Easter Sunday

It is one of those weird years that Easter is in March along with St. Patrick's Day.  I spent a bunch of time talking to my grandmothers trying to figure out what we were going to do.  They made it more complicated than it actually appeared.  We were also going to celebrate February and March birthdays since there were five of them.  I even told her that I was okay with buying some stuff to put in the Easter baskets.  She said we would assemble them before grandpa went and hid them.

Ben was lucky enough to get the day off at the casino so he could join us.

It was going to be at Kevin and Karla's house in the afternoon.  Everyone was assigned to bring something. We brought veggies, dip and dad was going to bring Jello but decided not to.  Mom made cookies at the last minute and made me late getting ready.  We got all the presents into the bags and the cards signed.  Ben got there just before we left and dad decided to take a walk at the wrong time and barely made it back in time.  He and Ben loaded the Escape and we forgot a couple things because we were in a hurry.

Then we were late picking up grandma.  Luckily once we got onto the road it didn't take us long to get there.  I think we rolled into his driveway at 1:05.  Doug and Jenn weren't even there yet so we weren't the last ones to arrive.  We got the stuff out of the Escape and went inside.  That's when I found out we weren't going to do Easter baskets or an Easter egg hunt.  I was disappointed.  We had a plan and no one told me it had changed.  I just handed out stuff and sat down.

We said grace and then got our food.  We had ham, chicken, potatoes, gravy, veggies, rolls, salad, a cobbler, cake and ice cream when we celebrated the birthdays.  Doug and Jenn arrived just as we sat down for food.  We chatted, visited and cleaned off the table.  Then we moved back into the living room to get ready for presents.

I passed out everything and didn't realize we forgot our cards or they were brought and left in the Escape.  Oh well.  Everyone seemed to be happy.  Tracy, Kevin and Karla handed out "tremors" birthday cake and ice cream.  The cake fell apart in the car and it looked like one of those tremor worms bit into the cake.  You would have to see the movie to picture it.  We ate our cake and visited.  We passed Erika around so everyone could talk to her for a few minutes.  She was glad to hear from us.

We stayed til about 6, then packed up everything, said our goodbyes and headed home.  Ben and I hung out for a bit and watched the first Captain America movie.  He had to go home shortly after because he had to get ready for work the next day and I had to go to bed.  It was a nice Easter but I was sad we didn't get to do Easter baskets and find the eggs. 

Next Adventure:  The Tulip Festival, LaConner, Anacortes and some Geocaching

Baby Shower, Engine House No. 9 and Jamie Kennedy at the Tacoma Comedy Club

We are still waiting to hear back if Ben gets his entrance interview to become a career firefighter at his station.  The levy passed last month and because it passed the station is required to hire a few people before the 45 days is up.  He got a phone call earlier this week to ask if he was still interested in the position...of course he was!  We can not wait until he doesn't have to go back to the awful casino ever again!

This weekend was his two days off and we try and go and visit his mom on that weekend.  He had a training that wasn't required but we thought it would be in his best interest to go and make himself look good and get the training of course.  We had to alter our weekend.  We were going to spend the weekend at his mom's house but ended up having dinner and a show with her and  Amy instead.

His best friend Chris and his wife Rosa, were having a family oriented baby shower on Saturday afternoon and we were invited to go.  Trish told us she was going to go and that she would pick up the gift.  We all agreed on one of those baby Moby wraps.  Of course we would be late getting there but we would still come after his training.  Then the plans changed.  We called Trish asking if she got the present and she said she wasn't going to go now.  We asked her why.  She said she never was invited.  We said what?  We invited you yesterday and you were getting the gift.  What changed in less than 12 hours?  Ugh. 

Ben was done with training and I got my stuff ready to go and headed to the fire station.  From there, we stopped at the Westside Toys "R" Us and got a Moby wrap and a rubber ducky.  From there we headed to South Hill Puyallup area via I-5 and Hwy 512.  We got there way late but we made it.  We had a few snacks, chatted with everyone and learned a little bit more about baby Daniel.

