First Anniversary Weekend: Lacey to Hood River

We knew we wanted to do something during our first wedding anniversary, but we ran out of time to come up with something cool to do for our anniversary. It kinda snuck up on us because we've been so busy. Plus, Ben was not able to take the Friday off at such short notice and someone else already had it off so, we decided we were going to do a quick weekend trip down to Hood River, a place we went to during our first dating anniversary.

We checked to see if there was a hotel available on such short notice. We thought we may have trouble finding one due to last minute booking and it being in the busy season. Ben found one at the Sunset Motel. I mean, it's just one night and it has a shower and a bed. Pretty much all we would need. Now, we just had to get our stuff packed up and get up early on that Saturday. Not gonna lie - I struggle getting up that early on a weekend.

On that Friday after work, we washed the clothes we thought we might need and packed up the stuff we usually do when we go away for the weekend. I had asked Rhonda to feed the cats on Saturday night and Sunday morning and she said she would. We got a key over to her. We got cleaned up and set our alarms for early o'clock.

We got up at 6:30, got ready and packed up the rest of the stuff we would need. I ate a bagel, a fried egg and a yogurt and Ben had a sausage and egg sandwich. We loaded up the Edge, since it was Ben's turn to drive, and headed out. We got onto I-5 south at Tumwater and made our way down to Grand Mound, where Ben got off the freeway so he could get a coffee at the Dutch Bros.

We continued on I-5 south and just cruised for a while. We needed a stretch/restroom break, so we stopped at the Gee Creek Rest Area to take that quick intermission and to find a geocache we didn't have yet. We got the restroom stuff out of the way first and then walked over to the coordinates for Snack Stop (GCANBYT). It was easy to find but the best part it was a cheeseburger!

We walked back to the Edge, threw away some of our garbage and got back onto I-5 south. I had Ben merge onto Hwy 205 and then eventually onto Hwy 14. I was seriously hoping we didn't have to follow a truck, a motorhome or motorcycles on that road. Yay, no obstacles in front of us. We should make pretty good time to Beacon Rock. Yep, I made sure we had our Discover Pass with us.

We pulled up on Beacon Rock, and it was super busy (we knew it would be). We found a parking spot; we changed our shoes and headed on up the trail. Ben wanted to do this with his mom and sister a couple years ago, but it was closed due to weather damage. We had to follow, pass and step aside several times on our way up. It isn't a long hike, but it took a while to get up there just because there were so many people. 

We got to the top and it started to get warm. I had Ben do the virtual cache up there since I had done it in the past. We got some pictures and enjoyed the view of the Columbia River Gorge from our vantage point. It was a beautiful, clear day. The river sparkled, the fresh air smelled nice and it was great getting in some exercise. We started our way down and had to dodge people on the way back to the Edge. It didn't take us as long to get back down. Once we were down, we used the restroom and Ben did the earthcache at the bottom of Beacon Rock.

We got back in the Edge, and I directed Ben to North Bonneville. I wanted to do the 5-waypoint Bigfoot Adventure Lab and show him the statues of the bigfoots. Mom and I had come out this way before Covid and did the entire walk. Back then, they were geocaches, since then, they were turned into an Adventure Lab instead. We had fun hanging out with the sasquatches and walking along the trail. It was such a nice day to be outside without any responsibilities! We stopped at the Chevron to replenish our ice and grabbed a couple of candy bars - a Reese's PB cup for Ben and a big Tootsie Roll to snack on.

We got back onto Hwy 14 and headed east. We talked about where we wanted to eat for lunch on the 6-mile drive to Bridge of the Gods. I was so glad between the two of us we had $3 in cash for the toll. We puttered across the bridge and handed the lady our three dollars. Now, we were on the Oregon side of the Columbia River in Cascade Locks, a popular hub along the Pacific Crest Trail.

Like I mentioned before, this is the area we explored and stayed in during our first dating anniversary back in October 2014. We didn't have a lot of money back then, so we had to find cheap things for us to do. That included silly pictures and random places. One of those random places to take a silly picture at was underneath the bridge. There was a mural down there near a small parking lot people sell fish and other wares at. We noticed a cougar who looked surprised and thought it looked hilarious, so we tried our best imitation, and it became a funny memory of ours. 

Now that we were there again, 11 years later, we needed to get an updated picture. Of course, we knew it wasn't going to be a perfect replica, but we were going to sure try. We did take a few pictures with the selfie stick and picked the best one to compare the 2014 one to.

I asked Ben if he was hungry because we were near the Thunder Island Brewery, a place I wanted to eat lunch and drink a beer at. He told me that he could eat. We found a place to park off the street and went inside. The main restaurant was upstairs. We were seated right away and given menus. I knew right away what drink I wanted. I really don't like IPA's or IPL's but this one I had to have just because of the name. I ordered a Thunder Buddy - yeah, from Ted. Thunder buddies for life! Ben had the Jamaica - a hard agua fresca. 

