I didn't sleep the greatest, but I did manage to get some sleep before the alarm went off at 9 a.m. We got up and started getting ready for the day. I checked my phone and saw that someone had posted that it snowed in Pullman that morning and that is where Ben and I were going in the next hour or so. Mom called and I talked to her for a few minutes, she had to go into work on her day off. I told her that sucked and then added that we were getting ready to head up to Pullman and that apparently it snowed. She told us to have fun and be careful.
I decided to wait to eat until we got to Pullman. I did find out that the snow wasn't that bad and had started melting. Yay! We packed our stuff we would need out to the Escape and headed out. Ben needed his coffee fix, so I took him to the closest Dutch Brothers. We were there for a few minutes while Ben ordered his foofy coffee. We got back onto the main road and started up the 95 grade to the junction of 195 into Washington. There was snow on the ground but thankfully not on the roads like it was earlier that morning.
There weren't that many vehicles traveling to and from that morning. It was nice not having to follow people on the highway, especially out in the middle of nowhere. We drove through Uniontown and Colton, noting that we had to pick up caches in those towns on our way back down to Lewiston. We arrived into Pullman from the south (not a way I am used to) around 11:15.
I told Ben we were going to go to the Walmart first for a couple of groceries. He said sure. We found a place to park. The parking lot was still filled with slush from that morning's snowfall. We went inside and it was glorious. There were WSU and Cougar logos everywhere. I was like a kid in a candy store. We did our necessary shopping. We got some chips, yogurt, bagels, bananas, pop, a couple candy bars and I got a couple WSU things because I could. We paid for our stuff and went out to the Escape.
Since we were over in this part of town, I decided to take Ben over to the Bellevue Apartment Complex to show Ben one of the community service projects I helped with. I gave him some background on the project. I was enrolled in a class called EdAd 389 and it was for my leadership studies minor. One of our class projects was to find someone/group out in the community with a need, work together to plan, fundraise, finance and finish the final project. We worked with the people in charge of the Bellevue Apartment Complex to update their playground equipment since it was out of date and not safe to play on. We were able to get everything accomplished with our timeline and I had a great time working with the people in that class and we had fun accomplishing something for the community. Ben thought it was cool that I was a part of this project that currently still stands.
From there, I wanted to go into downtown to a shop I have been following on Facebook for a few months. What we didn't know is that they had Main Street all torn up which made it hard to navigate downtown. I ended up just parking in the lot behind the Mexican Restaurant Rancho Viejo since it was free. We walked down to Main Street and found Neill's Gift Shop. We went inside and spent a few minutes looking around...there was a key chain I wanted. I found the keychain, paid and thanked the shop owner.
We walked back up to the parking lot and saw it was past lunch time. I knew where we were going to go for lunch.
Cougar Country!
We drove to the other side of town, parked and went inside. I told Ben about the times that I would go there when I had extra money. We ordered food and sat down at one of the booths. It wasn't super busy yet, so we got our food relatively quick. I found out it was (Family Weekend) formally Mom's Weekend, so a ton of people were going to arrive to town in the next few hours and it will be crazy. We ate our food and then I took Ben on a tour of where Val used to live in Pullman.
I drove up Stadium Way and past the dorm I spent a year and a half in. I told him about the bomb threat we had during my freshman year on Groundhog's Day, the many parties we had, the friends we made and the memories that were shared inside of Streit-Perham.
I took him up the hill to my house on D Street, where I lived with Tucky and Lea for a year. I noticed there was a parking spot along the street and so we took it, knowing that we were not going to find any free spots anywhere else. I spent a couple moments parallel parking into the lucky spot. We grabbed what we needed, locked the Escape and headed up the hill. I remembered that there was a cache, What's the Score 2? (GC6RJ42), on the fence by the soccer field, so I had Ben write his name on it.
We walked past the gyms and up to Martin Stadium and the practice field. I was sad the field was closed to the public...again. I had Ben do the virtual cache, Selfie at Martin Stadium (GC7B7M6), while I answered Erika's phone call.
We talked about some problems we were having with Doug and Sonya for about a half hour. I took Ben inside the CUB, went into the Bookie for a bit - I was looking for a Coug Mom shirt - and then walked him around campus pointing out the buildings I had classes in.
