I set the alarm for 7 a.m. thinking we would be able to get ready, eat breakfast downstairs and out the door so we could get to John Dam Plaza at a decent time. But we laid in bed too long, got dressed and organized too slow, went downstairs and ate too slow and just plain old ran out of time. Then Ben wanted to go across the street to get coffee from Dutch Brothers. I was super impatient and wanted them to hurry up. We were a little later getting to the event than I wanted to. I like to get there early for good parking and wandering around before it got too busy.
Brenda and Ray texted us asking where we were. I said we got a little late of a start and we were on our way. We got to the lot, parked, grabbed the stuff we needed and walked to the plaza. We got checked in and signed the log. We looked for people we knew, said hi to everyone and looked for Brenda and Ray. We found them and they said to follow them over so we could get a picture with Signal.
Afterwards, it was time to hear Jen's announcements, so we found a spot and listened. Little did we know, this would be her last time doing this...for at least a while. She went over the rules, the caches, the passports and if anyone needed help, just to call the number on the passport and one of the volunteers would help them. Jen also explained that this year we were doing rubbings for the passports, so we each got a golf pencil and a little sharpener. The crowd ranged anywhere between first time cachers to cachers who have been doing this every single year with cachers in between. This was my 10th TriCities Geocoin Event but my 11th TriCities Geocoin. I did not make it over in 2013 but we got the coin in 2014 when we came over early to do the previous year's caches.
After a few more announcements, Jen's daughter took a group photo of all of us, and the passports were released. We ended up grabbing the wrong ones and had to go back for the adult passports. We all used the potty one more time and headed over to the parking lot. It was our turn to drive so we moved some stuff from their hamster mobile to the Escape. Then they couldn't find their passport that was attached to a clipboard, and we had to look all over the place for it. It ended up being on the roof of their car. Haha! First epic fail of the day!
Ray got his Nuvi all set up while Brenda and I got a tentative route figured out. We wanted to make sure to minimize the backtracking as much as possible. Ben adjusted the driver's seat; mirrors and he was all ready to start the 2023 TriCities Geocoin Challenge (GCA307W)! Because it started in Richland, we decided to do Pasco first, to get that side of the river done before we moved onto the next city. We had to do Pasco strategically though, it is divided into two halves because of the railroad tracks and had to go down certain roads to get where we needed to go.
We drove across the bridge and over to the Pasco side. We also had to remember about the Adventure Labs that are also sprinkled among the caches and that some of them are at the same locations as the caches were, so we were going to have to multitask between the two apps. Our first cache and Adventure Lab waypoint were at a park near the TriCities Airport. We found a place to park, got out and found the answer to the waypoint (P06-Big Cross) easily except that I had to stand there and wait for my phone to restart while Ben, Brenda and Ray walked to the cache, TC 2023 P03 Getting to Pasco (GCA5E2C) with the passports. I had been having trouble with my phone since September 2021. I was too cheap and stubborn to get another one. It finally restarted and I tried catching up to them, but they were already on their way back with the passports.
We did end up making the same huge epic fail as we did last year. We got into the wrong lane and ended up on I-82 to go over the bridge back into Richland to where we had to turn around, get back onto the freeway and back into Pasco. Luckily, this was the only other epic driving fail we had during the day.
We looped back around and drove towards the Columbia River and to a road we've been on several times throughout the years for TC 2023 P01 - The Tamed River (GCA5E2D) and TC 2023 P04 - Agricultural Area (GCA5E2D), both were easy finds but one we had to use our pencil to rub the image onto our passports, in which we dubbed, rub parties. The more cachers at the location, the bigger of a rub party it was. We picked up the rest of the caches and Adventure Lab waypoints and drove across my favorite bridge, Ed Hendler Cable Bridge into Kennewick.
We were a fourth of the way done and it was barely noon. We drove east out to Two Rivers Park to grab TC 2023 K03 - Headwaters (GCA5MQH). Last time we were there, Ben and I played a round of really hot disc golf before heading home in 2018.
While in Kennewick, we stopped a few times for the other waypoints and geocaches and decided to save some time, we weren't going to stop at a park and eat our lunch. We were just going to make sandwiches out of the back of the Escape and eat along the way. I made Ben and I a PBJ sandwich and a handful of chips, while Brenda and Ray ate their prepared lunch.
We picked up one of our Kennewick Adventure Lab waypoints (K10-Legs and Tails) over by Clover Island. We drove up to a mural but quickly discovered it wasn't the mural but down the paved trail a few hundred feet from the parking lot. From this spot you could see the Columbia River, my favorite bridge and Clover Island. It was such a nice day, and it was getting hotter.
We hopped back into the Escape and drove south of Kennewick towards I-82. We jumped onto some of the north south side roads and made our way up to the Southridge Sports Complex. Yes, we've found caches just about every year at this giant complex. This is the site where a large piece from one of the Twin Towers from September 11, 2001, is on display. The cache, TC 2023 K04 - Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes (GCA5MQK), was just up the street hidden among the sagebrush. When we arrived, there were quite a few cachers we had to wait for to get our names on the logbook and complete our passport rub.
