I had originally planned to go help Willmarth move his stuff from Yakima to Spokane but that fell through literally at the last minute. I had five-day weekend from work, and it was glorious. I asked Bev what she was doing and if she wanted to drive around Hawks Prairie grabbing caches we didn't have. She said she would have to ask Bob and get back to me. Luckily, it didn't take her long to get back to me and said she could go with. I told her I would be by the house around 11 a.m. after I left Rhonda's dogs, Murphy and Molly out.
That morning, I got up, noticed it was going to be a nice day, got ready, ate a quick breakfast and was out the door to head to Rhonda's house to let out her dogs. Luckily, I was able to get them in and out without them getting too rambunctious. I locked up and headed into Rainier to pick up Bev. I was a few minutes past 11 because I had to follow a slow truck on Rainier Road.
She hopped in and asked if we could stop by the post office. I said sure! I could actually go in and grab my mail from my box. Since they've changed the hours of the post office due to vandalism, I am never there in time to grab my mail. We run in and run out. I decided to drive through Yelm to get to the Hawks Prairie side of town. Our first stop was the RAC. We didn't realize this place was going to be busy with an adult league softball tournament. We had a heck of a time finding a parking spot, but we eventually did.
We got out and decided to do Mushroom Corner (GCAP5RX) first. I had a hard time locating this one. I assumed it was going to look like a mushroom, which it was once I found it, but my coordinates took me everywhere except for where I needed to be. I was in and out of that patch of woods like 63 times and had to dodge the ants swirling around everywhere. When I did find it, it was by accident. I did not want to DNF it and have to come back. We got our names on it, snapped a quick picture and put it back exactly how I found it...since it was hidden well.
Next, we worked on the five-point Adventure Lab, Regional Athletic Complex Tour. We walked a short loop around the complex answering questions about the park, the stormwater system, the playgrounds, and the playfields. We enjoyed the nice walk around the park in the sunshine.
It was approaching lunch time and Bev said she was hungry since she had breakfast really early that morning. I asked her where she wanted to go and she said, since we are over this way, we could get hotdogs and sodas at Costco. I told her, if that's what you wanna do, let's do it! We walked back to the Escape and drove the short distance to the Costco. We found a place to park and went inside. It was busy, but it's always busy in the food court. This was the first time I ordered food on the kiosk...it was a weird experience, but our food showed up quickly. We filled our cups and squirted ketchup and mustard on our hotdogs. We spent a whopping $3! There wasn't a table available, so we asked to share with a guy who looked like he was almost done and welcomed us to his table. We thanked him, had a few short words and ate our food.
I looked over the app and saw the grouping of newish caches off of Willamette Drive. We tossed our garbage in the bin and headed back out to the Escape.
Our next cache was called GeoTree2 (GCAWZRP). We were able to park the car along the side of the street. We got out and we found it immediately. The cache container was a little weird, but a find is a find. We hopped back into the Escape and continued up the road to The Rock #2 (GCAWWWX).
This cache we had trouble finding a parking spot for. It was showing out in the middle of a retention pond, luckily this time of the year the pond was dry. I looked for the best way to approach the cache and it required a short walk down an incline. Bev is not an off-road vehicle, so she stayed behind to cheer me on. Let me tell ya, the terrain wasn't even, and I almost tipped over a few times. I got to the large rock on the opposite side of the pond and found the cache hidden under one of the crevices. I got our names on it, took a quick picture and walked back over to where Bev was waiting for me.
We hopped in the Escape and looked at the directions to The Rock!! (GCAWVY8). It was located at another retention pond with a neighborhood surrounding it. The cache was a little less than a quarter of a mile away and I asked Bev if she wanted to walk there with me and she said she would sit in the car. I told her I would jog out to it and jog back. She said she was fine with that. I hustled over to the retention pond, and it took me to another giant rock but this time the cache was larger. Sadly, there was no cool stuff inside of it. I wrote our names on it, took a picture, put it back and hustled back to the Escape.
