We have finally reached our favorite time of the year: the TriCities Geocoin Challenge. This year felt a little different than the ones of the past. I had been hearing rumors swirling around about this event possibly being the last one for a while and we recently found out our friends Brenda and Ray were retiring and moving to Portugal. This would be the last time we did this event with them. It made us sad, but we knew all good things do come to an end eventually.
Earlier that week, I put in my leave, picked up a few groceries to take with us, did a couple chores and did some laundry. I wanted to make sure everything was somewhat clean before we left. I really hoped that nothing went wrong while we were gone. When Ben and I or I leave somewhere for a long weekend or vacation, something dumb always happens when we leave Doug in charge. Will this be the first time nothing happens? We will see.
The night before, I spent some time packing up as much as I could and loading it in the Escape. I would have to add more stuff to it the following morning including some of our bedding and the food in the cooler. This year there wasn't any camping because it was being held at John Dam Plaza in Richland again. Another sign that this event was going to be the last one. Ben and I had to book a couple nights in a hotel again. We chose the Super 8 in Kennewick again because it was familiar and somewhat near everything.
Ben took the day off and I took a half a day off. I worked until 11:30, getting stuff done as I waited for work to be pushed over. Ben slept until about 9:45, got up shaved and got in a shower. He packed up his clothes, some bedding and got it into the Escape. We made sure our cats had a clean cat box, plenty of food and water and gave them treats. We made some "to go" tuna fish sandwiches and brought some Fritos with us. We checked everything one more time and told the kitties to guard the house while we were gone.
I had recently taken up a "part time" job at lunch time. One of Mom's co-workers asked me to go over to her and her husband's house Monday-Thursday and let out their two dogs because their previous person couldn't do it anymore. They said they would pay me $35-40 bucks a week. Of course, I agreed because it seemed like an easy gig, and I like having extra cash on hand. What makes it difficult is having random days off during the week and setting aside time to go over and do it which ruins half of the day. Vacations are easier because they have a person that can go over when I am gone, and it's known in advance. So, we stopped by the house to let the dogs out to go potty and to throw around the toy for about 15-20 minutes. The weather was warm and decent but not super summery yet. We were hoping once we got to Eastern Washington the weather would be hot! I love me some sunshine!
We locked up, left and headed to Yelm. It was busy, and I am glad there is a back way through town to avoid most of the lights. I started in on my tuna sandwich and we texted Willmarth that we were leaving Yelm.
We followed some slow people through McKenna and out to Hwy 7. We decided to go through La Grande and Alder instead going through Eatonville and sadly, we had to follow a bunch of slow-moving cars through there. We finally got to Elbe and to the turn off to Morton. We were lucky here and didn't have to be behind anyone.
We got to Morton, and I checked my phone for the cache I wanted to stop at. It was outside of Morton on Hwy 12 at the transfer station. Weigh Two Go (GCA972H) was the newest one in the area. There was a lot of room to park, we got out and went over to ground zero. The coords kept bouncing all over the place. It took a little bit to figure out. We both knew it had to do with the tile, so we spent some time flipping over the tile and Ben eventually found the correct tile and pulled it out of its hidey hole. We signed our names, got a picture and put it back.
We continued east on Hwy 12 and traffic was pretty minimal, this is why we leave on a Thursday afternoon to head over. Willmarth had texted us while we didn't have service and it popped up when I had a smidgen of service, this is what he said,
"Val, Kevin is having a major melt down today. He doesn't have his pills until tomorrow, and he is being very rude and violent. We are about 15 minutes from calling the police. I booked a hotel room for you guys in Selah. Sorry, but this stuff has been happening a lot lately."
I told him okay and thank you for the hotel room. We agreed that we would attempt to hang out the next day once Kevin was under control and on his meds. He said he would let us know.
We got up the pass and had to stop just before the summit due to construction. Ben was already asleep, and my phone wasn't connected to the Escape so I couldn't listen to my podcasts due to the no service in the area. We had to wait for about 20 minutes in a thunderstorm. It rained pretty hard but was glad we weren't the motorcycle riders a few cars in front of us who were getting soaked. The construction crew were working on pieces of the road that got ruined by the winter weather just a few months prior. I was glad we weren't there for a long time.
We finally got going and made it up to the top of the pass. This time of year is not as busy as the winter and we drove through the summit pretty quickly. As we started down, I told Ben about the new virtual cache, Clear Creek Falls (GC9P4R0) at Clear Creek Falls (a place I have stopped at many years to get caches) and said that we were going to stop to get away from all the traffic. He said sure. We stopped at the viewpoint, and I asked if he had to use the restroom, he said no. We found the sign we needed the words off of and again, this is a cache that could be interpreted differently depending on the person and how they interpret it. This is a virtual and should be straightforward, unlike many multicaches I've done over the years.
