I was itching for another adventure catered to filling in my Fizzy grid. I saw there was an event down in Troutdale, so I constructed a trip around it. I knew we haven't been down there in a while, so I checked the map and found some virtual caches, Fizzy grid fillers and some other ones with a lot of favorite points. I added a brewery in Vancouver to try as well. I told Ben about the adventure, and he wanted to do some disc golfing too, so we found a course where we were going to be and added it to our list.
That Friday, I had our itinerary done and told him when he needed to be up the next day by. Of course, we stayed up way too late and had a hard time getting motivated in the morning. We were up and moving by 7:30, got dressed, made a quick sandwich, grabbed some snacks and drinks, shoved them in the cooler and then I ate a light breakfast of yogurt, and a bagel and Ben had a muffin. We piled our stuff into the Escape and off to I-5 south we went. We left home around 8:15.
Along the way, we chatted about random things and Ben fell asleep a few times through the journey south. I listened to my music. We got closer to Longview, got off at the exit towards Hwy 30 and drove over the Lewis and Clark Bridge into Oregon. I had my Nuvi set to a virtual cache, Welcome to Halloweentown (GC9P3XA) in St. Helens. If we waited until fall to do this cache, it would be super busy due to the events the hold during that time of the year.
We got off Hwy 30 and followed the main road into "downtown" St. Helens. We parked, did the virtual cache, asked Ben if he and Amy watched Halloweentown as kids, he said he really didn't, but Amy did. We walked around a little bit, used the scary public bathroom and decided we were good.
We walked back to the Escape and drove back to Hwy 30. I saw a place along the way to take a selfie with Winnie the Pooh. I was surprised there wasn't a geocache nearby. We had to wait at the light through several cycles because we were beyond the stop line. So dumb.
I had set the Nuvi for our next stop in Scappoose. I have been here several times throughout the years and even did part of the Crown Zellerbach Trail with Bob, over ten years ago now. There are a ton more on this trail. This was the first Fizzy grid cache I needed, which was a 5/3 and a challenge cache I had to qualify for. There wasn't a whole lot of parking near Challenge of the Quarter Century: Nano (GC4RFGM), so we were going to have to break some rules, so I was closer. I did not have time to walk two miles that morning.
There were tons of signs saying not to park there for the trail, but we did anyway. I had Ben stay in the Escape while I half jogged to the cache. I told him if someone came out to yell at us, to just leave, turn around and come back to get me. Cell phone service was a bit spotty out in this area. I got to the cache, signed our names, got my picture, put it back and walked back to the Escape. Ben said no one had to yell at him to move. I got back into the Escape and got back onto Hwy 30.
We turned onto Cornelius Pass Road to get over to Hillsboro without having to drive through Portland. I was trying to minimize how many times we would have to drive through it. I used to drive this way a lot when I was dating Brad back in 2009 and part of 2010, so I kinda knew my way around Hillsboro. We got up and over the hill and into the Hillsboro area. I had plugged Meet Me at 5 Oaks (GC7B6KP) into the Nuvi, so it took us where we needed to go. It was over by a bunch of office buildings, so we parked, got out and answered the questions. The patch of oak trees were huge! We got our answers we needed, and I took a couple pictures.
We hopped back into the Escape, got onto Hwy 26 and found the exit we needed to get the second Fizzy grid cache I needed, it was my 1/4 and was another challenge cache I had to qualify for. It was an easy park and grab, out in the farming fields of Hillsboro. Challenge of the Quarter Century: 1-Star Difficulty (GC7N19G) was literally on the side of the road near a pull out. I grabbed the hide-a-key, signed our names, got a photo and got to cross another one off the list!
I checked the map on the geocaching app to see if there were any others we could grab nearby with a bunch of favorite points. We saw one right off the Tualatin Valley Highway. We failed to realize it was summer and lots of events were happening in the large parks. We had to drive by Shute Park, and they were having some sort of a Medieval festival. There were people everywhere and it was hard to drive around the roads. We did make it to Mr. Pine's Purple Cache (GC9EK2G), and it was one of those neighborhood little book libraries. It had over 40 favorite points.
We found a place to park across the street, locked the Escape and headed over too the large purple free little library. We found the cache quickly, signed our names and put it back. There are always weird books inside and this one did not disappoint.
