The California Desert and Route 66 Caching: Day 2

We all got up around 6-6:15 and ate breakfast at our hotel downstairs in the lobby.  We all had waffles but the gal running the hotel kinda hovered over us the entire time.  It's like we weren't capable of making our own food or something.  We ate and watched the news.  We got the tail end of the plane that went missing and most of the weather forecast.  They said it was suppose to be 85-93 in the desert depending on where you were of course.  It was a bit chilly this morning but soon warmed up.  Where we were going it was going to be in the 90's.  This would be one of the differences between the ET Highway and the Mojave caches, the huge change in temperature while we cached.  We finished up and got ready to go.

We loaded up and got gas at the Circle K down the street.  The price was okay but not the best.  We saw worse gas prices throughout the week and tried to avoid them with our gas buddy app.  On our way to Yermo and the mini power trail, Ray discovered that he left the logs back at the hotel, so we had our first epic fail just after 7 a.m.  We were just going to have to hope that all the caches had log books inside.  If we got really desperate I had lined notebook paper with me.

We started the power trail on Yermo Road at about 7:45.  Both Brenda and I got out for these ones with the stamp.  This probably hindered us in a way later on that day but we managed to find them all as quick as we could.  There were close to 80 of them plus extras along the way.  Jim had gotten most of these a few years back when he came to do the Route 66 caches.  He was our navigator and Ray drove.  The road was absolutely the worst road I have ever seen.  There were large chunks missing, potholes, the lines cracked underneath the scorching sun, it was just terrible looking.  No wonder a lot of these roads are non existent now, they've got I-40 and I-15.

One thing we did notice was all the trash.  There was a lot of garbage on the side of the road, mixed in between the trees and stuck against the fence.  It was horrible to see.  Some of it you knew someone had come out here with a pick-up and just dumped it off.  In fact we even found some of the caches underneath neatly placed trash.  We finished the Yermo trail series around 10:10 that morning.  We found a few fun ones including Tired of Looking?  (GC13AND).

We used the bathroom at Jack n the Box before we started Route 66.  At 10:30 we made our way into Dagget, where we started some caches along Route 66 before we actually started the 800 on this power trail.  We stopped for a dozen caches, stopped for a train in the middle of nowhere and dropped off a few travel bugs at a TB hotel just off of the route.  We decided to make another stop off the route to a cache called The Little Red Caboose (GC2T6JE).  We pulled in and the manager of the RV site asked if we were here to find the cache.  We collectively said yes.  She got excited, went inside and called the cache owner.  The cache owner was here?  We went inside the caboose and grabbed the cache.

Ray checked to see who owned the cache and it was Tumbleweed2, a WSGA member from the Tri-Cities area who we actually knew!  We went over to her trailer and chatted for a bit.

We were at 100 caches for the day just before lunch time.

We took a few pictures, one at the Route 66 sign and one at the actual beginning of the Route 66 power trail.  From there, the weather got warmer and warmer.  We all had to shed sweatshirts and our light jackets.  At Route 66 (000), we stopped for lunch on the side of the road at around 12:15.  We made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, had some chips, cookies and drinks.  We all needed the energy to finish half of the trail today. 

After lunch and putting stuff away, we started the first part of Route 66 around 12:56 at 001.  We each took turns driving, stamping, navigating and jumping.  We all got into a routine then it was time to change jobs.  So we all switched.

We reached 200 caches for the day around 2:30 and at Route 66 114 we found the first ET Highway log with our stamp on it.  Some cacher must have brought them down to this series after doing the ET Highway.  It was actually pretty cool seeing our stamp on that log.  We saw several others throughout our time out here on the road.

The temperature got around 82 degrees and that was roughly around 3-4:00 that afternoon.  That was pretty warm for us considering we're from the Pacific Northwest with an average temperature reaching maybe the upper 50's during this time of year.  This was the coolest day we had out in the desert.

While Jim drove, he did the last 200 caches while we all took turns jumping, had his first epic blow by around 3:00...we kinda paired that with Brenda's navigating skills.  In fact, about a half hour later she marked a DNF on a cache we found and messed up the GPS.  Lol!

We made it to Ludlow round 3:30 and got out at an earthcache called Project Plowshare Nuclear Earthcache (GC2J47VB).  It requested us to take a picture of our group with the iconic cafe in the background and then read up on how they laid I-40 back in the 1960's.  Plus the traditional that was hidden on one of the mining carts.

From there, it was just cache to cache, every tenth or so of a mile.  We knew we should have plugged in some music but really didn't want to dig out anything.  I didn't know if my Ipod was charged enough to last and I wasn't sure where Ray's Kindle was as far as downloaded music.

