Maris Farms Haunted Woods/Corn Maze

I've never been to Maris Farms but I've heard about it often from an assortment of people.  Ben talked about it when I first met him.  He even worked there while he lived in Bonney Lake.  He said he was a part of the clown posse that scared people.  I was curious to see what this haunted woods/corn maze was all about.

On Saturday I got up around 10 and mom and dad decided to fix the fridge.  It has been leaking for more than a few months and it was just time to figure it out I guess.  We took all of the food out, cleaned it and dad took the panels and screws out to see what exactly was going on.  Turns out the drain hole in the freezer was clogged and then the defrosted water would leak through the refrigerator and make puddles on the kitchen floor.  It is fixed now.  I waited for Ben to arrive.  We didn't leave until about 2.  We listened to the Coug game on the radio.  We beat Oregon State during our homecoming.  On the way to Walt and Wendy's house, we stopped by Party City to see if they had a straight jacket.  We got the last one for the win!

We got to Walt and Wendy's house and they had a slew of neighborhood kids helping put the framework up against the house near the entrance.  Inside, Wendy and Rosa were making enchiladas for everyone helping out.  There were at least six casserole dishes filled with food.  The boys were outside building the wall frames and we went out to the front and put up the fences around the small grave yard.  By the time we were done the enchiladas were done cooking.  I helped Wendy and Rosa set the table with the plate, plastic forks, napkins and the fruit and veggies.

Everyone came in and devoured the food.  It was delicious.  We chatted for a good hour our so and some of the kids had to go home while the rest of us got some of the walls up and zip-tied.  We got all we could done since the rain started coming down heavier.  We all relaxed on the couch, talked about various things and drank some hot chocolate.

We headed over to Ben's mom's to visit and to wind down for the evening.  We watched the Duck and Husky game and got to meet Brad's son, Christian.  He was very quiet and shy and spent most of the time staring into his phone.  The Huskies lost as we were watching a few episodes of Star Trek.  We had ice cream sandwiches and then decided it was time for bed.

The next day we slept in way to late and ended up not going over to Walt and Wendy's.  It was raining and we haven't watched a game with Trish and Amy since last season when we opened with the Packers.  Ben and I played Rummy while we watched the Seahawks blow another 4th quarter lead.  Ugh!  I hope our coaching staff figures it out soon.  It's painful to watch.

Afterwards we decided to meet Walt, Wendy, Chris and Rosa at Maris Farms.  If we would have known the pumpkin picking stopped at 6 p.m. we would have went earlier.  Lame.  We bought our tickets and then hung out in the car until I had an idea of grabbing a cache or two while we waited for 7 to roll around.

White on White (GC2GJGG) was a park and grab.  We looked for the only white thing in the area and Ben found it right away.  It was getting dark as we made the find.  We took it back over to the car and signed it because we brought a pen that didn't work.  He went and put it back while I sat in the car.  We decided to go get another one but we found out it was along a trail next to a canal.  We thought we should save this one for when it's not raining or dark out.

We drove back and they pulled in as soon as we did.  We walked towards the gate and met them right away.  We looked at the "electric" chair while some skeletons played their guitars to Queen.

I used the bathroom and was startled by a giant scary clown on stilts.  I had no idea he was hiding behind the structure.  We got into line as soon as we could because it grew every second that passed.  While we waited in line, Ben mentioned the GoPro, saying he left it in the car.  Why did you leave it in the car?  He went and grabbed it as fast as he could...and the line started moving.  I didn't get very good reception in this area but I tried to text him to hurry.

He got there before we made it into the barn.  There, a short woman with old lady make-up talked to us for a while.  The line moved steadily.  We gave the guy our tickets and made our way through the haunted woods/corn maze.

They did a really good job.  I've never been through a haunted woods or corn maze before.  Lots of noises, actors dressed scary, screaming, an old bus, glow in the dark paint, clowns, blood, chain saws and my favorite, a vortex room.  It made you actually feel like you were swirling around upside down the entire time.  Wendy stepped wrong and twisted her ankle a little bit so we had to slow down on part of the trail.  We got to the end and sat down for a bit and chatted.  It was a fun group outing.