I checked the app to see if there were any other caches close by and there was, Rocking Art (GC9RVY1), but we had to drive past the crazy park with a lot of people going in and out of it. It took us forever to get past it because people were trying to find places to park, and no one knew how to cross the street at the crosswalks. It was a literal zoo. We finally got to where we needed to be, parked the Escape, got out and when I attempted to lock it, the Escape, was dead...completely dead. Uh oh.
I made sure to keep the wrench in the Escape for this exact reason. I unlocked the Escape with my key and popped the hood. Ben tightened the connections to the battery and the Escape came alive! Why does this keep happening? Did I pick the unlucky car lotto? We walked the short distance to the rock wall and took a few minutes to find the container. We got our names on it, got a photo and put it back.
We got back in the Escape and Ben suggested that we just go home. I was not going to turn around and go home, I still had things I wanted to do while we were down here. As we drove east, the Escape drove funny so we pulled over at the Home Depot so we could get a better look under the hood. Ben disconnected the wires from the battery terminal and started over again. He got them back on and tightened it. The Escape seemed to work better afterwards.
We made our way to Hwy 26 and got stuck in traffic just outside of Portland. Once we got going again, we were able to get into downtown Portland to try to get another cache near Portland State's campus. We could not find a place to park so we gave up, got back to the highway and drove east.
I remembered a cool cache that Mom, Bev and I found the previous summer and we were driving past it. I asked Ben if he wanted to see a giant fork and he said yes. We quickly stopped in the Fairview neighborhood, parked in the food truck lot, checked the Escape and then went inside to use the restroom. It was too hot to be out on the asphalt. I felt back for those food truck owners, they had to be dying inside while they cooked. I took Ben to the front so he could get credit for Stick a Fork in It - World's Largest Fork (GC9P4VT).
We got onto NE Halsey St, and it took us right into Historic Troutdale. We noticed that the McMenamin's Edgefield property was really busy. There must have been some sort of giant event or a wedding going on. How were we going to be able to find parking later to go to the event? We will have to figure it out when that time came. Instead, we went into town, found a place to park so we could walk around for about an hour or so.
There was a small park in the middle of town with a trout fountain in the middle of it. We started looking for Mayor's Park (GC1349E). Our phones took us all over the tiny park. The coords were probably way off. I just looked in the places that it could be, and we eventually found the black hide-a-key underneath the garbage can. We thought it was a weird place to hide it. We signed our names, got a picture and put it back.
I asked Ben if ice cream sounded good and he said it did, so we went searching for a shop. This part of town looked like it would have ice cream for visitors and tourists. We went up the street, crossed the road (and almost got ran over in a cross walk, Ben yelled at the stupid idiot in the truck) and onto the other side of the street. We went into a gift shop so I could look at stickers. The lady was really nice, and she told us that the people who owned the ice cream shop, retired. Bummer. We were really looking forward to ice cream. Oh well, I did buy some stickers and a Cougar stone drink coaster from her. She thanked us for coming in.
We finished off the rest of that side of the street and then walked back to the Escape to head over to McMenamin's. It was crazier than it was when we drove by the first time. Ben and I just found a place to park off of the road and walked in. We were still a bit early to the event so, we went to go find the cache, Bug and Breakfast - TB Hotel (GC5CXNE) first. It had a ton of favorite points, and I was hoping it had some TB's to take home with me. We got to ground zero, opened it up and sadness, no TB's to take home. In fact, the TB hotel was pretty empty. We signed the logbook, got a quick picture and decided to have a pint at the bar.
We sat down and was immediately served. I ordered a Julius Squeezer Cream Ale, and it was delicious. We chatted about the history of Edgefield, with the bar tender, while we drank our beers. It was fascinating. When we finished, we paid, thanked the bar tender again and skedaddled.
We walked down to the main building for the event, OR 2023 Year of the Rabbit - Nano Get Together (GCAB5KY), and noticed a lady we recognized, AnnScout. We've seen her at a bunch of events over the past few years. We introduced ourselves and she explained how and why she was hosting the event. Apparently, there is a McMenamin's club you can be a part of, and you get perks for doing so.
She gave us some snacks and we got to pick a coin since hardly anyone showed up to her event. About six of us showed up altogether. I wasn't sure who all would come but felt bad that barely anyone came. We were able to chat with the people who did show up. I have never met any of them besides AnnScout.