Our waitress came back with our drinks, and Ben ordered an appetizer of chips and salsa while we still decided what we wanted for lunch. She came back a few minutes later and Ben and I hammered down what we wanted. Ben got a salmon and I got a chicken rice bowl. They were surprisingly good for being considered "healthy" food. We finished our food, paid and used the restroom before we left. I got myself a sticker too.

We left Cascade Locks and made our way to the freeway to head east towards Hood River. Once we did get into town, we immediately started to find some geocaches up Hwy 35. The first one we stopped at was Mount Hood View (GCA5XHT). We parked at the turn out, crossed over the guard rail down a small trail overlooking the Hood River. You could see people tubing down below. It took us a few minutes to find the cache. It was about 91 degrees.

We got back to the Edge and continued driving south. I saw a puzzle cache, Dog River Original (GC1YHTG) we could stop and get at an informational sign. It talked about the site of the first sawmill in the valley between 1861 and 1886. We had to grab numbers off of it and plug it into some coordinates that were missing some numbers. A typical puzzle cache.

We got the missing numbers and plugged it into the coordinates. It took us about a mile away from the posted coordinates. We followed the road and it took us out to a cemetery with a great view of Mount Hood. We pulled off to the side of the road once we got closer to the coordinates we had. The only place a cache could have been in this area is on the tree that was nearby. Ben stayed in the Edge while I walked to the tree. It was a fake bird house cache. I got our names in it and put it back.

I looked at the geocaching app to see if there were a grouping of caches, we could do nearby. I found a short power trail not too far away from where we were. Ben said he was game. We drove up the road, and it eventually turned into a dirt road. The first one we stopped at was called HS-67 Evil End (GC364AP). We could not figure this one out for the life of us. I was super convinced this one was missing. The cache owner did a great job with this one. We decided to abandon it and come back to look for it again on the way back down.

We moved onto the next one up the road. HS-66 Dog Barks (GC364AK). We found a wide spot in the road to pull the car over into. We both got out and started searching. We knew it was by the stump but couldn't see it right away. It was exposed and upside down about two feet from the stump. We signed our name and put it back better than we found it so it wouldn't slide down into the deep ditch.

HS-65 (GC364AE) was a little further up the road. This one was a quick find next to some pinecones. Ben stayed in the car while I jumped out and grabbed it quickly. I put it back right where I found it after getting our names on it.

The next one, HS-64 (GC364AD) we both got out to find. A local person stopped his truck to see what we were doing, and we told him we were geocaching. He told us he used to geocache a lot and that it was cool that there were geocaches down his road. He shared some stories and some of his geocaching adventures in the past. He knew that we wanted to continue on, so he gave us his geocaching contact info for some reason. We thanked him and he went about the rest of his day.

We made our way to the last one, HS-63 (GC364AB) of this mini power trail. This one was a quick find. We got our names on the log and put it back where we found it. We followed the road back down to HS-67. We pulled over and searched the area again. This time it didn't take us long to find what we were looking for. The reason why we found it was because the device moved slightly. We both exclaim, I touched that so many times! I knew I should have gone with my first instinct, but it really looked like it belonged there. 

We drove back into town and went to the Marina area to grab three more geocaches before grabbing dinner. We found Maria Adventure (GC49RBV), Wind Blown (GC53VTD) and 4 Paisley (GC6K0DP). All of them were unique and had great views of the Columbia River. 

Ben searched for a restaurant that served gluten free food. He found one, but for some reason we had a really hard time finding the building it was located in. There wasn't a clear sign. We did finally manage to find it. It was tucked away inside of the hotel. We found a place to park and went inside.

The place was called Riverside Restaurant, and it was literally on the bank of the Columbia River. Our waitress sat us outside on the patio because it was such a warm evening. It was a perfect setting for dinner. We both ordered a drink; I had a Hunny Shot Kolsch and Ben had a local cider. For dinner, Ben ordered some seafood and steak, and I got a burger and fries. I was feeling beef that evening. A little bird watched us eat and was hoping for a small handout. We ignored it. 

We thanked our waitress and paid our bill. We headed to the hotel. It was a long day and we were feeling it. Ben pulled up to the front office and checked us in. We got a room, #122, on the bottom with an available parking spot right in front of our door. We did not have any trouble unloading our stuff into our room. We got too relaxed and we both ended up taking about an hour-long nap because we were hot, tired and full. The nap hit the spot.

We played dice and Phase 10 for a few hours with the TV playing in the background, we got cleaned up from being hot and sweaty and then went to bed around 1 a.m.

Next Adventure: First Anniversary Weekend: The Dalles to Lacey