and I got out to walk down to go look, while Mom stayed in the Escape and watched us.
It should have been an easy grab, but we managed to make it harder than it needed to be. The hint got us to the correct spot, but it was hidden in one of those stupid brushy shrubs. You really had to be in the right spot and angle to see it. I looked with my eyes and my hands and finally was at the correct angle to see it. I signed our names and put it back. We walked back up the small hill and got back into the Escape for our next stop.
We set the GPS towards Lake Sacajawea for the three Adventure Labs around the giant skinny lake. We weaved in and out of the weird one-way roads through town and stopped at a couple of places for the Squirrel Bridge Tour of Longview. Mom was really excited about the bridges, and I didn't blame her because they were adorable. We did stop near the small park where the wooden squirrel statue and a train engine was. It was fun to see that stuff again and pick up the necessary waypoints we needed.
We finished that Adventure Lab and collectively decided to do the other two, Walking Tour of Lake Sacajawea and Creatures of Longview, both had five waypoints each for a total of ten. I looked to see if they overlapped, and they did. So, we were going to do both of them simultaneously, which sucks. I wish the app allowed us to do multiples at the same time. I had to pay attention so I could tell Bev which one we were doing when we arrived at the waypoint we needed to answer. There were only two among both of them that gave us a hard time. One was at the basketball court and the other was at the Redwood trees, both around the lake. The basketball one, the geofence was not at the coordinates and the Redwood trees, the answer was not easy to get. We tried probably 30 different combinations until we got it. We were probably there for 10 minutes trying to get the app to accept the answer.
After we were done, we discovered that one of the Adventure Labs had a bonus cache to grab. We assembled the coordinates and found out where we had to go. I put it into the Nuvi and followed the directions to the middle of Longview. Mom said she's stay in the Escape, so Bev and I got out. It was getting hot, so we had to hurry. We got to ground zero and started looking. It should have been easy to get so I checked the logs to see if people were having a hard time. They were. The container was missing so I told Bev that the cache owner was letting people log it. For my log, I just cut and pasted what the previous cachers did for their log.
We got back into the Escape, got back onto I-5 and headed south to Woodland. I wanted to do the new virtual cache, Cedar Creek Grist Mill (GC9P58Z). Mom and I had visited once before back in 2018 but now there is a cache here, so we came here again. Bev has never been here before, so she said it was kinda nice to visit a place she's never been. We found a place to park, wandered around, found the virtual cache answer, got a few pictures and went inside the mill to see what was going on.
They were making mini pancakes out of the four they ground that morning. I wasn't hungry so I didn't take a free sample. We wandered out a little bit more and then called it good and got back in the Escape to head back towards Woodland.
Along the way back, Mom asked if we could stop by the Dairy Queen for ice cream and I said, along with everyone else? It's a hot day and everyone in Woodland is going to be there. I did it anyway. We got in the drive thru line and regretted it. It was not going anywhere anytime soon. I got tired of sitting there wasting our day so I got out of line, and we went inside hoping that would go quicker. It was also a great opportunity to use the restroom as well. I told Mom I wanted an Oreo Blizzard; she got a hot fudge sundae and Bev got a chocolate dilly bar. We didn't have to wait too long for our frozen treats.
We hopped back into the Escape and drove to the first waypoint of the Woodland Adventure Lab: The Art of Downtown Woodland. We drove across the freeway and saw how busy Horseshoe Lake was. When it's over 90 degrees you go swimming at Horseshoe Lake instead of ice cream at Dairy Queen or maybe both? We barely found a place to park since most of the waypoints to the Adventure Lab were clustered together and we were going to walk to them. Bev's phone was dying so she was worried that it was going to die before we did all the waypoints since you need your phone to do them.
I also noticed chocolate on my front passenger seat and Bev's shorts. She must have lost a piece of her dilly bar and it fell on the seat and melted. We cleaned that up as quickly as possible before it made a larger mess. I told Bev that I just couldn't bring her anywhere. Haha!
We spent the next 15 minutes walking around the tiny downtown of Woodland. We had to answer questions about the several murals sprinkled around town. There was no bonus cache for this one.
