It was so warm inside their house over the course of the night I didn't sleep all that well. I got some sleep, but it wasn't great. I got up around 7 a.m., put my clothes on, went into the guest bathroom, washed my face, brushed my hair and joined Brenda and Ray in the kitchen. Brenda was getting the rest of her morning squared away before she had to leave for work. She told us to have fun in Pullman while Ray and I ate the rest of the cereal in the plastic container. I had never had chocolate Chex before, so it was interesting. We told her to have a good day at work and we would see her when we came back.
We grabbed what we needed for the day and hopped into the Escape. Ray wanted to do a couple of Adventure Labs and I had a couple caches I wanted to get while we drove south towards Pullman. It was going to be a nice day and I haven't been to Pullman in at least a decade. I was excited to visit again.
We got onto I-90 and to US 195 that took us straight down to Pullman. I've driven that road so many times it would be interesting to see how much it had changed, if it had at all. Our first stop was Spangle and the first of the five waypoint Adventure Lab Loose on the Palouse. This is one Ray wanted to do and I was all game for Adventure Labs and caches. We got off of the highway and into the very small town of Spangle. We had to turn around because we missed the spot we needed. Once to the correct spot, we answered the question it asked and off we went, back to the highway.
We saw a couple geocaches along our route and they looked like they were quick park and grabs and easy to get to. We stopped at Christmas Cache (GC67YT6), and it was butted up next to a large tree. The container was definitely wet inside and it looked like the tree had globbed some tree sap onto the lid of the container. I had to be careful where I grabbed so I didn't have it all over me for the rest of the day. We did take both of the travel bugs so I could move them along.
We got back on the highway and drove a little further south. We saw two caches on either side of the highway and planned on getting both before our next Loose on the Palouse waypoint in Plaza. We grabbed Not as Lame as Yours (GC2W75H) and Even Lamer (GC8VTM5), that one, unfortunately, was missing so we replaced it for the cache owner.
We were off to our second waypoint for Loose on the Palouse, the small unincorporated community of Plaza. We got back onto the highway and headed south. We took the Plaza exit and I told Ray, I've been past this little community so many times over the years, driving to Spokane and back from Pullman, I never really had a reason to stop until now. He agreed. There are thousands of places I've been to over the years because of geocaching.
We followed our phones to the waypoint, and it took us to some grain silos. We had to grab a word off of the grain silos. I saw a train car that I had to get a picture of. On the side it said Grain Train and reminded me of Brad's Insane Train nickname he and his friends gave themselves many years ago. Ray and I got a selfie before driving to the other side of the highway to grab Mom's Big Brain Cache (GC8MM5M). We stopped there because it had a bunch of favorite points.
We parked on the side of the road and walked to a bunch of rocks and started looking. We didn't find the original container but a container that people were signing so we signed it. I am not sure if it is a replacement cache because the original went missing? A find is a find, I guess. We got back into the Escape and headed into Rosalia.
We started the Rosalia Driving Tour Adventure Lab and grabbed a cache, Evergreen Cemetery Cache (GC8R1JH) at the same place, two birds with one stone. As we pulled up to the cemetery, I got a Facebook message from Debbie. Ugh, what does Debbie want? I briefly read it. She ruined my vacation by telling me the reviews didn't arrive and that we will have a double Monday when I get back. Seriously?! The whole point of me taking days off from work is so I don't have to do the work! So lame! We grabbed the waypoint, the cache and then headed into Rosalia.
We grabbed two more waypoints for the Adventure Lab and then spent way too much time looking for BRStar Cache (GC6D4E9). The coordinates were very bad. It had us searching all over the old, abandoned Texaco Station until I had an idea after reading through some of the logs. I told Ray the coords were off and it was on the back of the metal star on the bar. We walked over and there it was, a magnetic nano on the back of the metal star. Win! We also saw a car parked on the street that had a travel bug trackable on their window. I wonder if the cache owner was nearby.
We got back into the Escape and headed over to the park where Founder's Rock (GC1BEXR), a multicache, and another waypoint to the Adventure Lab. We parked near the run-down bathroom, got out and walked to ground zero, got our Adventure Lab waypoint and the numbers to the final stage of the multicache. We walked by the playground infested with little kids, through the field and out to the tree line, where we searched for the bison tube we needed.
We walked back to the Escape, used the creepy bathroom and got back up into town. Our next Adventure Lab stop was up the hill to the Steptoe Battlefield site and there was also a geocache there as well. I needed my Discover Pass to park up there. We were the only ones there. We walked over to the monument and got what we needed off of it to complete the Rosalia Driving Tour Adventure Lab. Then we went into the trees to grab a micro, Battlefield Cache 2 (GC1BEXR) and got eaten alive by mosquitos.