Ben and I drove back to my house and dropped me off.  We both needed to get ready for work the next day.  It was the third haunted house/woods/corn maze since I've met Ben.  We seem to try new places every October.  I wonder where we will go next year?

Next Adventure: Spooners Farm and Pumpkin Carving Game Night

Oktoberfest!

Ben had mentioned a few weeks back that there was a local Oktober Fest event we could go to. I had never been to an Oktober Fest so I was pretty excited I had an opportunity to go and it worked out with our schedules.

I got off work a little early, went to the bank (I just got my first state paycheck) and headed home.  We both made it to my house around the same time.  I grabbed everything that we might need, including the steins (Ben bought these from his previous years in Leavenworth), he bought our tickets online, said our good byes and we were off to the Puyallup Fairgrounds.  We took his car and for some reason everyone on Hwy 507 after McKenna wanted to drive under the speed limit.  It drove me nuts everytime!

We stopped at Spirit Halloween in Spanaway for a bit.  We checked out all the costumes, house decorations and some of the make-up kits and funny hats.  I found a really awesome bear mask and Ben and I had to goof around with them.  It was almost dinner time and we were hungry.  Gotta go feed the hungry bears!  Haha!

He bought a few things for our roles in the upcoming haunted house at Walt and Wendy's house on Halloween.  We still gotta find some costumes for the asylum theme we have going.  We got in the car and headed the back way to the Puyallup Fairgrounds.  We parked in the lot to the east near the cow statue and grabbed everything we needed and walked to the expo building.

Our ID's were checked and we were given a wrist band.  We went inside and it was insane!  I used the bathroom then we stood in line for food.  I had the bratwurst plate and Ben had this pork steak burger thing.  I was so hungry I inhaled my food.

We sat at a table with a guy who was also a volunteer fire fighter but with the Eatonville department.  Ben would find the guy who is a firefighter, lol.  We ate our food and chatted with him for a while.  Then we stood in line for beer!

Each beer ticket was worth $6.  Most of the steins required 1 ticket to fill it up.  We paid $36 for 6 tickets and we definitely got our money's worth of beer.  There were six choices:

1.  Trumer Pilsner
2.  Warsteiner Oktoberfest
3.  Hofbrau Oktoberfest
4.  Haker Pschorr Weisse
5.  Snoqualmie Harvest Moon Fest Bier
6.  Warsteiner Dunkel

I filled my stein up twice with #4 and #2.  Ben filled his stein up with #2, #3 and #5.  We both liked the #2 the best.

We waited along the bleachers to play a round of corn hole.  We waited about 45 minutes until one opened up.  I don't recall throwing them that far before.  We did pretty bad for not having played this in a while but we did score 2 points!

We went into the souvenir store and looked at some of the stuff they were selling.  Then we waited in some lines to try our skill at beer pong.  The last time we played beer pong was in Chelan back in May with Ben's mom.  I sat at the table for a while as Ben kept our place in line.  I just had to get off my feet for a bit.  Meanwhile he talked to some Coug alumni and I talked to some really really drunk people.  It was hilarious.  Our turn was coming up so I walked back over and waited in line until it was our turn.  The Coug pair almost won.  We attempted our fate at beer pong.  It got pretty hairy there for a while but we managed to come back and beat them when it really counted.  We dethroned the kings!  Then we lost to some girls who clearly drink more than we did.  We left the arena in shame...haha no not really, we just needed to pee really bad!

We then made our way over to the stage area and listened to the headliner Manuela Horn, yodel to some of today's top 40 hits.  She sang 99 Red Balloons in German and yodeled the Na Na song.  We laughed uncontrollably.  That was worth the half hour we spend listening to the music.  Ben needed some more food so we bought some chicken strips and fries and I stole the big container of ketchup and brought it over to our table.  We talked about a bunch of stuff and then I had to pee again.  When I got back he had bought a pretzel and ate half of it.  It was getting late so we decided to head home around 11.  I drove us back to my house to give him some time go sober up.