Mom and Bev were getting hot, so I walked over to the other side of the park to grab Pine Cones #2 (GC9E5MM) and I really wasn't sure what I was looking for. I knew it might look like a pinecone but in what form? The coords took me to a large bushy tree thing. I thought it might be a pinecone that had a bison tube shoved into it, hanging from one of the branches. So, I start looking and find nothing. I expanded my search area and was surprised to see the medium sized container dressed to look like a pinecone out in the open underneath a small bush. I was very shocked to see it was still there. This cache may go missing at some point. I signed our names and put it back right where I found it. I walked back to the Escape. It was nearing 100 degrees.
We looked at the caching app and saw there were two more just south of here on a road that paralleled I-5. I asked everyone if we wanted to go get those really fast. They said sure. 98674 - Woodland (GC6NMZD) was a very quick park and grab. Both Bev and Mom stayed in the Escape while I signed our names. I hustled back, hopped in and drove to our next one, Pine Cones #6 (GC9PC1C).
This cache was down by one of the Lewis River boat launches called the Pekin Ferry. We pulled up to a parking spot and noticed a bunch of people taking advantage of the river on a really hot day. I saw the cache was going to be in the woods right off of a well-used trail. I decided to walk along the dike because it looked quicker and easier. I approached the area it was in and noticed it wasn't too brushy, I could at least look. I was out there for about 10-15 minutes looking. I really didn't want to DNF it, so I took a few more readings and finally found the darned thing. It blended in well with its surroundings and looked just like the pinecone container I found at Horseshoe Lake.
I signed our names, took the trackable and walked the dike back to the Escape. Mom and Bev were definitely enjoying the A/C.
I set the Nuvi to the last cache of the day, one I've been wanting to get since I saw it on the map about a week and a half ago, Stick a Fork in It! - World's Largest Fork (GC9P4VT). We got back onto I-5 and headed south towards east Portland via 205. I noticed the temperature outside on my dash. It was reading 102 degrees. Yikes!
We merged onto I-84 and followed Nuvi's directions to the Fairwood neighborhood. We found a place to park and walked over to where the fork was. It was located at a food truck complex. It was so hot outside that some of the food trucks were closed down. We got our photo of us with the fork and answered the question.
Mom said if we weren't going to pizza later, she would have tried some of the food here. We walked back to Escape and got back onto I-84. We missed the exit for 205 so we had to drive all the way to Portland to merge onto I-5. Yes, we got stuck in a little bit of traffic.
I had the Nuvi set to the address of Victor 23 in Vancouver. We got off of I-5 and followed the directions to St. John's Blvd.
The brewery was in a smaller building than I expected. We found a place to park along the street and went inside. They did not have very good A/C unless it was nonexistent. We looked at the choices and I went with Flight 305 and Mom had a cider.
Bev just had water and then got too hot and went out to the Escape with the A/C. The beer was pretty good, so I bought one to take home to Ben to try, a sticker and a pint glass. Mom bought a shirt for her traveling quilt. We paid, went back out to the Escape and put Ben's beer in the cooler.
We left, got back onto I-5 and I had Mom call in our pizza. We were finally able to eat inside. I was so excited. The last time we came to the Ridgefield Papa Pete's, we had to eat it outside. We got off the exit, parked and went inside. We found a table, washed our hands and our pizza was done. That pizza always hits the spot. It is so good!
We were so upset the Centralia location closed. Mom took the leftovers home and Bev took another pizza home for her and Bob.
We got back onto I-5 north and headed home. Mom needed to stop at the Centralia Walmart for a few things. I ended up buying some soda. On the way back out to the Escape, Mom crossed paths with one of the Ledesma's, who was home for a funeral, she stopped a chatted with him for a few minutes. We got into Rainier, picked up the quilt from Grandma's house, dropped off Bev at her house and drove to Mom and Dad's house. I dropped off Mom and filled up the water jugs I brought with me.
I drove into Tumwater to make sure Alicia's dogs were okay since she was out of town for the weekend, and I was in charge of her dogs. I headed home shortly after. I showered, logged the caches, filled out my blog for a little bit while eating popcorn and then went to bed. It was sure hot today and I love it! I have been caching for 12 years and was almost to 13,000 caches. I was hoping to hit it sometime in September or October. I needed to find a really cool cache to hit my milestone at. We will see when we get there.
Next Adventure: Trish's Backyard BBQ and her DECK
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