I slept a little better than I did the night before but still not super great. I really didn't want to get up and drive back home because that meant the next day I would have to go back to work. Ugh. I eventually got up around 7:45 and both the dogs were downstairs guarding the door. I had to step over them to get to the bathroom. I got ready for the day, went back to the bedroom and started packing up my duffel bag.
Megan said I should put my stuff into the Escape because the dogs would be curious and get into my bags if I left them in the living room. She added that they were pretty nosey. I took a few minutes to take my stuff out to the Escape. I came back in, and Megan had already started making breakfast. We had some more scrambled eggs, ate some of our yellow watermelon we got at the Farmer's Market the day before and some toast. We chatted and ate our food.
We went out to the backyard to watch the dogs run around acting crazy. It was also starting to warm up but wasn't going to be as hot as it was yesterday. Megan turned on the sprinklers and was going to find out when Chaise's uncle wanted to move the furniture, he was going to give them.
I thanked Megan for having me over since this was a while in the making. They were just glad to finally have their own house with their own space. We made some tentative plans for the possibility of going to a Cougar game this fall, but we will have to see how it goes.
I left around 10 a.m. and got onto I-90. I definitely miss living over here. The visit brought back tons of memories living in Eastern Washington. I merged onto Hwy 2, through Airway Heights. I knew I had to make some good time since I was making a few stops along some roads I've never been on. I had my Nuvi set for Davenport, just outside of Spokane about 35 miles. I'm sure I've been through this town, but I was probably in Middle School on a family vacation when it happened.
I made my first stop in Davenport at Welcome to Davenport (GC9RBNR). There was a really cool hotel nearby, so I took some photos. It was getting pretty warm outside. I found the cache while talking to Mom on the phone. She wanted to know where I was and when I was going to be home.
I jumped into the Escape and decided to stop further in town for one more, Wall of Names (GC9RACT). I parked on the street and had to watch out for kids riding their bikes without paying attention. There was a guy wandering around the small park. I made the find quickly while he was preoccupied. When I got home, I discovered that I inadvertently filled in page 53 on the DeLorme map. I still have seven more to go, all up in the northeast corner of the state, except for one that will require a special trip up north near Darrington.
I put the coords into Nuvi for my next stop in Creston. I am not sure if I've ever been to Creston before or it was just a passing through situation. Nonetheless, it was about a 20-mile drive west, along Hwy 2. I listened to my crime porn as I drove. The first stop was just outside of Creston at a cache named The Cowboy Church (GC96TB3). No one was there, so I didn't have any trouble finding a place to park or being sneaky when looking for the plastic ammo box. I got my name on it, took a few pictures, put it back for the next person and got back in the Escape.
I continued into the town of Creston, made a right turn onto a road that led me into the cemetery. I parked right outside the gates because I didn't need to go inside for any reason since the coords were leading me to look on the gate. There were some people in the cemetery getting it ready for Memorial Day Weekend. They did look at me weird, but I ignored them. I found the magnetic hide-a-key and wrote my name on Creston Memories (GC1HDGC) before putting it back.
The next cache, Odessa Veteran Memorial (GC8F1BV) took me through Wilbur, but I didn't need a cache there, however I did make a stop because I wanted a picture with the statue of the pig. I grew up reading Charlotte's Web, so that "some pig" needed to be seen. I got back on the road and headed south on SR 21 towards Odessa.
At times parts of the highway, I felt like I was literally in the middle of nowhere. I did not see another vehicle in a while until I got closer to Odessa, which was about a 40 mile-drive. I finally reached town and followed Nuvi to the cache I needed since there weren't a bunch of them to choose from so I picked one where I knew people would not most likely be.
I pulled up to the cemetery and it was paired with a military memorial. There was a tank and everything. I started looking for Odessa Veteran Memorial (GC8F1BV) and I knew the coords were bouncing all over the place because I just could not pinpoint a spot to look. Tanks have so many nooks and crannies to search. It took me so long to find something so easy. I was super embarrassed that I didn't find it sooner than I did. I had to pee really bad, so I popped a squat behind the tank. I felt so much better.
I jumped into the Escape and put in coords to my last cache, Bike Trail Cache (GC5RR0C), I needed for the challenge I was trying to complete. My last stop was in a town I've never heard of. Wilson Creek was a literal blip on a map. It was east of Soap Lake on WA-28 about a mile off the highway. I made my way to the turn off and went into town. It was a ghost town. I think I drove past one or two cars while driving out to the trail to get the cache. I parked on the side of the road and jumped over the ditch for this one. I got my name on it, the photo, put it back and hopped over the ditch to the Escape. Now came the boring part of my trip, I-90 to the west side.
I followed WA-28 through Ephrata and then the 283 onto I-90 for a brief second and then got off in George to get gas and some cold drinks. It was a quick stop. I pumped gas and then went inside to get a Pepsi Zero for the drive home. I got back onto I-90 and didn't stop until I got to Thorpe because Mom called me just before Ellensburg to ask about fruit. I told her I would stop in Thorpe to see if they had anything to bring home.
There were tons of people at the Thorpe Fruit and Antique Mall, and I had a hard time finding a parking spot. I found one eventually, got out and went to go see if they had the green beans that Mom wanted to know about. They really didn't have a whole heck of a lot of stuff. I saw some boxes of peaches and pears; some apples and the rest were various squashes. I called her and told her they didn't have what she was looking for and sent her a schedule of produce I saw on the wall.
I walked around the antique part of the mall, used the restroom and decided to go before the traffic got too crazy. I got onto I-90 west and was going good for a while until I hit just outside of Cle Elum. The traffic through there and Easton came to a standstill for NO reason. I lost about a half hour of me making good time on the freeway. It broke up just before Snoqualmie Pass and I didn't hit any traffic until I got off at Hwy 18. Traffic wasn't too bad, but it was a little slow in certain places.
There wasn't any traffic from 167 to 512 and then to I-5. It was surprising because usually Sunday afternoon to evenings the traffic here was terrible. I rolled into my driveway around 6:30. I unpacked the Escape, took a shower and started some laundry. I made a tuna sandwich, with Fritos and some grapes for dinner. I logged my caches, updated my blog, got the mail and Ben came home from hanging out with Josh and he got ready for his work week. Just before bed, I got dinner out so it could defrost for the next day.
Overall, I found 14 caches, grabbed 30 Adventure Labs, took care of five new cities (I now have 16 more to go) and got one new DeLorme page, in which I need 7 more for it to be complete. The Towns and Cities Challenge and the DeLorme Challenge will require me to take a couple more trips to Eastern Washington to complete it.
Next Adventure: Kayaking Pattison Lake and Two Caches
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