It was hard to get up when our alarm went off at 8, but we needed as much day as possible to get some of the power trails done. We got dressed and went downstairs for the free breakfast. I had a croissant, meat, cheese and strawberry yogurt. We went back to the room to finish getting ready and grabbing the things we would need for the rest of the day.
We hopped into the Edge and drove west on Hwy 12. I found our first set of caches just north of a little blip on the map, Lowden. I told Ben I would be the first jumper and then we would trade later on. Erika called and I talked to her for a while as we geocached. I made sure someone else besides Doug was keeping track of the house and cats while we were gone. We started with the LDCR series. (GC5J6K7). There were probably twenty of them at one point, but only 11 of them remained. It was a bit foggy when we started, but that soon burned off into a very nice autumn day.
As we got further and further into the farmlands, I told Erika our service was getting spotty. She said she would talk to me later and I hung up. I continued hammering out the caches on the LDCR series. We did stop short of some of them and drove past others. We know the approximate coordinates are never perfect, especially when driving.
The next section of caches a tad bit north of the LDCR series were the Sudberry series (GC5QJ5T) and there were 14 caches to grab along that trail. It was Ben's turn to get out and jump for this section of caches. We ended that series with two extra ones called Sudberry Reroute (GC468T9) and Lark Song (GC3NP3B). We were making pretty good time, even though we were having to replace a bunch of them as we went.
We hit another section of the trail, this time it was my turn to get out and jump. We started off with Tormented Hawk (GC3NP3E) and then the 38 letterboxes I have been eyeballing for many years. This was the main reason for coming out this way because I needed to finish getting 100 letterboxes to be eligible to find some of the challenge caches that I have been waiting to do. There aren't many letterbox power trails in Western Washington. The letterbox series started off with Ice Cream Cone (GC66HD1) and ended with Wishing You Well (GC66RF2). We had to replace a lot of these ones. We were literally the only ones out there in the middle of nowhere.
At the end of this power trail, we hit the small area of Harsha along SR 124. We pulled off to grab Road to Clyde - 1 (GCA62W0) which was, of course, a guard rail cache. I got out, found it immediately, got our names on it and put it back. We pulled back onto SR 124 and drove east towards Prescott. We stopped one more time along the highway to pick up Yota Crash Site (GC6F3X6), hidden at a stop sign.
The next power trail was the PettiJohn series (GC762NF) and this time it was Ben's turn to get out and jump. There were 30 of them. PettiJohn followed the road south back towards Walla Walla until it met up with SR 125. There were a bunch of caches we had to replace along that stretch of road as well. I knew to bring extra containers out here so we could replace the ones that were missing. I did not come out this way for a bunch of DNF's.
We found a place to pullover to pee and to make some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. It was just after lunchtime, and we needed some food. We each took turns peeing on the side of the road, obviously watching out for that random vehicle that just happened to drive by in the middle of nowhere. Trust me, it happens. We got out our food, made two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, grabbed drinks out of the cooler and munched on our giant bag of Doritos. We pondered which power trail we were going to end the day with.
We decided to hit up the 22 caches on Brown Road, the Brown series (GC75J2C). That dirt road led us north into Prescott. We drove past several hundred acres of what used to be wheat that was harvested earlier that fall. One of the caches I jumped out for was near a section of wheat that wasn't cut down. I picked it and held it like a bouquet of flowers, except it was a bouquet of wheat. Ben said I was precious. We stopped for the last cache of the Brown series, Brown 22 (GC75JJ7) and enjoyed the scenery and the Touchet River down below.
We went into the small town of Prescott, a very small town of about 320 people, and named after C.H. Prescott, a railroad official. We came to Prescott because I needed it for my Towns and Cities Challenge, which was slowly dwindling down every time I came to Eastern Washington. We plugged in our first cache, The Gathering Spot (GC70W3H), into Ben's phone and he led me right to it. It would be hard to get lost in this tiny, Columbia County, town. We parked, got out and the coord bounced all over the place. It took us a few minutes to pull it out of its hiding spot. We got our names on it, got a picture and put it back.
We drove up the road to Field View Park. We parked, saw it wasn't super busy and went to go find the cache The Pool and Park (GC7G34P). This one also took us a few minutes to find. It was shoved into a hole in the road dividers that separated the park from someone's property. A dog barked at us the entire time. We got our names on it, a quick photo and put it back. I headed right to the swings. We swung for a while as we enjoyed the nice day away from home and work.