We hustled back to the Escape before we were riddled in mosquito bites. The next one that showed up, Milwaukee Railroad (GC8TPZE) was just south of town on our way back to US 195. There was a small pull out by the cache and of course there was another car there in the way. No one was in the car so we pulled over as far as we could, got out and searched for the cache. Both Ray and I each found a rock hide a key container. We signed one of them and took the other one with us. There didn't need to be two there.
We got back onto the highway and was promptly stopped for a few minutes because of construction. I was glad we didn't have to wait that long before we were heading down the road again. I saw there was another cache up ahead called Windmill Cache (GC5GE9P) and it looked like it was going to be a quick park and grab. When we got there, it was and of course was a guardrail cache. A quick find.
Our next stop was Steptoe. A place that holds a special place in my life. I spent many summers playing in a summer basketball camp/tournament in St. John, a town a few miles west. They used the Steptoe gym as a secondary location to play some of the games. I will always remember the smell of that gym and how tiny it was. So many memories.
I pointed out the gym and told Ray some stories about those days. On our way to Steptoe Butte, we stopped by the Bethel Cemetery (GC5FRAE) to grab a quick pill bottle stuff into a hole in a tree. We got our names on it and got back into the Escape. I have no idea why I've never been to Steptoe Butte with all the time I spent in this area almost 20 years ago now. I was here during multiple summers and even went to school at WSU for five years. Why didn't I explore the Palouse more?
We started up the butte, around and around and around, we followed the road. There were some sketchy parts of the road while most of the road was fine. Ray doesn't like heights, so he was uneasy the whole way up. When we got up to the top, we basically had the place to ourselves. There was one other vehicle parked away from us and it looked like the person was in the car sleeping. Because this was a state park, we displayed our Discover Pass, even though no one was around to check if we had one or not. With that being said, there were also bathrooms to take advantage of, even though they were biffy's (bathroom in the "forest" for you).
I walked around on the top, taking pictures and trying not to let the smoky landscape bother me. I can't believe my first time up here and it's smoky. It definitely ruined the view. We worked on the earthcache, Steptoe Butte (GC1CZJX). It was a standard fill in the blanks from the information sign. I just took a picture of it, and we discussed the answers as we scrolled through the cache page. We got our last views and hopped back into the Escape to move on to our next cache.
Grandma's Cannonball (GC6E3A9) was on the back of the Steptoe Butte sign down on the highway. I have stopped there once before for another cache several years ago that has since been archived. We found it pretty quickly and then moved onto Colfax.
Once in Colfax, a rush of memories flooded back into my head. I remembered all the times I spent driving through here over the years. It's been a long time since I have been through Colfax and honestly, it looks the same as it did 15+ years ago. I asked Ray if he had found the virtual cache and he said he hadn't yet. I found What's Here (GCAB0A) years ago, so we stopped at the totem pole and let Ray answer the questions.
In between Colfax and Pullman, I got comfortable following a grain truck, going with the flow of traffic, chatting with Ray, and all of a sudden there was a cop car behind me with its lights on. I ask Ray, am I getting pulled over? The grain truck in front of me is going way faster than I am. I was having a hard time keeping up with him. Maybe the cop wanted me to move so he could pull over the grain truck? Nope, he was pulling me over. I pulled over. I asked Ray to get me my paperwork out of the glove box.
The cop walked over to Ray's side of the Escape and asked us where we were going. I said we were headed to Pullman. He said, what for? I told him for some geocaching. He replied, yeah, I've heard of geocaching before. Then he proceeded to tell me that I was pulled over for speeding and I said yeah, I was just going with the flow of traffic and didn't realize the truck in front of me was going as fast as he was. He didn't disagree with me because he knew the grain truck was hauling ass. He took my license and registration and took it to his car. A few minutes later, he came back, gave me a warning, handed us the paperwork back and told us to have fun in Pullman.
I know the stretch between Colfax and Pullman is notorious for being pulled over, but I can say that was my first time being pulled over in that section of highway after driving through hundreds of times over the years.
We finally got to the turn off to go down the hill in Pullman. I noticed the changes right away. There are more houses, more buildings, familiar buildings as different businesses, changes to downtown, it was the same but not. You could tell things got slightly better for this small college town. I asked Ray if he was hungry (since it was now lunch time) and he said he could eat. I knew of a perfect place.
We pulled into Cougar Country and told Ray about all the times we came here when we had a little bit of extra money to spend. Cougar Country was my occasional treat. It was a little different because the original Cougar Country closed a few years ago and it was just recently purchased by new owners, and they kept some of the original menu items and decor. Ray ordered a burger, fries and a drink, and I got two smaller hamburgers, fries and a drink. I didn't need a huge burger.
We sat at one of the booths and waited for our orders. I told Ray some more WSU stories as we sat there. Once our food was done, it was so nice to sink my teeth into Cougar Country once again. It's been probably 10 years since I've been there. The last time I remember being in Pullman was before I met Ben, so it had been a long time.
