3.14

Last year was really hard to find a Pi Day I could go to because I had to work weekends and Pi Day happened to be on a Saturday that year.  Luckily a buddy of mine who works for the Postal Service also worked that day but had the event later on in the day so people with jobs like that could attend.

This year it was on a Monday so I had planned on driving down to Centralia to grab a few caches and then go to the event after work.  Unfortunately Ben couldn't come with me to the event because he gets off work around 7:30.  I did tell him I would bring him some pizza at the station.

I was really hoping the weather would hold up at least for an hour once I got down there.  I planned on getting three caches I didn't have time for a few weekends ago when I hit my 10,500th cache. 

I got off of work around 5 and headed down.  You could see the giant gray cloud as I drove south on I-5.  It was a matter of time when it decided to dump.  I was hoping I was not out in it when it did.  The first one I had written down was Little Green (GC57YM0) along Harrison Ave north of Centralia.  I knew it was a nano and some people have been having trouble with it.  I saw the CO had been there and replaced it recently so it should be there.  I parked in the veterinarian's parking lot and walked the last 300 feet to the cache.  I looked and looked with the hint that was provided.  Then it started dumping rain.  I gave myself a couple seconds to look one more time and bailed.  I ran back to the Escape.  I would have to look for this again after the event.

Pushing Pansies (GC5FEBG) was on the other side of I-5 down Blair Road, a residential side street that runs parallel to I-5.  I've always wondered what was down this road.  A dead end and houses...not that exciting but at least I found the cache!  It was a plastic toy that some one had put a magnet in to attach it to the guard rail.  Previous logs had said the coords were off to the south by 60 feet but I didn't have that problem.  I found it pretty quickly plus the rain had died down a lot.

I got back in the Escape and drove down Reynolds to Hwy 507 to Sixth Ave to snag one called Not in My Yard! (GC511F0).  Technically it wasn't in the yard but still on the person's property.  I've always hated these kind of caches.  If the people are home they are watching you, or come out and talk to you or their dog or the neighbor's dog constantly barks at you while you're there.  It's annoying.  I just want to find the cache and move on to the next one.

That cache was the last one before the event.  I only had about 20 minutes to get to the Say Hi on Pi Day (GC6BKDV), order pizza before it got busy, sit down and relax.  I wasn't sure how many people exactly were coming to this thing but I imagine more than what the cache page said.  Mom texted me to bring her back some pizza so I just ended up ordering a family size.  Some for me now, some for Ben because he eats like a fat kid, some for mom and some for leftovers the next day.

I signed the log and chatted with Wayne and Frisbeer.

Bob and Bev showed up, Wayne and I sat with them at the table while we waited for our pizza.  Verano was this year's SW Washington Chapter Rep and she said this was the first time she's hosted anything up this far.  Usually they have events more south in Castle Rock, Vancouver and Ridgefield.  I'm glad they had one up this far.  It's nice seeing other cachers than the same ones over and over again.  She said this was probably her last event because she will not run again for the WSGA elections. 

Since I am writing this a few weeks after Pi Day, I found out our new SW Washington Chapter Reps are Geek&Gopher again!!  Yay Brenda and Ray!

Our pizza's came and they were delicious!  I ordered peperoni, sausage and olives because I know everyone would eat it.  It was a huge pizza!

We had a raffle and I didn't win.  It would have been cool to bring home that pie trackable,  No such luck!  I saw Freda and her daughter came all the way from Longview to hang out with us.  I went over and talked to them for a while.  It was nice to catch up with them.  I will have to make it to one of her events sometime in the spring.

I packed up all of my stuff and took it to the Escape.  I got a hint from Wayne on Little Green and he said to look on the other side of the road.  Ooohhh.  I was looking on the wrong side of the road but that's where the coords took me.  Plus the hint made sense there.   I got back on Harrison and headed the back way to Rochester.  I stopped at Little Green and found the darn thing on my second try,

I took Ol' Hwy 9 past Maple Lane to Rochester.  It rained the entire time to the station.  I met up with Ben just as he pulled into the station from work.  Perfect timing.  I brought the box of pizza in and he took almost half of it.  I saved the other half for mom and leftovers.  I visited for a little while then he had to get ready for his fire shift at Grand Mound.  We said our goodbyes and I headed home.  It was around 9 p.m.  I did a few things, showered, watched Bones and got ready for my Tuesday.

Next Adventure:  Rattling Bridge and The Swinger

Saint Patreaster's Day

This month, my friends and I, decided to combine St. Patrick's Day and Easter to avoid trying to plan two game nights this month.  It's hard enough just getting everyone to come on one Saturday let alone two.

Last year Lindsay found the golden egg.  If you find the golden egg it is up to you to fill them for the next years egg hunt.  This year I found the golden egg without realizing it.  I was just cramming as many eggs into my bag as fast as I could. 

Ben and I made the deviled eggs and I brought a poke cake.  I made it gluten free for Nicole who didn't end up coming because she double booked her day.  It was basically cake mix and Jello.  You poke holes into the cake and dump the Jello in.  I made it green. 

We headed over and when we walked in we were greeted by dogs and a bunch of little kids.  I guess Lindsay was babysitting her nieces tonight and brought them along.  Megan brought Mason and Miles and they were much quieter than the two girls.

We ate our yummy food and chilled.  Nicole was suppose to bring dip, Celeste made bacon wrapped asparagus, Lacey made a noodle pasta, Megan made a broccoli and carrot dough thing, Lindsay and Justin made cupcakes and mozerella tomato and basil bites and Lance made meat wraps.  There was plenty of food to go around.

After food we did our adult egg hunt.  The kids did theirs earlier and watched Frozen as we found our eggs.  We had to hide them in the house because the weather really was poor outside and we all didn't want to get soaked.  Lindsay spent some time hiding the eggs while we made fun of Frozen.  I still to this day have never seen it.