We met up with Trish for dinner around 7 in Tacoma.  We haven't been to Engine House No. 9 in quite some time so it was nice to visit the place again to eat.  The place was busy but we didn't have to wait that long for a table.  Ben ordered the dark, I ordered a reddish ale, Trish got a blonde and Amy tried the raspberry cider.  I ordered my French dip, Ben got a sandwich, Amy got the burger and Trish got the fish and chips.  The food was delicious! 

We asked them if they wanted to go see Jamie Kennedy at the Tacoma Comedy Club and they said sure.  I have never been to the venue before and tried to remember who he was.  I guess he was in Scream and the newest movie, Tremors 5.  We had some time to kill so we played a game of shuffle board.  It was Ben and Amy against me and Trish and we destroyed them!

We drove over towards the comedy club and found parking.  I have never parallel parked up a hill before and I couldn't tell how close the car was behind me.  It made me nervous.  I had Ben do it and then he made fun of me for the rest of the night about it.  We walked in, showed them our receipt and they escorted us to our table, in the back corner.  It was a weird view but oh well.  It was a two drink or food item per person minimum because it was a special event.  We got beer and water and I ended  up getting a soda for the pick-me-up.

The opener was a guy named Brian who went to school at Arizona State and was a third string kicker.  He made fun of how short he was and Ben added to the conversation about how I am short and he is tall and that we make it work.  We later talked to him about it after the show.  Then Jamie came out and started his routine.  He started with telling us to refrain from yelling SEA....HAWKS!, during the show because he really wasn't a football fan and he said we sounded like complete morons when we chanted that.  Which is true...I think the chant is dumb because people take it overboard.  He kept getting interrupted by this really annoying girl who sat maybe 20 feet away from us.  You could tell he was trying to ignore her but couldn't.  He made fun of her, told her to shut up because he always had to start his joke over again and eventually the bouncers from the facility came over and talked to her.   She was quiet the rest of the night.

It was a two hour event and I didn't want to get up so I wanted along with everyone else to use the restroom afterwards...the line took a while but I eventually got to my destination.  I met up with everyone and we stood in line to meet him for a picture.  He was pretty cool and we decided to make faces in our pic as we did a selfie with him.  It was hilarious.  We talked with Brian and left just before one.

We said our goodbyes to Trish and Amy and I took Ben back to the station.  We hung out for a little bit because I had to get home to got to bed.  I was tired and he had to work the next day.  I headed home and got home around 2:30.

Next Adventure:  Easter Sunday

Rattling Bridge and The Swinger

The other day some caches published out in the Bald Hills/Cougar Mountain area. I over heard Bev talking about them at the event the other night and needed to find time do do them. I heard the one was pretty cool.

I tried to get a hold of Lacey on Wednesday but my text message didn't go through but it said it did on my end.  The cell phone service in my building sucks so I can not receive calls or text messages.  I thought it was weird I hadn't heard from her so I texted her again later on in the day outside away from the building.  She said she never got it.  Dang it!  We will have to do it tomorrow since the weather was suppose to be somewhat nice still.  She said that would be awesome.

After work on Thursday I headed home as quick as I could so we had maximum daylight.  I decided to take Lacey out here because she was familiar with the area, due to Tabitha's wedding back in 2010 and it was relatively close so we didn't have to travel very far.  I think she wanted a mini adventure as well.

I got everything ready in the Escape and started backing out of our driveway when Lacey pulled into the driveway.  I didn't see her text before she left but she offered to drive.  I told her it was okay, I already had everything in the car and the GPS on.  She parked the car and jumped in with me.  I set the Nuvi to our first stop, Rattling Bridge (GC6CA44) just on the other side of Lawrence Lake.

Here is some information about the location near the cache from the cache page:

"This Cache is at the beginning of a private road that crosses the Deschutes River. This is the third Bridge at this location. The first was supported by two fir arches. The second one was simply four large cedar logs making the span with wood planking for a deck. The current Bridges supportive structure (1967) is a train car that originally had a crane mounted on it. It spans 60 feet between a concrete bulkhead on one end and piling drove down to bed rock on the other. The decking is metal planking that tends to rattle quite alarmingly when cars drive over it."