After lunch, we drove through town and parked in the free public lot behind Rancho Viejo off of Paradise. I told Ray about the last time I went to Rancho. It was my 23rd birthday and I got absolutely hammered that night. We did the Downtown Mural Walk which consisted of five waypoints within blocks of each other. It was so strange walking around town seeing how different some of the buildings were. There were new restaurants, businesses and some of the hotels changed hands. It's amazing what 20 years will do to a college town.
We tried making a circle. It was getting so warm I was glad I brought the rest of my drink with me. We had to find shade to rest in while touring the murals around downtown Pullman. A car drove by with several college kids inside and yelled something at it that had to do with Pokémon. They thought we were playing Pokémon Go. I just ignored them. We saw some butterfly wings, a mural on one of the new hotels, a BLM mural, one over by the bridge over the Paradise Creek and one near a giraffe bench. Street art is interesting. We made it back to the Escape and blasted the AC as high as it would go.
I noticed that I probably should get gas and it was not cheap even in Eastern Washington. I think I had to pay over $5 a gallon and it is always painful seeing the total. Ray hung out in the Escape while I got gas at the Conaco. I asked him if he had any garbage to throw away and we found some to toss out. I paid and headed towards campus. I wanted to go to the Bookie really quick to get a sweatshirt.
Parking is still a nightmare. I tried parking near Ferdinand's and you have to pay to park there now, we tried figuring out how to use the paid parking meters in front of the field house, but we could not figure out how to use the app, so I gave up and drove us to my old house on D Street by the soccer fields. I knew there would be available parking there. I got us parked, told Ray about my old house for a few minutes (it was looking very run down) and we walked up the hill. We tried to see if we could do Selfie at Martin Stadium (GC7B7M6), but they have to lock the field during certain times of the week to prevent people from vandalizing the field. Of course, it was closed on the day we were there. I knew of a cool place near the CUB we could get our picture.
I took Ray to Cougar Pride (GC1NRNF) and it was a bugger to get the cache out of its hiding spot, but we prevailed. I had found this cache several years ago. We each got pictures in front of the Butch statue before we walked up the hill to the CUB.
Terrell Mall looked about the same, but the CUB has changed so much over the years. We went inside to use the restroom and to enjoy the AC for a while. I browsed and couldn't find the sweatshirt I wanted but settled on a different one I could learn to live with. I bought Ray and I a bottle of water. I went up to the register to pay and realized I left my wallet in the console of the Escape after we tried paying for parking. Ughhh, so dumb! That's a long way back to where we parked.
Ray relaxed in the lounge while I ran back to the Escape. It took me a little bit to run down the stairs from the CUB down between the fields and back onto Colorado Street. Along the way, I checked out that spot for our selfie of the field, but they had built a building that obscured the view. We would have to figure out another view. I got to the Escape, grabbed the wallet and decided to move the car closer to the main road. I made my way back but this time I went to the parking garage and went up the elevator.
I got back to the CUB, went into the Bookie and paid for my stuff. I thanked the girl for saving my stuff. Ray and I walked back down and found one spot along the way to get our selfie. It wasn't what we wanted but it would have to do because the field was closed. Lame.
We got back to the Escape and realized there was a geocache across the street we parked on near the soccer field. What's the Score 2 (GC6RJ3Z) was on the fence separating the soccer field from D Street. I noticed there was one part of the fence that was different from the rest of it. We had to use Ray's Letherman to get the cache out of the hiding spot because it was rusted in. We got a picture of it because we couldn't sign it.
We picked one more Adventure Lab to do before we left Pullman. It was the Little Free Library Walk but we were going to drive it to save us a ton of time. It was also a five waypoint Adventure Lab. It took us to Pioneer Hill, a place I have spent a little bit of time exploring while I was a student at WSU. There were a couple parks I visited with friends and took some pictures of Lawson Gardens with Starrla at one point.
Ray and I started on South Street, got what we needed, then onto the Side Street free library, when we got to Spring Street, we struggled because the item you had to answer the question about was missing. We should have read the reviews because the answer was in there. Instead, I tried guessing what animal it could be. Well, the owner of the house the library sat in front of came over and asked us if she could help us. We told her what we were doing and why we were there. She said that her frog yard art got worn out and she threw it away and never replaced it. We thanked her and moved on to Grant Street.
Then my Mom called to talk about Doug and to find out how we were doing so far. So, we talked to her while we did the last two, Grant Street and High Street. In our review at the end, we let the Adventure Lab owner know that one of the answers was missing and may cause problems for people doing it in the future...especially if they don't read the reviews before starting. I don't think a whole lot of people really do. I asked Ray if we were done with Pullman for now and he said yeah.