I wanted to take a visit to Cleveland Hall. I wanted to see if my internship binder was still there. I had intended on coming to Pullman much sooner than this to check it out, but life got in the way, and I was not able to make it over to this side of the state. It was weird going inside of a building I spent many hours in. I have not stepped foot inside of Cleveland Hall since 2007. Life was so different back then. I looked at the directory of the floors to see if anything had moved since then. I saw where the Sports Managment main office was, and we walked up. I tried remembering where the binder room was, but it's been too long.
No one was manning the main office in the Sports Management area, so we walked to the other side of the lobby to see if someone could help us. There was a lady in there and so I told her who I was and what we were looking for. She said she was delighted to help us. We followed her to the binder room; she unlocked it, and we went inside. I scoured all of the shelves that had binders on them. There had to have been over a hundred of them. Sadly, I did not find mine. The lady said that each year they retire the older ones. Mine was from 2007 so, my binder must have had been barely retired. The oldest binder we found was from 2010. I missed seeing my binder on the shelf by about two to three years...the Covid years. Bummer!
She said, sorry your binder wasn't there anymore, and I thanked her anyway for letting us come and look. I just had to know. She locked up and we left Cleveland Hall. Ben talked to his aunt for a couple minutes. We walked up the hill and back onto the Mall. I saw there was a geocache that we could find up by the nipple. Yes, I had Ben pose with the nipple on top of the library.
We looked for View from WSU (GC8GH0X). It took us a few minutes to inspect the railing above the practice field. Nanos are difficult to pinpoint when the coords aren't spot on and when people don't put them back the same way each time it's found. We finally found it and put our names on it. I put it back where I found it.
We walked down the staircase back down to the fields, past Martin Stadium and over towards Stadium Way. I wanted to take Ben to the Cougar Pride statue so he could find the cache there, Cougar Pride (GC1NRMP) and to propose to him with his ring. I originally wanted to do it on the field, but they have closed the field to the public because of vandalism. After he found the cache and put it back, I got down on my knee, gave a brief speech and asked him to marry me. He said yes and I gave him his ring.
This is what he wrote on Facebook just after the proposal:
"Today Val and I explored the WSU campus, and she shared her past experiences during her time here with me. I got to see the campus for the first time despite having been here a number of times in the past. I got to see her passion for her school and team more than ever before and while finding a cache at the Cougar Pride statue, Val proposed to me with my wedding band! She had been wanting to do this for years and even though we couldn't do at the logo on the football field like she wanted, she still made it special. I said yes of course! It would be kinda awkward if I didn't. I love you Val and can't wait to marry you this summer!"
We walked across the street to get ice cream from Ferdinand's. I haven't had Ferdinand's ice cream probably since 2006. We stood in line for a few minutes pondering what kind of ice cream we wanted. I got the chocolate chip mint and Ben got the Cougar Tracks, both in bowls. We sat at a table and ate our ice cream while I shared more stories with Ben about my time at WSU. After we were done, we went out to the parking lot to find I Scream, You Scream, We all Scream for Ice Cream (GCA022R). It took us a couple seconds to find it, but we did.
We walked back to the Escape and on the way to Crimson and Gray, I drove down Greek Row to the Maple Street house. I told him that this is where I lived with Matt and Hurley for a year. I then told him the story about the kid who committed suicide in the apartment above us. That was sure a weird week.
We stopped by Crimson and Gray and struck out again. I thought it was odd that no one was carrying Coug mom shirts, and it was technically Mom's Weekend at WSU. Oh well, I will have to find it elsewhere or online. We left town and headed south back towards Lewiston. We wanted to get out of town before it got too crazy. I looked at my caching app to see which one to stop at first.
Ben navigated me to Is It Lake Harrison or Harrison Lake (GC3D5PF) in Colton. It was off the main highway in a residential area. We were able to find a place to park to grab it out of its muddy hiding spot near the street sign. It hadn't been found in five months and survived the winter weather. I got our names on it, wiped it off and placed it back where I found it.
We got back onto the highway and drove the few miles into Uniontown. I stopped at Wheels Around (GCD7B1) so Ben could get this virtual. I had gotten it back in 2011. They had changed the questions since then because I didn't remember doing what Ben had to do to claim the find. Ben found what he needed and then got back onto the highway.
