I wanted to do something exciting for my 40th birthday. I was hoping to go to Hawaii or something like that, but we were not in a place to do stuff like that, at least not quite yet. November is historically known for rain and terrible weather so I asked Ben if we could possibly do it in August or September and go to Utah. He said sure but it, unfortunately, didn't work out with his work schedule. We had to put Utah on the back burner for a while. Instead, I decided to go to Walla Walla for a few days and it corresponded with the cache machine and a partial eclipse.
We were going to take Ben's Edge, he booked us a hotel for four days, I went grocery shopping for light breakfasts, lunches, snacks and drinks, I planned the activities and routes for each day, we got our laundry washed and dried and packed up most everything the night before so we could leave at a decent time the next day.
We got up at 7, we got ready, packed up the rest of the stuff into Ben's Edge, I ate a half a bagel just to get me by and Ben brought one of his overnight oatmeal to eat later. We didn't leave the house until 8:30. We noticed that the gutter was falling off of the front of the house, so Ben put in a work order to Hometown. Ben wanted to stop at Cutter's Point Coffee so we went through the drive thru and he was able to suffice his coffee fix.
Doug caused some problems (which always happened when we went on vacation) and I had to chat with Erika while we drove through Yelm and McKenna. We got it worked out and she was going to come over to check on the cats while we were gone. Ben ate his yogurt mixture as we headed to Eatonville. The traffic was minimal, which was nice. Ben was able to find some service as we were driving near Eatonville and found out that Lester came over to fix the gutter and they closed out the ticket. We also let Willmarth know we were on our way over if he had some time to hang out.
From Elbe to Packwood, we had to follow several slow semi-trucks, cars and trucks. We were able to get around some of them, so we didn't have to follow them for miles and miles. I saw there was a new cache in Packwood, so I directed Ben to Cola Truck (GCADQMN). It was near the gas station, so we parked at the gas station, did some stretching and found the cache. It was an easy find.
We got back onto Hwy 12 and had to follow a semi-truck up the pass, he did eventually pull over and let us pass but then we were slowed down by other slow cars and trucks. I thought that if we went over Hwy 12 during the early morning, we would not get stuck behind slow vehicles, apparently, we were wrong.
We finally got to the junction where Hwy 410 meets up with Hwy 12 and we let Willmarth know we were in town. He did get back to us and told us he was currently in a doctor's appointment, and he didn't know how much time we had to wait around. We let him know we would check in again the next time we came through.
I asked Ben if he was hungry, and he said yes. I asked what sounded good and we came up with sandwiches. We traveled to Union Gap to grab a cache, Pioneer Cemetery Old Bones (GC78TEN) and while I looked for it, Ben found a place to pee. There were several signs that talked about the history of this old cemetery.
I found the closest sandwich place and it was a Bruchi's. We pulled in and went inside. I haven't been to a Bruchi's in a very long time since it is an Eastern Washington franchise. We perused the menu, and I got a turkey and cheese, and Ben got a Philly cheesesteak. We both had chips and a drink. We sat in a booth and ate our sandwiches.
Once we were done, we made our way to the freeway and headed towards Prosser. We talked about missing this drive every June because the TriCities Geocoin Challenge was no more. What were we going to do with our June's now?
We stopped in Prosser at the Love's to get gas and ice. I used the restroom really quickly and I asked Ben if we wanted to actually go into Prosser and do some caching and he said yes. We found a place to park near the old train station. We walked over to do Prosser's Slide Whistle (GCAC4J1) first. It took us a few minutes to figure out where to look since the coords took us all over the place. We did eventually zero in on it.
We opened up the two Adventure Labs, Horse-ing Around and Paint the Town and did them both at the same time so we didn't have to back track. We learned a lot about this small town, and it was fun seeing all of the different types of horse statues sprinkled about. We even saw a Hitler frog, that was painted on the side of a building.
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Just before we left, we walked over to an ice cream place to find Kakashi's Favorite Malt (GCABJX4). It was a tricky find but we got it! We signed our names, carefully put it back and made our way back to the Edge, looking at the rest of the colorful horse statues around town.
We drove back towards the freeway, decided to stop at the park and ride/rest area to use the restroom before we continued on our journey. As we drove towards the TriCities, Ben called the person on shift to let them know that he was not going to be at training that evening. That person told us that Jed's mother-in-law passed away that morning. We wrapped up our conversation with him and immediately called Jed to let him know we were thinking of him and his family. He said there would be a celebration of life soon and would let us know when it was.
We continued down I-82 and crossed into Oregon at Umatilla. I have never gone this way before, so we decided to try a new route. We got off of the freeway and onto Hwy 730. We stopped along the way to grab a cache, Wanaket Wildlife Area (GC4T43Y). It was a big fake rock hidden in the corner of the parking lot. I found it quickly, got our names on it and got back on the highway. We followed the highway along the south side of the Columbia River heading towards the Wallula Gap.
We drove back into Washington and hit the Hwy 12 junction. We continued east on Hwy 12 towards Walla Walla. We got into town, and I directed Ben towards the middle of town. I wanted to walk around and do a couple of caches and Adventure Labs. We started off with the virtual cache in town, Windows of the Past (GC7B6CG). That one was difficult figuring out what we were supposed to do because they had the park closed off due to construction. We did eventually find a way to get close enough to it to get a photo.
We did the Adventure Lab, Art of Main Street, while we walked into a couple shops. I bought a magnet and some stickers from one shop. Some protesters were peacefully protesting the free Palestine movement. Their chant was catchy. We tried staying out of their way as we finished up the Adventure Lab. We walked back to the Edge and noticed all the hoity-toity people all dressed up going to the wine bars. We laughed at them.
We left downtown so we could check into our hotel. But first, I wanted to stop one more time to grab one more cache, since we were driving past it anyway. We pulled into JoAnne's and went to the back of the store. Crafty Hide (GC41H7F) was a crafty hide. We were there longer than I thought we would be. The only reason why I saw it was because I could see the edge of the handmade pouch. Ben was like, how did you find that? I told him, I've seen a bunch of these over the years and it's the only possibility besides a nano and a magnetic hide-a-key. We got our names on it while the dog behind the fence barked at us.
We drove down the road to our hotel, the Super 8, Ben checked us in, and we parked to get the stuff out of the Edge. I managed to step on a random hook in the parking lot, pried it out of my shoe, stacked all of our stuff onto the hotel cart and went up to our room on the third floor. We unloaded the cart and decided on what we wanted to do for dinner. We checked our options on our phones. We decided on a place called BH Brewhouse Pub on Main/Palouse Street.
We drove down, found a parking spot right in front of the place, went in and was seated right away. It wasn't that busy for a Thursday night. We were handed menus and picked out what we wanted to drink. Both Ben and I wanted to try the award-winning Walla Walla Wheat. We ordered a pitcher. When the waitress came back with our beer, we ordered our food. I got the chicken strips and fries, and Ben had the pulled pork and tots. We watched the Chiefs beat the Broncos on Thursday Night Football. We ate our food and enjoyed not being at home.
We went back to the hotel, showered, got comfortable, had Family Feud playing in the background while we played 10,000 and Rummy. Ben beat me in the dice game, and I beat him at Rummy - he was a sore loser! We got ready for bed and went to sleep around midnight.
Notes on the Day:
We were able to get Walla Walla checked off the list for the Towns and Cities Challenge. Eleven more towns and cities to go!
We grabbed seven geocaches, did three Adventure Labs, which totals to 15 waypoints. A grand total of 22 geocaches altogether.
Next Adventure: Early Birthday/Anniversary Weekend: Power Trails, Prescott, Pre-Cache Machine Event
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