Swede Day and Fire Trucks

I’ve never been to Swede Day but have heard of it a few times over the years.  I never really needed to go to Rochester for any reason until I met Ben.  He was stationed and lived at the Rochester fire house so we went back and forth a lot to and from Rainier.  He mentioned that the town was getting ready for Swede Day and that the firefighters and their vehicles were in the parade every year.  He asked me to ride in the tinder with him and John. 

Swede Day in Rochester had been an annual celebration since 1979.  It is always held on the third Saturday in June and is formally titled “Swede Day Midsommsr Festival” but is usually just called “Swede Day.”  It is a time when the entire community can come together to celebrate the Swedish-Finnish people who populated this area many years ago before son many of us non Swedish-Finnish moved here.  It is a time when each of us can become Swedish-Finnish even though we have no Swedish or Finnish blood flowing through our veins.
I was supposed to meet him at the Grand Mound fire station around 10.  Mom was supposed to go with me to get pictures but she was too late and I left without her.  I really don’t think she cared.  The night before, Ben and I bought some doughnuts from Safeway to share with the guys while we were getting ready for the parade.  I brought the good camera to take a few pictures during the parade.

I got there just as they finished washing the rigs.  I grabbed everything we needed and jumped in the tinder.  We got to the staging area and people were in the way preventing us from getting to our spot in the parade.  It got all worked out and we lined up and waited for our turn.  In the meantime, I shared the doughnuts, met some new people that work for West Thurston and even got to meet the fire commissioner, who rode with us in the tinder.

I got a few pictures of Ben and his West Thurston crew along with some of the patrons of the parade.  We hung on that stretch of road for a while until we got the okay that it was time to go.  We all hopped into the tinder and waited for our turn.  I got to wear the fire helmet.  We were the last entry in the parade so we had the banner thanking everyone for coming and supporting the festivities.  I guess everyone went to Swede Hall for the rest of the scheduled events. 

Swede Hall is the building and property at 18543 Albany Street in Rochester.  The building was erected in 1939 by a group of local citizens associated with the Finnish-American Order of Runeberg.  It is now owned by the Grand Mound Rochester Citizens Group.  An important part of the mission is to preserve the Historic Swede Hall as an inexpensive rental venue for the local community.
About half way through, the weather turned and it started to rain a little bit.  It never got out of control but it didn’t matter because I was inside the tinder.  We took the long back way around to Grand Mound.  We stopped at the gas station to fill up before we went back to the station.  Ben had some other stuff left to do and I went home.

I heard we missed a huge thunder and lightning storm and for some reason it never touched Rochester the entire three hours we were outside.

Next Adventure:  Father’s Day

Outdoor Expo at Millersylvania State Park

A few weeks back I saw an event posted to our Cachers of Puget Sound about an outdoor expo at Millersylvania State Park, the same park my cache is located.  It gave me a reason to go and check up on it as well as talk to some WSGA/cachers and browse all the booths.  The weather wasn't that great and I hoped it cleared up before I got there. 

Between Rainier and Tenino it poured down rain.  I was not really happy to see this since I will be outside for most of the time.  When I got to the backside of Tenino the rain magically went away and I was happy again.  The event might be better than I expected it to be.  I had no idea where the expo was being set up so I ended up driving around the entire camping area, which I was upset about, saw a park worker, stopped and asked him where the expo was being held.  He told me over where the kitchen areas were, next to the lake.  I thanked him and knew exactly where that was.  It wasn't too far from my cache.

I parked in one of the lots and decided to check up on my cache first.  It's gone a while without something dumb happening to it.  When I approached the stump, I saw some people with it signing the log.  I just waited until they put it back so I could go check on it.  I stood there waiting and then got the courage to say something to them and I cam up with, "how long have you guys been caching?"  They shared their answers, told me where they were from, where they started caching and their geocaching names.  I told them that this was my cache and they said that this state park geotour series was really cool.  I shared with them some of my stories on the geotour and then they decided to get going on the lab caches in the park.  I checked up on the cache and added a pathtag. 

I walked over to where the tents were and spotted our WSGA tent.  I talked to Mc3cats, Sproutter, PhatBldGuy, Terrible T's, Winos, Frisky Biscuits and various other cachers I don't remember their names.  I handed out a few pathtags to people that I knew didn't have one of them yet.  Then I spent the remainder of the time talking with everyone and wandering the booths.  There were a lot of groups in the Puget Sound I didn't know about.  I took a couple of brochures and booklets for future endeavors...like kayaking the waterway trails and the scenic drives up in the north cascades. 

I called Ben around 1:30 and he was still in his bed!!  He was suppose to meet me at the expo but oh well he must have needed the sleep more.  I forgave him. :)

When we got there we were issued a raffle ticket.  I was really hoping they called my numbers.  After a few tries and some disappointment, my number was finally called!!  I was stoked!  I haven't won a raffle in quite some time.  My prize was a book called 100 Classic Hikes in Washington by Craig Romano.  Now I have a book with updated hikes in it!  Wooo!

As the expo was winding down, I stuck behind and helped Mc3Cats and Terrible T's break down the tent, the table and pick everything up and take it to their vehicle they came in.  We wrapped up our conversation and I walked to the Escape and headed home. 

Ben came over a while later and we went to Lacey to grab a cache, Just Another Light (GC6J7E0) found near our favorite sub place, Maconis.