We stayed for about an hour and thanked her for hosting an event. Ben and I walked back to the Escape before the concert started. Yes, we found out it was a concert for a band I've never heard of. We got back onto Halsey, drove back through Troutdale and onto the Historic Columbia River Highway to get the last cache I needed down there, Animal Alphabet (GC2199J), my 5/3.5.
It was such in an awkward place. I found a pull out along the highway, Ben stayed in the Escape while I walked the 500 feet behind us, crossed the road and walked up a short steep hill to a multi treed trunk. I found the ammo can, opened it up and immediately dropped it. It looked like a dead animal was inside because all I saw was brown wet fur. I realized it was part of the cache. I found the logbook, signed our names, Ben may finish this challenge someday, and put it back. I carefully made my way back to the Escape. I need four more D/T for my Fizzy grid. All of them can be found in Bonney Lake.
We continued up the road to Dabney State Park so we could go disc golfing. We drove in and found out we had to pay $5 to use the park. We went over to the machine, and it wasn't working. We thought it was because it was too hot from sitting in the sun...it was about 90 degrees outside with a lot of humidity. We did see a park ranger wandering around so Ben asked him if we could pay him to get a pass and he said that would be fine. Ben got our pass, and we stuck it on the dashboard. We grabbed the discs and walked over to the putting area to get loosened up.
Ben found the map of the course online, but we had trouble in some spots following the layout because the signs were not clear or missing. The launch pads were decent, some of the baskets were hard to see but overall, we had a great time. Whenever there is water on the course or a tree near the fairway, I will throw it in or at it. It never fails.
At one of the holes, I purposely threw it away from the small creek. It took an awkward bounce and rolled right into the creek. Of course it did! Ben had thrown his disc over a huge patch of tall grass, and we didn't see where it landed. We spent probably 20 minutes searching for it. But we found it! Part of the course was in an old apple orchard and a lot of the apples had fallen to the ground and eaten by various animals and birds. It was weird walking over rotten crab apples while playing disc golf.
It was so muggy that we decided that our last hole was at 11. We were so sweaty and hot...plus, we were getting hungry since it was getting close to dinner time, and we still had to make our way over to Vancouver. We finished our putts, got in a picture and walked back to the Escape.
I changed my shoes into flip flops to let my feet breathe! We left the park and made our way back to Troutdale to hop onto I-84. We merged onto 205 and made our way back into Washington. We took the Hwy 14 exit, and it dumped us off in downtown Vancouver.
Downtown Vancouver was busy, due to a concert in the nearby Esther Short Park so, we had a hard time finding parking. We ended up parking in the parking garage for $2.50, which wasn't that bad for about three hours. We walked over to the Loowit Brewing Company, went inside and checked out their menu. The guy who took our beer and food orders noticed Ben's Sounders shirt and told us he was from the Seattle area and loved the Sounders. We both ordered the Loowit Lager, Ben got a Cowboy Burger, and I got the Loowit Burger, they both came with seasoned tots. We paid at the counter, took our beers with us and decided where we wanted to sit.
We sat outside but was still a bit muggy out. We looked through our pictures while we sipped our beer. I asked Ben if he had fun and he said yes, we got to do a little bit of everything today. Indeed, we did. This is why I love summer.
Our food was brought out and we were super hungry.
The food was tasty and hit the spot after a long day. We talked a little bit about our upcoming wedding the next summer since I brought my notebook with me to write notes in. We had a bunch of stuff to take care of in the next couple months such as invites, the photographer, the food and the cupcakes. I had kind of an idea how I wanted to do the invites, it was just finding some time to get all the pieces together and send them out.
We finished our food and decided to walk around for a little bit to work off some of our food. There were tons of murals around, so we looked at some of the graffiti. There was this really cool Mario themed Bowser mural that I thought was creative. I took a picture of it before moving on.
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It was getting dark, so we walked back to the Escape, drove out of the parking structure, up the road a little bit and then back onto I-5 north.
As we got into Longview, I saw that we should get some gas soon. I knew there was an Arco in Kelso that was easy to get on and off of the freeway. We stopped there, filled up and got back onto I-5. It was pretty much smooth sailing all the way through Centralia, Tumwater and into Lacey. We got home just before 10:30. We got some showers in because we were super sweaty and probably smelled, chilled for a bit before going to bed. It was a fun filled day!
Next Adventure: Mailbox Peak
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