We frantically searched everywhere and I managed to find 3 eggs but one that really counted I guess.  Inside the golden egg was a blow up cat horn.  You can actually attach it to your cats head.  I haven't tried it out on my cat yet.  We cleaned up the tables and got ready for games.

We ended up playing Wits and Wagers and a game Lacey brought for us to try, I can't remember the name exactly, but it's almost like Catch Phrase.  There was a lot of laughing.

It was getting late and everyone started getting tired and leaving.  We all grabbed our stuff, said our goodbyes and went home.  Ben hung out for a little while until he had to go back to the station to get ready to go to work the next day.

Next Adventure:  3.14

Day Trip to Westport

We had planned on hiking down in the Columbia Gorge area but the weather was not going to cooperate very well.  The gorge generates its own weather just like the ocean and Mount Rainier does.  I told mom that by the time we got down there, which is like a 2.5 hour drive, the weather would start getting bad.  Plus, dad wasn't even ready to go that morning.  I added that we should go when the weather gets a little better and when all the gates re-open after April 1st. 

She got upset because she was really excited to go.  She really wanted to go somewhere that day so I suggested, we haven't been to the beach in a while, let's go there!  She agreed and picked Westport.  We motivated dad, called Grandma to see if she wanted to go, threw together some lunches, warm clothes and a query and headed out.

We picked up Grandma along the way and once we got to Grand Mound I filled the Escape up with gas.  I knew it was cheap there.  It didn't take us long to get to Aberdeen and dad criticized my driving the entire way.  I was too close, watch out for that person, leave some distance between cars, they might slam on their breaks, etc., etc.  It got really old and we deemed him the "Debbie Downer" of our beach day trip.

We hit the junction towards Westport over the draw bridge and into the south side of Aberdeen where the mall and Grays Harbor CC are located.  Dad wanted to stop at his gun store but no one told me where it was so we would have to stop on the way home.  I had no idea how long the weather was going to hold up.  I heard the rain was coming.

We got to Westport and saw all the familiar sites from when we came here twice a year on the school bus to compete against them in basketball and in fastpitch.  Fun fact:  Grandpa Dennis went to school here for a short amount of time when he was a kid.  We drove to the most northern part of the peninsula, parked the car and wandered around the shops, docks and the observation tower.  And I geocached. 

I walked out to the dock and enjoyed the scenery.  I also looked for Don't Bore Us, Get to the Chorus #1 (GC1TFG3) which was hidden on the south side of the gift shop.  In the summer I could see how this one would be harder to find with more people wandering around watching you.  I was the only one out here besides a lady who was on her phone.  She had no clue what I was doing.  I grabbed it and sat down like I was texting someone but I was really signing the log book.  I put it back and went inside the gift shop just to see what they had.

I went back to the Escape and dumped off a few things I didn't want to carry anymore and found out mom left her phone in there too.  No wonder she wasn't answering my phone calls.  I wanted to know where they were.  I managed to find mom and Grandma and asked if they wanted to go towards the tower to find the other cache in town.  They said sure.  I had been to this tower once before with Bob and Bev years ago.  The Let It Rain (GC201KF) was located underneath the ramp hidden in the rocks.  It was a quick find.

We then wandered around the area trying to find dad.  He wasn't answering his phone and we were getting hungry and needed to find a place to hang out while we ate the lunches mom made.  We finally found him and made everyone go potty before we headed to the state park up the road.

The last time I was at Westhaven State Park was when I came here with Bob and Bev at the start of the State Parks GeoTour back in June 2013.  We really didn't stay here that long because we had a lot of ground to cover that day.  This time we were able to relax and enjoy the area a little bit.  And this time the bathroom was done being built.  When we came three years ago they were in the middle of building it.

Dad and Grandma sat in the Escape while mom and I hung out in the parking lot.  We ate our sandwiches and talked about stuff.  There were more people at this state park then I thought there would be today.  Some guy had attempted to do some body surfing and was trying to get the shower to work over by the bathroom.

We finished our lunch and headed down to the beach.  It was really muddy looking, we found a couple of sand dollars and a crab that was still alive.  Someone was really cleaver and chain sawed this wooden log into a bull.

We walked down a good half mile or so and then turned around because dad was getting tired.  I took a detour and headed up to get a cache I couldn't find three years ago, Feckless Deck (GC2J6MR).  I think it was a different container then because it took me 15 seconds to find it this time.

I walked out to the jetty with mom and dad and had her find the state park cache.  We took a trackable out of it to move it on.  We used the restroom one more time and headed back out towards Aberdeen because the rain started to come down.  We stopped at the Westport Lighthouse before leaving town.  We got a group selfie with it.

We tried stopping at dad's gun place but it closed at 4ish.  We decided to take dad to Bi-Mart.  Mom bough some more Girl Scout cookies from the Aberdeen troop because she felt bad for them.  The Grays Harbor/Aberdeen/Hoquiam area isn't the best place to live in Washington.

Dad bough some bullets, mom got a new electric blanket, Grandma got a new calendar and I bought a HDMI cable so we could connect a computer to a TV.  I haven't been to a Bi-Mart since I went to one with dad in Yakima, which has been years and years ago. 

We left the harbor and headed home on Hwy 12.  Dad wanted to stop at Eagan's, which had a new Oakville location I've never been to, for dinner.  We all had some burgers and shared the large basket of fries. 

We got back, dropped Grandma off at home and headed to our home to unpack the car, shower and relax.  It was a quick afternoon trip.  Once daylight savings time kicks in we should be going on more trips this spring and summer.

Next Adventure:  Saint Patreaster's Day