The next stop was for Give It Some Respect (GC39GF7). It was an Eagle Scout project drop box for old or worn-out flags. It was in front of the American Legion building, and they will give the proper retirement that the flags deserve. The nano was stuck to the drop box. I had Ben write our names down on it and put it back where he found it. We moved onto the next one.
We drove over to the next block and up the hill to 5 Finger Discount (GC7GNHN). I had Ben get out and grab the nano. To avoid suspicion at the park, I had Ben bring it into the Escape with him so we could sign it in there. Nano logbooks take way too long to unroll, sign and roll back up. I hate them. We got it done, Ben put it back and we left Uniontown to continue heading south.
We did stop at one more, just outside of town, She Thinks My Tractor's Rusty (GC606B1). We pulled over along the side road and both got out to look. Ben started looking on the wrong side while I chose the correct side. The small cache was hidden in one of the hidey holes. We got our names on it and put it back for the next set of cachers. We hopped in the Escape and headed to the next one.
Diatryma & Junior (GCE1AC) is one I mostly stopped at because it was a virtual and it was a very old virtual cache. This cache existed back when I was a sophomore at WSU but didn't know it because I was not into geocaching just quite yet. We followed the dirt road out to where the coordinates took us. We were not sure what we were looking for when we got there. We pulled over and saw some junk on the hillside. I guess it was the cache but the display that used to be there collapsed years ago. We got a few pictures before we left the area to get back onto the highway.
The next cache was right off of 195. I was glad there was a pull out off the busy highway. We parked and walked down the fence line to where the coords approximately took us. There were several toilet seats with random designs on it. Winter Wheat (GC1A3J8) was finally located on the toilet seat with the satellite dish attached to it.
We got back on the highway and got closer to the state line where we pulled over for STF Old Stage Coach Stop (GC4WPD8). Both Ben and I got out to search for this micro cache inside the guardrail. We found it in less than a minute. We got our names on it and put it back. We got back into the Escape and hit up the actual state line.
We pulled over for Disputed Territory (GC8JAR2) and grabbed the cache near the Welcome To Idaho sign. We were there for a quick two minutes or so.
We got onto US 97 and drove north to Genesee, a town just north of Lewiston. We needed to grab four caches while we were there to suffice part of the cache machine list. We had to do it quickly if we wanted to make it to the event at sunset. We grabbed a Tale of Two Cemeteries (GC6EMQE), Genesee's Big City Cache (GC8Q6AH), JAV4U12 (GC2QDXH) and Why Wouldn't You Place a Cache Here? Part Deux! (GC8F9AA). All, thankfully they were quick, were easy to find and we got to and through them quickly. I really didn't want to miss the sunset event or the picture. We hustled back down US 95, down the grade and into Lewiston as fast as we could. Yes, we were speeding.
We rolled into Sunset Park minutes before the event picture was to take place for the Pre-Cache Machine Sunset @ Sunset Park (GCAMWGW). We got in our picture; we talked about the caches on the cache machine and travel bugs and tags were discovered and traded. Ben and I decided to walk around the park with some other cachers to grab three more caches, Hole 8 (GC89WQ3), Rams Rise (GC89WQ0) and 08.21.17 Total Eclipse of the Heart (GC7B26R). All were found just as it was getting dark, and we had to use our cell phone flashlights to help find them.
I asked Ben what he was feeling for dinner. He said he hadn't had Panda Express in a while, so we agreed to grab that for dinner. We found the closest Panda, which was up 21st/Thain Road. We arrived, parked and went in. I was happy to see it wasn't super busy. Ben got his signature meal and so did I. We paid and went back to the hotel.
We brought in everything from the Escape, turned on some college basketball, watched Iowa beat UCONN, and ate our food in comfort. I talked to Mom for a bit, we got in some showers, ate some popcorn and watched White Men Can't Jump while I went over the cache machine route. We got ready for bed just after midnight.
Notes on the Day:
It was great to visit Pullman with Ben.
Proposed to Ben at the Cougar Pride statue.
Found out my internship binder had been recycled.
Found 18 caches.
Next Adventure: Lewiston Cache Machine Weekend: LCM, Mexican Food and Groundworks Brewing
No comments:
Post a Comment