We chatted about stuff on the way there.  It didn't take us long to get there and I wasn't paying attention and drove by our stop.  I turned around and parked the car near the mailboxes of the private driveway.  I remember coming out this way when we were in high school with some friends to go swimming in this really awesome swimming hole.  I believe this was the last time I was here until today.  Lacey recognized the area and told me this is where they took Tabitha and Earl's wedding pictures.  It definitely was a good choice to bring Lacey out to these caches.


I got the coordinates into the handheld GPS and waited until it found a signal.  In the meantime, we walked out to the bridge to admire the area.  I really don't remember these houses being here almost 16 years ago.  Even the small grocery store down the street was out of business and vandalized, which was too bad, every little community needed a small grocery store/gas station.

We talked about the times we spent with our friends in middle and high school, before she left to Olympia and then to California, of the many inner tube trips we took from bridge to bridge during the summer vacations.  I really missed those times.  I was one of those kids who had a great childhood and awesome friends to hang out with.  Life just gets in the way now.

We walked back towards the Escape thinking about the hint.  We looked around for a few seconds and then it hit me, "it's a fence end cap!"  I grabbed it and low and behold the cache!  Lacey, who I've taken geocaching a few times, hasn't seen one like this before.   She thought it was pretty clever.

When the wind blew it was really cold.  I didn't think it would be this cold.  Luckily I had some hats, gloves, extra jackets, sweatshirts and a blanket in the Escape.  I put the coords to the next cache into Nuvi and we were on our way.  It's been a while since I drove these roads.  The last time probably was about 10 years ago while I worked at Camp Cascades.  Neat Road was the least traveled of the two roads that took you to the same place and it gave you a great view of Mount Rainier.

I must have driven this road at least 200 times during the two summers I worked at the camp.  I never saw the gate that we stopped at for the cache.  The Swinger (GC6CMT3) was a very well crafted field puzzle even though it was a traditional cache.  We parked the Escape right in front and I gave her the run down of what we were looking for.  She said she knew the family that owned this property, which to me, made this even cooler.

From the cache page:

"My father, Ken Reichel in the late 1960’s, created this gate and dubbed it the “Swinger”. He also built the Rattling Bridge (cache GC6CA44). He made the first (right) half and later found it too narrow and added the second (left) side. Thankfully foreseeing “Google” searches in the future he did not pluralize the name. Those who don’t appreciate art will call this a gate and those who do may call it a sculpture. Dad has never been accused of being an Artist or a Swinger but he did create some cheap art while using up some of the junk in the shop like a tractor steering wheel, peavey, pitchfork, wheel bearings, large fan, model A jack and numerous other things. The Swinger has been featured in the local papers a couple of times. Dad was more apt to make my brothers and I toys when we were young rather than buy them. One of these found its final resting place on the second half of the gate. It is a Bulldozer. I do remember my brother taking this particular toy to school for show and tell. He ended the day saying, “Boy that cat is heavy!” "

The gate showcased a lot of farm junk which made it seem very overwhelming when trying to locate a small-sized cache.  We didn't realize there would be three parts to this cache.  The first hint lead us to a sliding latch.  Upon further investigation the end cap came off yielding a clue to the next piece.  The clues were very poetic and we had to use our thinking caps to find the next one.  We touched everything that moved, everything that had a hole in it and everything that could hide a magnet or something.  Lacey found the second clue on the small metal tractor.  It's wheel hubcaps hid the next PVC pipe, dowel and the next clue.  I was so excited she found one of the clues.  Plus I'm sure we touched that little tractor at least five times already, lol.  We read the clue and tried to make sense of it.  It definitely screamed something that had to do with a "support."  Which meant it had to be on the support poles that were holding up the gate.  Sure enough a few moments later we had the cache in hand.  We signed our names and put it back where we found it.

We got back in the Escape and took a few pictures of Mount Rainier on our way home.  She thanked me for bringing her along.  I told her we will be doing more of this when it gets a little nicer.  She was excited.  She drove home and I went inside and started doing my evening things.

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

Next Adventure:  Baby Shower, Engine House No. 9 and Jamie Kennedy at the Tacoma Comedy Club