We got to my house about midnight and I gave him some water and we hung out for a bit before I had to send him back home to get ready for his fire shift the next morning.  Hopefully we get to do the Leavenworth Oktober Fest next year.

Next Adventure:  Maris Farms Haunted Woods/Corn Maze

Lewis County Discovery Trail Caching

After work I had a chiropractor appointment in Centralia and decided to go see Ben at the station afterwards.  I needed to find something to do for about an hour and a half while waiting for him to get off work.  I remembered that I needed to finish finding the caches along the Discovery Trail nestled  up against the Chehalis River.  Ben and I had been on this trail back in March while we did the Lamprey Challenge but didn't really have enough time to grab the rest of the caches.

I followed the road to the parking area which was right next to someone's home and the trail carved its way along their property line.  They had many signs along the edge of the trail saying do not trespass or will be shot on site.  They mean business.  I got out and changed into some different, more comfortable clothes.  As I finished putting my shoes on and grabbing my phone, GPS and a pen, some guy and his dog showed up.  Of course, there had to be one other person on the trail while I was here.  He seemed nice enough.  They kept to themselves the entire time.  Then there was the barn.  With the leaves turning and it really looked like autumn.

There were 8 caches and the Lamprey cache we had already gotten back in March.  I hoped I had enough time to get them before the sun went down.  It looked like I wasn't going to get them all.  The fog had started to roll in and I had to hurry.

I started with Think Outside the Box (GC52AWE).  It was about a half a mile to the south of the entrance.  I walked and if I was going to get at least 4 of them  I had to hustle.  I jogged most of the way there.  When I finally got there I found out it was off the trail about 20 feet around a very large tree.  I started looking and I had trouble because it was much darker inside the woods and I didn't have a flashlight installed on my new phone yet.  About a minute into searching I remembered the name and started looking for a cache that was tied to a branch or the tree itself.  I almost ran into it.  Haha.  I signed the log and took the travel bug out to move it along.

On the way back, I grabbed 12-13-14 End of Era (GC5HTAV), a cache by RL Painter, one of our Thurston County buddies. That one was about 5 feet off the trail hidden on the backside of a tree with a natural shelf.  I was 2 for 2!

I jogged the rest of the way to the next one, Pink Power Ranger Adds to the Discovery Trail (GC4Q973), which was near the trail entrance.  It was hidden underneath a rock next to the sign.  I picked up the rock and touched a slug! Ew.  I signed my name and but it back better than I found it.

I walked to the next cache, Cheshire Cat (GC5EKE7) and started looking for it.  When I didn't find it right away I looked at the logs and was disappointed.  The last few people didn't find it.  I looked on the ground and the next couple trees just to rule out it fell and that the coords were off.  I didn't find it.  Sad day.  I will have to come back when the cache owner replaces it or when I come out here again I will bring a replacement.  This is where I ran into the guy and his dog again.  They were on their return trip back to the car.  I started my way back towards the Escape.  I knew if I tried going for the next one it will be dark plus it started sprinkling and I didn't want to end up being soaked.

I got back to the Escape and decided to go back towards Centralia.  I had a Subway gift card that I could use because I wasn't getting paid until the next day.  I got myself a sub and Ben his sub.  I sat down and ate it because I still had to eat up some time before he got to the station.  When I was done I went and got some dessert to bring with me as an offering for the guys at the station.  He told me he was going to be at the Grand Mound station but that changed as I sat in the parking lot with his sub, cinnamon rolls and some ice cream sandwiches.  They let him stay at the Rochester station instead.  I hustled on over and he was waiting for me outside to let me in.

He ate the sub, we had dessert and we dinked around with the two other guys who were on shift for a little bit.  We shot rubber bands at various targets.

Then came the time we both dread...saying good night for the evening and having to leave and go home.  We really hate that part.  I got home around 10:30, took a shower, got ready for work the next day and fell asleep as my head hit the pillow.  It was an eventful day and it was nice to finally rest.

Next Adventure:  Oktober Fest!