Because we got such a late start on Route 66, mostly because of the Yermo trail, we reached 300 at around 4:00 and we really wanted to get halfway done through Route 66.  We still had 200 more to go and it was getting late and we were all getting hungry.  Ray, Brenda and I shared the last grouping of caches and we powered them out as fast as we could.  Jim drove most of this leg.  Around 7:00 we hit our 500 caches for the day and we made it to our Route 66 halfway point by stopping at 400-Route 66.

We were stoked getting this far along.  We drove the hour back to Barstow and all agreed on Denny's for dinner.  I ordered a burger and fries and literally inhaled it.

We all went back to our hotel, showered, used the internet for a while, packed up our stuff to check out tomorrow and went to bed.

I hit my 8,000th milestone on Route 66 with a total of 8,087.

Next Adventure:  The California Desert and Route 66 Caching:  Day 3

The California Desert and Route 66 Caching: Day 1

The alarm went off at 4 a.m.

Grumble grumble grumble, as I lay in bed wishing I didn't have to get up.  A part of me wanted to stay in bed but the other part of me wanted to get ready to go to the airport for my caching vacation.  I did my bathroom things, packed up the stuff in the suitcases, put it in the car, got Ben ready and off we went...all in less than 25 minutes.  We really did not feel like making a meal, mostly because of the time, so we ate apples and sang Disney songs on the way to the airport.  I have never gone from Bonney Lake to SeaTac so the drive was very different from the usual hour and a half from Rainier.

When we got to the airport it was very busy.  I pulled the car in to the Southwest area and wow, people were starting to line up outside to get their bags checked.  We got all the stuff out of the car, said our goodbyes and I went inside.  I had to use the bathroom ASAP.  I wheeled my suitcases as fast as I could.  I saw the insane line for Southwest and cringed.  Ugh, I have to stand in that.  I used the restroom and stood in the enormous line.  It actually didn't take as long as I thought it would.  I got both my bags checked in, I had my boarding pass and license all ready and now I needed to get in the security line.  It went quickly too.  My bag was screened further because I forgot to take my laptop out of its bag.

I found my gate, B12...talked to mom and Ben before it was time to get in line with the B's.  I got on and found a window seat in the back.  I sat next to a 13-ish year old and a guy in his 50's.  Both stared at their phones the entire time.  The boy played games and the guy watched music videos.  I read my book.  We took off a little behind schedule because of a luggage mishap.

Halfway though the flight to Sacramento  I was getting sleepy but I knew we were almost there.  I looked out the window because it was finally clear and saw Mount Shasta in the distance.

About a half hour or so later we were making our descent into Sacramento.  Last time I came through here was with mom and Doug in the car back in July 2010.  It looked so big from the sky.  When we landed, it took a long time for me to get off the plane and I was one of the ones who needed to switch planes...hurry up!  I thought I may have time to use the restroom but I didn't.  I literally got off the plane and got in line to board the one heading to Ontario.  I actually had an A boarding pass this time.  We went down the hallway and into the plane and I saw Brenda and Ray in the front row.  They had saved me a seat next to the window.  I had to cram my back pack in the overhead storage because we could not store them underneath the seat in front of us because we didn't have one.  We talked most of the way to Ontario.

We got off, grabbed our luggage and got on the rental car bus so we could pick up our van.  Because Ray is a gold member we didn't have to stand in line.  It was already parked with the keys in it so we could just drive it away.  His name was also on a board...almost like royalty.

We picked up Jim (Jholly) from a hotel he had an agreement with.  I guess the airport has a deal with hotels in the area for people to park there for a minimal fee, like 4 dollars a day. It was a few miles from the airport.  He had driven down to visit family in the area.  From there we hopped onto I-15 and drove towards Barstow.

Before actually making it to Barstow, we decided we were hungry and needed to get food.  We found a truck stop along the way and an IN-N-OUT.  I haven't had it in a year to the day exactly.  Every time I've gone to one it has always been swamped with people.  This one was no different.  People.  Everywhere.  I ordered the #2, which was the cheeseburger, fries and a medium drink.  It was delicious.

We got back on the road and continued to Calico and the ghost town there.  We arrived, paid our admission fees and parked the car.  It was already starting to get warm out.  We walked through the town, read all the history plaques and took a bunch of pictures.

We saw a lot of Asians and Jim asked us why they were holding up their wallets.  We told him those weren't wallets but smart phones with cases on them.  It was funny.  On the way back to the freeway, we managed to find 11 caches before we checked into the hotel and found some food.  Before the trip I started out with 7573 caches.