 
Then we had sushi and teriyaki at Koibito's, then played laser tag, first time in nearly 10 years.  It was subpar after playing at Laser Quest in Spokane.  I had trouble with my gun the entire time.  Both my hands were securely on the darn thing to fire it but it kept telling me both my hands were not on it.  I struggled and ended up getting like 14th place.

We had some time to kill before we saw the second Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle movie at the mall, so we went to the Olympia waterfront to grab one of the heritage caches, WSHS 125 - Percival Landing (GC6HX4J).  It was hidden inside some brush to keep it hidden from muggles.  We found it in the evening to prevent a lot of people watching us retrieve it. 

The original commercial steamship wharf, a well-known maritime landmark in the Pacific Northwest, was built by Sam Percival in 1860. It provided access for the steamboats collectively called the Mosquito Fleet that used the Sound as a watery freeway to move mail, products and passengers.
The Mosquito Fleet era ended as customers switched their allegiance to cars and paved highways and traditional steamers became obsolete. In 2004, a study of the structural condition of Percival Landing revealed that if nothing was done, the entire facility would need to be closed, resulting in the loss of a treasured recreational area and waterfront access.

We arrived at the mall and still had some time to kill.  We bought our tickets and then had a beer and played connect four at Pints and Quarts.

The movie was awesome!  It brought in Casey Jones, Beebop and Rocksteady and even Krang.  It started to follow the old cartoons from the 80's and implied that there was going to be another movie at some point.  I was excited.  We went back to my house and hung out for a bit before he had to go back to the fire station.

Next Adventure:  Swede Day and Fire Trucks

A Weekend in Bonney Lake and Geocaching

It was Amy's birthday this weekend and I talked to Trish about how to celebrate it.  Her driving class made it more difficult because it was from 10-noon and we couldn't stay up extremely late.  I had planned on doing karaoke Friday night but it just didn't happen this time. 

Ben and I didn't get there until late because he fell asleep after work and I couldn't get a hold of him.  I was hungry, I had everything packed and I was bored.  We headed towards Bonney Lake and they left us some pizza to scarf down. We watched Amy open her birthday gifts then played with some Legos and then some dice and then went to bed shortly after.  It was a pretty chill evening.

We slept in the next morning while Amy was in class for drivers ed.  We started some French toast, and some eggs for breakfast while we waited for Amy to get back from class.  She was upset she didn't pass her test and would have to take it again. 

Trish wanted to get out of the house for a while so we called up Bonnie to see if we could come see them for a while in Auburn.  We took the long way around just to give her enough time to get settled back at home.  We grabbed 11 caches near Sumner, Lake Tapps and Auburn.  We even found some of the Auburn geotour from last year.  There wouldn't be enough time to finish it plus all the coins were now claimed. 

We started out near Lake Tapps and then headed down the hill into Sumner then back up to Lake Tapps again.  We stopped at Sunset Park and got a great view of Mount Rainier and grabbed Auburn 2015:  Sunset Park (GC64G6Y) .  It was hot so we made sure we had plenty of water with us.

We stopped at two more parks before making our way over to their grandma's house near the Muckleshoot Casino. It was getting hotter by the minute.  We get to her house and we all sat in the patio area and visited.  Bonnie gave Amy a birthday card and we caught everyone up on what we've been doing since the last time we saw her.  We stayed for about an hour before we all got hungry and decided to go down towards the Super Mall for some dinner.  Before that we picked up one more cache along the East Valley Hwy.  I let Trish and Amy look for Sumner's Sod Fields (GC10YBH). 

We picked up a few more in Sumner and then decided to go home because it was getting dark.  All together we got 11 for the day.  When we got home, we relaxed for a bit and then talked about where we wanted to go and float the next day.  It was suppose to be the hottest day this week and we wanted to enjoy it.  Trish suggested Deep Lake over by Enumclaw's Nolte State Park and I suggested just staying close and hanging out at Lake Tapps.  We came up with a plan of bringing sandwiches and chips with us so we could eat lunch while we were there.  All we had to do now was get everything together, blow up our inner tubes and enjoy the day.

The next morning we got up later than we wanted to.  We ate breakfast, I helped Trish make sandwiches and get some fruit and veggies together, Ben filled our inner tubes up with air in the garage and we started loading the truck.  We had decided to try Deep Lake at Nolte.  We drove all the way out there, stopping at the store really quick for a few more drinks and some chips for our sandwiches.  When we got to the state park entrance it was insane!  The parking inside was full and at least a half a mile on either side of the road were covered in vehicles.  We said no to that and continued up to Kanaskat-Palmer State Park to float in the Green River.  We said no to that as well.  We turned around and headed back towards Lake Tapps to Lake Tapps Park, owned by Pierce County.  That place was also packed to the brim!  Holy cow!  I think we got a late start this morning.  We should have come sooner.  We waited in the line and eventually got to the gate.  They were charging vehicles $3 to get in.

We drove around for 10 minutes until we found a spot.  We got our inner tubes out and prepared for some floating.  Ben got the GoPro ready and we got in.  It felt so nice just to relax and float for a while.

We were out there for about an hour or so before it was time to eat our lunch.  We sat on the tailgate and munched on our sandwiches.  We used the restroom and decided it was time to pack up everything and head home.  I actually saw someone I knew from work.  I talked to her for a bit before we loaded up the truck and headed towards home.  We stopped at Dairy Queen for some blizzards to finalize Amy's birthday weekend. 

Ben and I packed up our stuff and headed home.  We both had to work pretty early the next day.  We got home between 9 and 9:30.

Next Adventure:  Outdoor Expo at Millersylvania State Park