Our GPS drove us, I think, the longest way possible around to grab one of our Adventure Lab waypoints (K08-Excavated Tails). At one point, we weren't sure where it was taking us. Why are we going clear out in the middle of nowhere? I checked my phone to see if there was actually something there. There was. It was called the MCBONES Coyote Canyon Mammoth Site and one of our waypoints was there at the "dig house." This was probably the furthest out away from town we've ever had to go during the geocoin event.
We drove back towards town and stopped for TC 2023 K01 - Head West (GCA5MQD). When we got out, I was glad to see this one was going to be quick due to no long lines waiting for a passport rub down. We were out and in and ready to tackle our next set of caches and waypoints, a combination of West Richland and Richland. We were about halfway through our passports, and it was just after 2:00.
Our first cache in Richland was TC 2023 - R01 Dog Tails (GCA4BVN) to avoid some serious backtracking. When we got there, it was covered in a bunch of cachers. We actually had to wait, what seemed like a long time to rub our passports, because some lady had like four kids a head of us, and they all had to rub their passports. It was really hard to be patient and wait for all of the kids to do their passports. By the second kid, my patience was wearing thin. I just wanted to get our passports rubbed so we could move on. Why do kids get distracted so easily? Ughhhhh!
We steered towards West Richland to knock out those caches and Adventure Labs. One of the first Adventure Labs we came to was waypoint (W07 - Park at the Lakes: Takes on the Trails). It was located inside of a housing development and the park was very well maintained. The grass was so green!
We drove over to where the West Richland City Hall was because there was a geocache and a waypoint, we could knock out quickly. Brenda and I got out quickly, found the valve box for TC 2023 - W05 City Hall (GCA4G26) and signed the logbook. This one wasn't a passport rub so we just grabbed our code word and hopped back into the Escape with Ben and Ray. The waypoint (W10 - Paul Keith Wetlands: Tales on the Trails) was just up the road from city hall. We all made sure to log that code word in our app.
Our next stop, TC 2023 - W04 Mosquito Control (GCA5PYA) was our last cache in West Richland before moving on to Richland. Brenda and I got out with our passports and ran over to the small tree with a birdhouse attached to it. We took the few minutes to sign the logbook and rub our passports. It was roughly 3:15 and we had finished our third city of the day with one more to go.
We drove north up towards the north part of Richland and to where the Manhattan Project Museum was. We have been to this part of town many times over the years and have even eaten at one of the breweries there. Our GPS directed us to TC 2023 - R03 Bad Doggie Tails (GCA4BWG), to where, we looked for something in plain sight. Luckily, we were the only ones there, so we didn't have to wait in a passport rub party line.
We moved on picking up the rest of our caches and waypoints before driving back into "downtown" Richland to finish off our last waypoint (R10 - Library Tales). We found a place to park and walked to where the posted coords were. We had to count the window panels of the library, but the question wasn't specific enough, so we were there for a while counting them and trying every possible two-digit number we could think of. When we finally got the answer, we all had finished our last TriCities Geocoin Challenge. It was bittersweet but, we all knew by the end of the day, it would come to an end of an era. We took a group photo. We have been taking a group photo every year at the last cache and this time it was a waypoint to an Adventure Lab.
I seriously didn't want the day to end but it had to unfortunately. It was two-fold. The this was the last year for the TriCities Geocoin Challenge and our friends, Brenda and Ray were moving to Portugal. We got back into the Escape and headed back to John Dam Plaza for our coins. We got to the parking lot and immediately walked to the park to get our coin. The coin this year was to commemorate all of the TriCities Geocoin Challenges starting back when it was just Richland in 2010. It was shaped like a book and had all the coins and information about each of the events. We all decided that we would have dinner at Texas Roadhouse and Brenda put in our reservation.
We walked up to Julie, Jen and the rest of the volunteers and handed them our passports to see if we did our rubs and code words correctly. They were and we were handed our coins.
A group of the volunteers overheard our conversation about having the "rub parties with strangers" and one of them said that they were reading the logs and talking about them throughout the day. They asked us if that was us logging them that way and we said yes. They absolutely lost it, and we had a short conversation about it. They had and extra 3D printed out a tile that said "RUB ME" as a joke and handed it to us as a souvenir. They thanked us for the laugh.
We chatted with Julie, Jen and a few of the volunteers for a few minutes. We were asked to fill in one of our geocaching stories into the leather-bound book they had for our "Tales of the TriCities". Both Brenda and I spent a few minutes adding our stories to the book. Mine was centered around how Ben and I met...through geocaching. We wandered around for a few minutes saying hi to people we knew and then it was time to start driving back to Kennewick for dinner. Jen pulled me aside and told me that the rumors I was hearing were in fact, true. She was going to make the announcement during the raffle drawing and post event information but wanted to personally tell me before we headed to dinner. I told her it was perfect timing for us because we were getting married next July and probably wouldn't be able to come.