We left town on Hwy 27 and drove towards a really small town on the Washington side of the Washington/Idaho border. I have had my eye on this town for a while. I've been working on the Towns and Cities Challenge for quite some time and was slowly whittling them down one by one. I figured, why not get these while I was here.
We drive through the rolling hills of the Palouse and into Farmington. I had missed the road we needed to turn down, so I had to turn around. The cache, Safari Animal Cache (GC67TMQ) was located in a tree just off of someone's property, so we had to find a spot to pull over on the side of the road. I was hoping we would be in and out before anyone drove by or came out to see what we were doing. We didn't have time to tell someone what we were doing. We got our name on the log, got a photo and was disappointed there weren't any animal toys inside.
We drove back to Hwy 27 and headed north to Oakesdale, to get another one of the waypoints for the Loose on the Palouse Adventure Lab. We arrived at Oakesdale and saw the mural on the side of the building we needed to get the answer to. I parked, we got out and had some trouble getting our phones to work. The internet was weak in this town for some reason. I restarted my phone to see if that worked and it did. I was able to get the answer, but we had to wait for Ray's phone to figure it out before we could leave. His took a while to find enough signal to complete the waypoint. We got back into the Escape and drove to Tekoa, roughly a 12-mile drive.
Tekoa was so empty when we got into town. I parked on the side of the road; we got what we needed for our Adventure Lab, and I noticed there was a cache right across the street in the tiny rest area. We got out, walked across the empty street and into the small park/rest area. Tekoa Rest Area (GCA68AV) was a small hide-a-key container on the side of a metal utility box. A quick, easy find. We walked back to the Escape.
We stopped in the tiny town of Latah for our last waypoint to the Loose on the Palouse Adventure Lab and grabbed a cache, Latah Creek Spring Valley Crossing (GCA62TP). The cache took us a while to find because the coords were a bit off. Luckily, there wasn't a lot of traffic on that side road since we were technically on a bridge. There was a bonus cache for this Adventure Lab. We had been taking notes and when we got back to the Escape, we worked them out and saw where the final was.
But first, we had to make a quick stop in Fairfield. It was another Towns and Cities cache I needed. I picked one that was easy to get to and had a place to park. Welcome to Fairfield (GC8KY2V) was a magnetic key holder underneath the park metal sign. Earlier, my phone had a weird malfunction where it restarted itself and when it was done turning back on all of my text messages were assigned to the wrong people. I had texted Mom and Fitzy, and they did not go to Mom and Fitzy, so Mom called me asking why I texted our east coast girls text thread from last fall. I told her on my end it looked just like I was texting just her. It made me wonder who I texted instead of Fitzy earlier.
Our last cache of the day was just north of Fairfield down an old side road. Loose on the Palouse Adventure Lab Bonus (GC9N2JP) was about a mile in from the highway hidden next to a giant Pine Tree. I knew we were looking for something clever and we finally spotted it. A giant Pinecone! Wooo!
We got back on the highway and followed Hwy 27 to where it connected with I-90. Along the way, we called Brenda to let her know we were done and, on our way back. She said she would rather have gone with us today because work sucked. She said one of her students cut herself while they were cooking their meal. We got on and headed west back to Airway Heights. We rolled into their driveway around 7:15 and I texted Fitzy again to let her know that I will be on my way to their place soon. Brenda and Ray gave me two WSU blankets, some geocaching swag and a gadget cache birdhouse they were going to put in their front yard that Gene (Mr. Gadget 2) made for them, but they will be moving next fall and can't take it with them. I thanked them for their hospitality, gave out some hugs and they told me they had an event scheduled for some time in September before they leave.
I got back onto I-90 and headed east towards the Valley. I got to her house around 8:15 and she was out in the front yard chatting with her neighbor across the street. I grabbed my stuff and took it downstairs to the guest room while Seamus and Radar were outside in the back yard. We hung out in the living room and chatted for a bit. She and Chaise had dinner already but saved me some if I wanted to eat. She made brats on the grill with beans and chips. I ate on the back porch while she finished mowing the lawn.
We sat out in the living room for a little while chatting some more. Chaise was in his office playing Zelda with his family. We stayed up late, got in some showers and went to bed just before midnight. I spent some time writing notes in my notebook before finally getting some much-needed shut eye.
Some notes on the day:
We drove through a dozen small towns.
Picked up 20 Adventure Labs, one multicache, 15 traditionals, one earthcache, one puzzle cache and two virtual caches. We got over 40 caches in total.
We walked 12,411 steps, which is about 6.20 miles.
I picked up two more Towns and Cities which dwindles my list down to 14. All but one are in Eastern Washington.
Next Adventure: Spokane Trip: Farmer's Market, Centennial Trail, Geocaching, Uprise Brewing, Dishman Hills and Pizza
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