My Adventures and Places Life Takes Me: Lewiston Cache Machine Weekend: Lacey to Lewiston

This plan was originally created so we could go over to Eastern Washington and visit Willmarth, who was going to be our officiant for our wedding in July. He had gotten a job in Colfax with the state back in October 2023 and was living in Colfax by himself. I reached out and asked if we could come over and visit and he said come on over! It just happened to be the same weekend as the Lewiston Cache Machine, so we planned on doing that as well.

I got together with Ben, and we figured out what we were going to do. He thought it was a good idea to go see Willmarth and talk about the wedding stuff and the current state of things. Ben decided to take Thursday and Friday off from work and I worked a half day on Thursday and all of Friday off. I added this would be the last "vacation" we would probably be doing the rest of this year with the wedding in July and moving back into Rainier this summer and fall. I had booked two nights at a hotel in Lewiston, for Friday and Saturday night and we were going to stay with Willmarth on Thursday night.

The night before, I tried to get as much stuff done as possible. That included laundry, packing up most of our things so the next day was minimal and figuring out the route we were going to take over to Eastern Washington. The weather was still cold and could possibly snow on our drive over the mountains. I texted and messaged Willmarth to see if we were still on for a visit. He has been notorious for not getting back to me right away, so I waited. As far as I knew the plan was still on until he said something.

That morning, I got up and worked. Ben slept in until about 9ish. Willmarth finally texted me back and it wasn't good news. He said he no longer lives in Colfax because he was RIF'd from his job. I had never heard of RIF'd before, so I had to look it up. It meant a reduction in force and his position was eliminated. I didn't know the state could do that. He said that he just had his review with his supervisor and there was nothing indicating that he was going to be let go. He had a great review. Then a few days later he had bad news given to him. It made no sense. He loved his job and was closing cases that had been open for some time. He was thriving.

He told me that he moved in with a friend in Spokane, he was sorry that he didn't get back to us sooner and things had been hectic since late March. I told him that we would have to catch up on the phone at some point. Instead, I panicked a little bit and got back on the hotel website and booked another night at the hotel in Lewiston.

I finished off my half day at work, set up my away messages on my Outlook and my voicemail and logged off. I changed my clothes and packed up the rest of my stuff. Ben and I loaded up the Escape and left at around 11:45. I had to stop by Rhonda and Brad's house to let out Murphy since it was Thursday. I let him run around a little bit, checked on their cat, Kathy, gave Murphy a treat and told him to be a good dog. I locked up the house and Ben and I were on our way to Yelm.

Since our plans changed, we were now going to go through Yakima instead of I-90. We ran out of time to make food at home, so we stopped at the Walmart in Yelm. We got out, went in and Ben stood in line and ordered both of us a sandwich for the road. I grabbed some drinks; a couple candy bars and a bag of chips. It should last us until we got to Lewiston. We paid and got on the road. It was going to be a long drive.

I listened to music and my podcasts as we drove to Yakima on Hwy 12. Ben fell asleep a few times and it rained most of the way there. We got behind some slow traffic and it took a while to get over the pass because it was snowing, but not bad. The roads were bare. I am so glad the semi-truck pulled over at the top so we could pass it. Going back down the pass was a little quicker than going up.

We got into Naches and got our cell service back. We called Trish to let her know that we made it over the pass, and I messaged my Mom to let her know as well. From Naches to Prosser, Ben spent some time working on getting quotes from a list of bakeries we picked for our wedding from the Centralia/Chehalis area. He made two phone calls, and we ended up going with Brooks Baked Goods from Onalaska. I found this hilarious because Onalaska was our rival in high school.

We made a stop at Love's in Prosser. It's been our stop for the past 4ish years. It is a quick and easy in and out near the freeway. We filled up with gas and used the restroom. Of course, we grabbed a couple snacks for the road.

We got back onto the freeway and continued our way into the TriCities. I looked at my geocaching app and I wanted to stop at the 9/11 Memorial so we could get the virtual cache. I am not sure how we missed it when we were here last summer. Oh well, we are going to get it on this trip.

I navigated our way to Hwy 395 into Kennewick and into the Southridge Sports Complex. We've been here so many times over the years grabbing caches. We found a parking spot; the sports complex was virtually empty and walked over to the steel beams. That September Day (GC9P8AM) asked us to answer a couple questions and, as a bonus if we wanted to, share with the cache owner our experience on that day. We took a few pictures.

We got back onto 395, made our way over the bridge and merged onto Hwy 12. We talked about how much we were going to miss the TriCities Geocoin Challenge this year. Last year they decided to discontinue it for a while. We will see if they bring it back or not. I hope they do because we both looked forward to it every June. When we got to Burbank, we took the Hwy 12 Spur, so we could drive through Prescott, Waitsburg and Dayton. The drive was kinda boring, but we filled it with wedding conversation and told Ben the last time I had driven this stretch of road...which was back in the summer of 2011.

I wanted to stop in Pomeroy because I needed it for the Towns and Cities Challenge, plus I really like virtual caches. We made it into the tiny town of Pomeroy, parked in front of the few buildings that make up downtown, got out and walked across the street to the courthouse building that was built in 1901. It really did look similar to the clocktower building in Back to the Future. Back to the Future (GC9P5M3) was pretty simple, a selfie with the building in the background.

Before we lost cell service, Ben was able to find a place in Lewiston for dinner. He called the place to see how late they were open.

We hopped back into the Escape and continued east along Hwy 12. It started getting dark and we still had about 30 miles to go and most of it was through the Alpowa Canyon. To the north are the rolling hills of the Palouse and to the south the Blue Mountain foothills. It snowed a little bit as we went from almost 2800 feet to almost 800 feet above sea level. I had Ben put the address into the Nuvi, so we knew where to go once we got into town. I haven't been to Lewiston in over a decade.

We got into town around 7:45 and it was dark. I can't wait for longer days once summer gets here. We followed Nuvi's instructions to Brava's, which was in downtown. I parallel parked and we went inside. It wasn't busy so we were served right away. I ordered a huckleberry lemonade (since we were in Idaho), and Ben ordered a White Russian. Our waiter brought us our drinks and we were ready to order food. I got the huckleberry pulled pork and homemade chips and Ben wanted the whiskey burger and ranch and garlic fries. The food was delicious!

After we paid, we headed to the hotel, Seaport Inn and Suites. We checked in, which was a weird ordeal because the desk attendant wasn't there but across the street at the sister hotel, but we managed to get our room and key cards. We parked and brought all of our stuff in. The hotel rooms weren't bad for how cheap the place was. We got settled in, I got in a shower, we tried calling Willmarth just to check in, but he didn't answer, and we played Fire Tower (I lost), Yahtzee (I won) and Phase 10 (I lost).