The night before, I somehow convinced Mom to go on a bike ride with me to go fix some of the caches along the Chehalis Western Trail. I told her it was going to be one of the first really nice days of the spring and that we should take advantage of it. She agreed. I told her that I had to run a few errands in the morning before I went into Rainier to get her. She said that was fine, she had some stuff she could do before I came over.
I got up at 9:30 and got ready. I made some Irish oatmeal and grapes with some chocolate milk. I washed a load of laundry, worked on my blog while I watched some random TV. I chatted with Mom and tried getting her to come out and come grocery shopping with me, but she didn't want to drive out to Lacey. I told her that was fine. I loaded up the recycle and headed into Hawks Prairie.
I went to the recycle first, then Costco, Walmart and I went to Winco last. It's sad that I have to go to that many places to get the things I needed at reasonable prices. I got home, unloaded the groceries and put stuff away. I put the seats down in the Escape and shoved my bike into the back with the tire pump...just in case I needed it.
I got into Rainier, grabbed the truck, put my bike, Mom's bike and Mom into the truck and drove out to Military Road/Waldrick Road and parked at the unofficial trailhead. I was able to back in to make it easier later on when it was time to leave. Mom helped me take the bikes out of the back, we grabbed the things we would need, shoved them into my backpack, locked the truck and off we went. I decided to go north on the trail first.
I had more than a handful of caches to check on. We were going to start at Asphalt Adventures #13 (GC35FPT). Cachers weren't able to find it and one of the geocaching reviewers temporarily disabled the cache. We arrived near the cache site, and I started looking. I couldn't find it. It did disappear. I replaced the whole cache. I made sure to make some notes as I fixed these so I could update them when I got home and was at my computer to do so.
Asphalt Adventures #16 (GC9WAKR) was also a cache I saw in my emails that the reviewer had temporarily disabled. It looked like it had gone missing for a while. Sadly, I was not going to go out while it was raining to fix it, so I waited for some nice weather. I got off my bike and looked around. It was gone. I replaced the whole cache and covered it up the best I could.
I stopped at Asphalt Adventures #18 (GC8MYRZ) because you could literally see it from the trail. I just wanted to make sure it was still there, and it had not rolled down the hill because people can't put it back the correct way. We got back on our bikes and continued up the trail.
We got towards the end of my series. I got off my bike at Asphalt Adventures #23 (GC36ABB) so I could check on the container. The last couple cachers said in their logs that the lid was broken, and it was letting in moisture. I dug through my backpack and found a container big enough to replace this letterbox hybrid. I ended up replacing everything including a new stamp and stamp pad. I hope this one survives.
Asphalt Adventures #24 (GC36ABD) has been there for over 10 years. Then I get a message from someone stating that the lady who lives near the trail wanted it moved because the people were spooking her horses. Last I knew, the trail is public property, and anyone can use it for recreational purposes, including geocaching. To avoid something dumb, I had a couple geocachers move it to the other side of the trail. When Mom and I came, I replaced the container and added more rocks for better cover.
I've had Another Golden Spike - Redone (GC8Q73X) solved for a while and it was patiently waiting on my list to be found. That afternoon was a perfect day to look for it. I actually solved this puzzle from a picture I took many years ago. There is a cement structure next to a bench that has all of the towns along the Chehalis Western and on the Yelm-Rainier-Tenino Trail with a railroad spike. You gathered information from that structure to find your coords. This area has been logged and cleared of brush since the last time I was there, so it looked different. My coords jumped all over the place and I could not zero in on one specific area. I did check the obvious spot, but I couldn't find it. I wandered around some more reading logs. I got a clue from one of them. I went back to that stump, and they said that you had to reach down deep and possibly dig it out. The cache had several layers of dirt on top of it, but I was glad I found it. I didn't want to come back another day.
We continued down the trail along Waldrick Road to the last cache of the series, Asphalt Adventures #25 (GC8MXJV). I had to wait until some bike riders passed before I got off my bike to check up on it. All was well with the cache. We got back on our bikes and headed south. About halfway back to the parking trailhead, we stopped at the Monarch Sculpture Park, so I could use the porta potty because I had to pee really bad. I had to wait for a guy to crap. Once he was done, I was upset that I had to use it after he crapped in it. I held my nose, peed really fast and got out of there.
I told Mom that once we got back towards the truck, we had to go a little further south down the trail to check on Asphalt Adventures #7 (GC35FPB). She said that was fine. When we got there, I read my notes on what kind of a problem this cache had. A cacher described that it was just a baggie under a rock. I replaced the whole cache so now it had a container. We turned around and went back to the truck.
We loaded up the bikes into the back of the truck and I told Mom that I was going to check up on one more cache since it was nearby. The Rocks Among Us (GC3785X) was hidden near the parking trailhead and the cache was in good shape. We rode our bikes around 8.5 miles.
Since we were almost to Tenino, we got onto Military Road and made our way past McIntosh Lake and onto 507. I wanted to check up on Welcome 2 Tenino (GC8N5G8) because it was temporarily disabled by the reviewer. I parked and replaced the cache while Mom watched me from the passenger side of the truck. On the way home, we pulled over on Hwy 507 so I could grab Bob and Bev's cache, Rock and Roll (GCA0ABR). I told her it would be quick. I got to the cache location and found the fake rock.
We drove back into Rainier, got to Mom and Dad's house, unloaded the bikes, shoved my bike back into the Escape and filled up the water jugs with Rainier water. I found places to put them around the bike, thanked Mom for going with me and went to go see Bev for about an hour to visit.
I went back into Lacey and got home just after 8. I unloaded the Escape, made some chicken nuggets and fries in the air fryer, watched the rest of the Kraken game, talked to Ben twice (he was on shift that day), showered, did another load of laundry, logged the caches, published the Roy cache that I moved a few weekends ago, prepared the pulled pork for the next day, blogged and watched TV. I finished off my night with some popcorn and a few chapters of my book before going to bed.
Next Adventure: Easter Weekend: Game Night with Friends and Easter Sunday with Family
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