I met back up with Brenda, Ray and Ben, we moved their stuff back over to their hamster mobile and both of us drove to Kennewick. We got to Texas Roadhouse (which is literally across the highway from our hotel) and we were seated right away. We arrived at the perfect time. They brought us hot rolls with their famous cinnamon butter and took our drink orders. I got a lemonade. We talked about their move to Portugal and what all they had to do to get ready. The waitress took our orders. I ordered a steak, potato and a side salad. When our food arrived, I was so ready to eat. It was soooo good!
We ate, chatted about the day, talked about a possible "going away" event that Brenda and Ray would host in Spokane possibly in September and more about our upcoming wedding stuff for the next summer. It was time to them to head back to Spokane. We gave out hugs and told them we would see them sometime in September. They drove off. I asked Ben what he wanted to do, and he said whatever. We drove back down to the event to see if there were still people there. I wanted to purchase a few things from Cache Advance while they were still set up.
We talked to Lisa for a while, I bought some geocaching stencils, chatted with Antoine and Nikki for a few minutes and Lori one of the WSGA board members about my WSGA account. For some reason I could not log onto it and asked if they could reset it or something. She said to keep reminding her to do so since she has a ton of things on her plate at the moment. I asked Ben if he was ready to go to the brewery we picked out for the evening, and he said sure.
It was technically in Richland, but I thought it was closer to Kennewick. We picked Rattlesnake Mountain Brewing and went for a pint of beer. We parked and went inside. My impression of it was more of a dive bar atmosphere rather than a brewery. I decided to use the bathroom before we ordered and went inside the stall. I should have checked for toilet paper before I actually went. There wasn't any. I called Ben really quick to see if he could get me some from the other stall. He misunderstood and asked one of the waitresses to get some more. I really didn't think it was going to take that long, so I sat there waiting. Meanwhile, some girl, probably in her early 20's, came into the bathroom talking to someone on the phone. She seemed pretty unhappy. As she kept talking, the more I could understand her story better. She apparently was on a date with a guy, and it wasn't going very well. She wanted the person on the phone to come get her. She was disappointed with the place he chose; they had nothing in common and she just wanted to leave. I was like uh oh. A few more minutes passed and finally after what seemed like fifteen minutes, a waitress brought in a new roll of toilet paper. At least my wait wasn't boring, lol!
I met up with Ben at one of the tables and was like, that took forever and then told him the story of the girl that came into the bathroom. Another waitress came up to us and asked what we were drinking. I got an Americans Amber and Ben ordered a Honey Red Ale. Both were similar but we liked mine a lot better after tasting both.
We did more wedding planning as we sat there. Not sure if the girl's friend ever came to get her or not. We had a great view of the Columbia River and the sunset. We finished off our beers and went back to the hotel. We got in some showers, played a few rounds of Yahtzee, ate popcorn and then went to bed. It was a long day.
Here is my log for the TriCities Geocoin Challenge:
"Wow. Where to begin?
First off, I would like to thank Jen and everyone who have spent many years collecting ideas, talking to various people, organizing, hiding caches, worrying and putting this event on every year since 2010. It is a lot of hard work and I very much appreciate everyone who had a hand in it. This is my favorite event I go to every year.
I've been coming since 2012 (except for the Covid year, booo!) and I have loved every minute of it. I've seen it evolve into what it is today. I have met many people, just about seen most of the TriCities, had fun camping out in the parks, made many memories with lifelong friends, lots of laughing, tons of photos and had a great time doing it! I suspected that this could be the last one for a while and that's okay, our leader and volunteers need a break. We will miss it tremendously, but we will survive.
Again, a huge thanks to our geocaching family in the TriCities! We will be back!"
I posted the coin and a couple other photo posts to Instagram; this is my caption:
"I have been coming to this even since 2012. I missed 2010, 2011 and 2020 (because of Covid, no event was held) so those were bummer years for me. This event had been my favorite one to attend all of those years traveling over to Eastern Washington. I've met so many great people, made tons of memories and laughed a lot! For some reason when we came over last June, we knew this would probably be the last one for a while. You could just feel it. It was confirmed that even during the event wrap up. I will miss it and won't know what to do with the end of my June's now.
This was also our last major geocaching event with our friends, Brenda and Ray (Geek&Gopher) because they are retiring and moving to Portugal in the fall. We will miss hanging out with them, but we will be able to visit them in Europe at some point.
The geocoin for this year was off the charts and a great way to wrap up all the memories!
Thank you to everyone who put the TriCities Geocoin Challenge on the map!"
Next Adventure: TriCities Geocoin Challenge: TriCities to Lacey
No comments:
Post a Comment