GeoTree (GCAWX8G) was just up the road. It was near the sidewalk on the south side of the Meridian Neighborhood Park. This time we were able to park right next to it. We got out and found it right away. It was another one of those weird cups with straws containers. We signed it and got a picture of Bev being silly with it.
We got back into the Escape and drove over to GeoTree4 (GCAWZZD) but it was in an area where there wasn't a place to park. We drove past it a couple times trying to figure out where we needed to go. I got into the neighborhood and found some streets that took us closer to the cache. Bev said she would stay in the Escape while I figured out how to get to it from where we parked. I walked through two of the apartments and up a small hill. I found the tree that contained the cache. I was surprised this one was still here. It was awkwardly hidden and could go missing soon. I signed our names, got a quick picture, put it back exactly how I found it and joined back up with Bev at the car.
Hang in There (GCAWZVZ) was on the other side of Meridian Neighborhood Park. We parked the Escape inside of the park and walked across the street. We found the right tree and I saw it immediately, but I let Bev find it. She walked around the tree, grabbed it and wrote our names on the log. She hung it back up after we got our picture. We walked back to the parking lot and got into the Escape.
We got back onto Willamette Drive to get the last cache in this area, GeoTree3 (GCAWYTT). It was at the fire station. We found a place to park (so we weren't in the way if they had to leave for a call), got out and started looking in the most obvious places...the trees. This one was difficult to find because the coords were not exact. I finally managed to find it; it was hidden very well. I signed our names, got a picture, put it back and we hopped back into the Escape.
We started our way back to Lacey. We got onto Martin Way and saw one on our caching map we both didn't have yet. It was at Tanglewild Park. The park was super busy because of the swimming pool, and it was a nice day, so we had to find alternate parking on the other side of the park. We walked across the field and figured out where we had to look since Green Ducky (GCAWKZT), cache's page and coordinates were wonky. The only place it could have been was the large green shipping container in the middle of the park. I spent about 10 minutes looking underneath all the corners where the holes were. I did not find a container anywhere. I believed it was missing. I quickly walked back to the Escape and found an empty container I had in my glovebox. I wrote our names on a scrap piece of paper and shoved it into the empty film cannister. I walked back to the shipping container and placed it in the corner described in the cache description. We called it good and walked back to the Escape.
We stopped by Woodland Creek for Pink Ducky (GCAZ1AP). It wasn't too far away from the parking lot. Bev and I followed the sidewalk around the lake, down towards the lake (at this point of the year, the lake was lower) and found the cache in a really obscure place. This cache should have been stolen by now and if it doesn't get stolen, it will float away once it starts raining. It was a really bad choice to hide it where we found it. Anway, we wrote our names on it and put it back. Maybe it will survive?
Bev's phone was having trouble in Hawks Prairie for some reason and Bob couldn't get a hold of us. He drove all the way to home instead of meeting up with us, we had to call him after he was almost to Rainier. He said he called when he was done with his stuff, but it wasn't registering with Bev's phone, so he went home. We convinced him to drive back into town and meet us at El Sarape for their Thursday date night.
We grabbed one more cache at Rainier Vista Park, The Rock #3 (GCAX5WK) near my house. I had tried to go get a FTF on it the other day but didn't realize they moved it to another location and didn't update the coordinates. So, I gave up and walked home. We were able to nab it without too many people watching us.
Then we drove to the Dollar Tree to waste some time waiting for Bob to drive back into town. We saw he was getting close on her app, and I dropped Bev off at the Mexican Restuarant. She thanked me for a nice day around town. I told her that we would do it again hopefully soon. I stopped at Hobby Lobby for a few minutes, went home, made rice yuck for dinner, logged my caches, watched some Breaking Bad and worked on my blog.
We found 11 caches and 5 Adventure Lab waypoints for a total of 16 caches on the day.
Next Adventure: Labor Day Weekend