I took a picture of the sign so we could ask others before us what sentence they used to send to the cache owner. We got back on Hwy 12 and continued east. Once we got back into cell phone service again, in Naches, I checked in with Willmarth again. He apologized to us once again about his behavior and he wasn't sure if he'd be able to leave the house to even have dinner with us. Instead of just going to the hotel, I asked Ben if he wanted to drive around the area and geocache. He said sure.
We drove up the hill towards Tieton and Cowiche and to grab Naches Valley View (GC7PEKQ). We had a hard time finding a place to pull off the road to go get it. Ben stayed with the Escape while I ran across the road to go find it. It jumped around but I managed to zero in on it. I got our names on it, a photo and a photo of the great view of the valley from up there.
We drove through the apple orchards and down the hill to the Yakima River to get Silverfoot (GC1M7X7) and it smelled like dead animals the entire time we were there. I checked the geocaching app to see where the next grouping of caches were at. They were down in Fruitvale so that's where we went.
We drove past the Fred Meyer and down the other side of the road to grab Stars View (GC7PP2F). I originally thought it was at the movie theater but ended up being in the parking lot between BiMart and Starbucks. I had to get out and wait for people to drive by since it was in a busy area and inside a lamp skirt. I hustled to get this one done just because it was muggle central.
We went up the hill on Summit View to get NOT 1601 Pennsylvania Ave (GC6VB6Q) and wasn't sure what we would find. The business that was near the cache site was for disabled people and had a giant horse on the grounds. We parked at a parking spot in the lot and walked down to where the cache was. We made the grab; Ben took my picture and we put it back.
We saw there was one down the road a little way called Throwing Shoes (GC272A2) so I had Ben navigate the way. It was an easy grab at a park with a horseshoe pit. We parked near the cache and noticed some people parked nearby possible arranging some adult extra curriculars, we assumed. Ben found the bison tube.
I checked in once again with Willmarth and he said to go find some dinner because he wasn't going to be able to meet up with us. I looked on the internet to see which brewery was closest to us. That was the Valley Brewing Company off of River Road and that's where we went. We parked and noticed this brewery was on the small side. We walked in, looked at the beer options and I got the River Road Amber Ale and Ben got the Irish Red. We took them to the outdoor patio and then went to Tacos El Rey that was attached to the brewery because we needed some food. Plus, Mexican food sounded good. I ordered the taco plate with beans and rice and Ben got a burrito.
While we waited, I wrote some notes in my handy dandy notebook. It was warm but the wind started to pick up, so I put my sweatshirt on. Our food came and it was delicious. We looked at the geocaching map app to see which other caches we could grab after dinner before going to the hotel for the night. We finished off our dinner and beers, thanked everyone and went back out to the Escape.
We drove into Selah and drove out towards east side of town. The first one, NRV A Guardrail Cache (GC2P5MY) was rated as a 4.0/1.5, that had me deciding if we should stop and attempt it or not. Most cache 3.0 and above usually are hard and take up a lot of time to find. Sometimes, you get lucky. Let's go see if we were lucky.
We parked along the side of the road in a small pullout. We both got out and were very careful because this time of the year there are hidden bees inside the guardrails. I noticed a smell and something weird in the ditch. What is that? It was a roasting pan with a pig head inside of it. What?! We took a picture of it just so we had an illustration with our story. We started looking for the cache and actually found it quickly. It was a magnetic face plate attached to the side of the guardrail. It didn't fool us!
We drove up the road further and turned onto a dirt road that led up to the canal. We stopped and grabbed a quick nano called Just Another Warning (GC7B5DX) which was hidden on the metal gate, we got our names on it and quickly put it back since there were a few people driving up and down the dirt road probably wondering what we were doing. We got back in the Escape and drove further up the road to get the last one, Roza Canal Project (GC2V4VX).
There was a separate "service" road to get us closer to ground zero, but I had to be careful because there were parts on the dirt road that was very soft sand, and we didn't want to get stuck. I monster trucked through and found a place to park. We got out and found the cache quickly. We got a few shots of us and the cache and just the canal. It was a pleasant evening in Selah.
It was getting late, so we drove to one more cache, In the Center of the Action (GC29KB2) which happened to be near the Grocery Outlet. We grabbed the cache first, which was a nano, signed our names, got a photo and put it back, before we went into the store. We walked across the parking lot and went into Grocery Outlet. We ended up getting a couple candy bars, microwave popcorn and Ben wanted ice cream.
The hotel was right around the corner, so we went to go check in. Ben got the cards, we drove around to the side of the hotel and brought our stuff in. We sure do bring a lot of stuff for a weekend trip. It's better to have too much than not enough...especially underwear and socks. We got situated, called Mom and Trish to let them know what was happening and how our day went. We played Yahtzee, 10,000 and War while we ate our candy bars, popcorn and ice cream. The TV played in the background.
I got in a shower, got ready for bed and went to bed around 1:30 a.m.
We grabbed 11 caches and tried a new brewery.
Next Adventure: TriCities Geocoin Challenge: Visiting Willmarth, Over the Hills and Buffalo Wild Wings
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