We checked into the Roadway Inn, brought our luggage and packs in and made ourselves at home.  We went across the street to Von's (a Safeway associate) and got some groceries for the next couple days out on the road (bread, chips, water, cookies, ice, bananas etc.)  We gathered everyone and decided on Mexican food.  Jenny's Grill was just down the road so we walked there.  They didn't serve alcohol so Brenda could not have her margarita and once we got our food, I ordered taquitos, beans and rice, it was terrible.  Ray had to send his food back because his taco salad was very watery and soupy.  We did not leave them a tip.  We went back to our hotel, took showers, internetted and then decided to go to bed around 10-10:30.

Next Adventure:  The California Desert and Route 66 Caching:  Day 2

Bonney Lake Caching Adventures

It's been raining a lot these past few days so we decided after some laundry and lunch we were going to go out for a bit to find a few caches.  We wanted to stick close to his parent's house mostly to save money and dinner was going to be done in an hour or two.  I wrote down the ones we could get so we didn't have to do too many forest ones.  We started with the two caches on the roads we use to get to Ben's house the back way.  I didn't bring my GPS this time because I thought it would rain all weekend.  So we used Ben's phone and the geocaching app.

Ben had already found Don't Get Towed (GC2R6HY) but he stopped because it was a quick park and grab.  It was a lamp skirt near the cross walk.  I had to be a bit sneaky to grab it.  We drove about a quarter of a mile to the next one, Angry Birds (GC30N6Y).  That was a bird house just on the edge of the woods near a retaining pond.

From there, we got onto South Prairie Road and then turned onto 214th towards Hwy 410 to grab JAMC (GC2TV6Y) (which stands for Just Another Micro Cache) hidden underneath a road median just off the side of the road.  Ben and I spotted the rock instantly.

Power Up (GCKGFZ) was behind the Safeway so we parked at the nearest parking spot and walked to it.  That road behind there was pretty busy so we had to wait until cars cleared the area before we started looking.  I knew it was by the power box and low and behold it was one of those faceplate box caches.  I'm pretty sure someone saw us but they didn't care too much about it.

I told Ben he needed to find The Unknown Future (GC31KYC) before we went home. Bob and I found it about a year ago.  That one was just a short walk across the road and behind a few businesses.  When we got there I was disappointed in the last person for not putting it back better. The cache was poking out of the top of the see saw tree.  Basically you had to pull up the part closest to the ground to pull down the other side of the tree for the person to retrieve the cache.  It was a physics cache.  We put it back better than we found it.

We walked back towards the Explorer, which had recently gotten new tires, and found out there was one in the woods along the trail called Bethany's 7th Birthday Cache (GC2E6HG).  We found the trail and a LOT of garbage near the entrance.  Somebody had gone "Office Space" on a TV.  As we got closer to the cache, the area started to seem familiar.  We got to the cache site and it was confirmed.  I had been here before and found this exact cache about three years ago.

 Next came the memorable cache of the day, The Dark Hole (GC23PWE).

What made this cache memorable is was what we found near it.  The strange part about it was this wasn't my first time finding items like this near a cache site.  We found a broken glass dildo and some fruity lube to go with it.  We had to take a picture of it so when we tell our story people would believe us.  Kind of ironic that we found adult paraphernalia near a cache called The Dark Hole huh?

Once we got our giggles out and recovered from that cache we needed some tots from the nearby Taco Time.  We went through our change and found enough for a large order.  We each used some hand sanitizer and enjoyed our tots and we drove to A Weekend in Bonney Lake (GC1234X).  When we arrived, I immediately found a plastic frog tied to a tree limb with a plastic bag.  Ben didn't remember this from when he found it a while ago.  We just went with it and drove to the other one in the Home Depot parking lot.

Will You Measure Up? --Rule Series #1 (GC36RTG), was one I knew what it was immediately before I started looking for it.  I knew it would be a measuring tape you had to write your name on.  It warned that you needed a Sharpie to write on it because a normal pen wouldn't do.  I lucked out and someone had put a sticker on it so I wrote on the sticker with my pen.

The last one of the evening was in the Safeway parking lot hidden underneath a Rhododendron bush.  It was a crayon thermos, called the Crayola Crayon Cache (GC2H86H).  The owner did this one to keep it fun for her boys.

We called it good for the day and headed back for dinner before we saw Walt and Wendy on the way back home to Olympia.  There, we chatted and watched Captain America.  Then we stopped at the store for some groceries before he dropped me off at home.  Until the next adventure!

Next Adventure:  California Desert and Route 66 Caching:  Day 1