We hopped back into the Edge and drove a block away, parked and got out to find Welcome to Prescott (GC44T0F). Mom called so I talked to her while we looked for the cache. I told her what we've done so far, and she told me how exciting her day had been so far. I know, a super invigorating conversation. I saw that the grass had been recently cut and some of the logs had said to look low...I told Ben this one may have gotten mowed. As soon as I said that we found the bits of container and paper underneath one of the branches to the bush we were looking through. We counted it as a find and let the cache owner know that their cache had been destroyed and needed some maintenance. We got back in the Edge and told Mom I would call her later since I had no idea how the cell service was around there.
We drove to the north of town to find Whetstone Creek Stop (GC44T0J). It was shoved into the guardrail. It was a quick park and grab. We drove back into town, got back on the SR 124 and headed east. We stopped to grab one more on our way to Waitsburg, the other Welcome to Prescott (GC5EMB5) at the other end of town. I got out and signed it.
We drove into Waitsburg, mostly so Ben could see the small town, to drive back into Walla Walla a different way and to grab an earthcache,7SOA: Nature Lover (GC5A977). It was a quick one that talked about the layers of loess. Loess is layers of fine, mineral-rich materials mostly created by wind, but can also be formed by glaciers. The Palouse is covered in these hills, and they are great for farming.
We made our way back into Walla Walla, entering on Hwy 12 from the east. We found ourselves near the airport and some of the industrial buildings. Ben stopped for "E"asy Street 02 (GC5M7BD), which was a battered film cannister. The area wasn't too terribly busy, so we didn't have to worry about muggles seeing what we were doing. The next one took us by the regional airport. I had Ben park the Edge in one of the shoulders out of traffic while I ran across the street to find a Costco sized mayo jar someone turned into a cache. Sadly, there were no travel bugs inside of the Travel Bug Airport Motel (GC4QA8F).
We drove into town and headed to Pioneer Park. We had to waste a little bit of time before the event started in downtown. Pioneer Park was huge! We used the restroom, took pictures of the fountain that reminded us of the one on Friends, played ping pong for a while and then did the five waypoint Pioneer Park Adventure Lab. Then we looked at all the ducks, birds and pheasants in the bird enclosure. We found Park of the Pioneers (GC7WH9F) as we walked back towards the Edge. It was an ammo can hidden under the bushes by the large cannon. We took some pictures of the trees because the fall foliage was pretty. We got back to the Edge and decided it was time to go downtown for the event, Friday the 13th Gathering (Pre CM & Solar Eclipse) (GCAER5M). We were at the park for about an hour.
We got into downtown, found a place to park near the Red Monkey, went in and found the reserved seating for the geocachers. I wasn't sure who all was coming to this cache machine or who was all there yet. I saw a couple I knew who lived north of Seattle, so we sat in the table next to them and chatted for a bit. Our server came up to us and I ordered a strawberry milkshake and Ben got a peanut butter shake. When our shakes arrived, we ordered our food. I got the Mac n cheese and Ben ordered the nachos.
More people joined us at the table Ben and I were sitting at. We got to talk to Lucy, a lady we spoke to at Ray and Brenda's going away event, she is part of the Inland Empire region. We chatted with everyone for almost two hours. I paid for our food and drinks, thanked Lori for putting together the event and left. I asked Ben if we could go to College Place so we could get a few things at the Walmart. He said sure. We got some yogurt, chocolate milk, cream cheese, bagels and a bag of ice.
We got back to the hotel, decided to go down to the pool and hot tub. We changed into our swimming suits and headed down. We relaxed in the hot tub for a while as we talked to Brad and his friends, they also, were in the same hotel. Ben jumped in the pool for a few minutes, told everyone we would see them tomorrow and went back upstairs.
We got some showers in, and I spent some time working on the cache machine route on my computer while Avitar played on the TV in the background. We got ready for bed and went to bed sometime around 1 a.m.
Notes on the day:
We crossed off Prescott and now I have 10 more towns and cities left to go.
We found 129 caches.
An Adventure Lab with 5 waypoints.
For a total of 134 caches for the day.
A two-day total of 156 caches.
Next Adventure: Early Birthday/Anniversary Weekend: Walla Walla Cache Machine and a Solar Eclipse
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