Leavenworth Trip: A Proposal, Beer, Geocaching and Adventure Labs

The alarm went off and we got up around 9ish.  We got dressed for the day and started making our breakfast. We looked through the cupboards to find the mixing bowls, flying pans and the other cookware we might need. It was like playing a scavenger hunt just to make breakfast. Ben worked on the French toast, and I did the eggs and sausage.  We bought liquid eggs because we weren't sure if we'd use an entire dozen eggs and those would be hard to travel back home with.  I've never used liquid eggs before, so I wasn't sure if you had to cook them differently or not.  I guess we'll find out!  

We finished making our food, pulled out plates, cups and silverware, divvied up the food and went to the table to feast on our masterpiece.  It was pretty good except for the eggs...they had a grit consistency.  I think I may have over stirred them.  Oh well.  We finished our food, put our dishes in the sink (we will do them later) and finished getting ready for our day.  I asked Ben if I needed to take anything specific with me and he said no.  

We hopped in the Edge and headed into town...the back way to avoid the bridge construction. We knew we couldn't get around the parking issue, so we found a lot and paid $10 for all day.  They told us if we needed to leave and come back that it would be fine as long as there were spots available.  That was good to know because Ben said that we had to leave at least once.

We started with Chris (Mc3cat's) Adventure Lab that took us around town answering questions on the many murals of Leavenworth.  Since there were only five waypoints spread around town, it didn't take us long to complete it.  

Then we started on Ben's Adventure Lab, It's About Time!  A Leavenworth Historical Lab.  He's been working on it for at least a year.  He let me lead the way as we made our way through it.  He set it up to where when I completed each waypoint, it would give me a few letters to unscramble at the end.  I wrote those letters down in a notebook.  A cacher had already completed it that morning and was probably confused but there was a reason why it was set up that way.

We walked to our first stop which was the Wenatchee River Institute as known as the River Haus.  I opened the app to see what I had to answer.  I found the answer and I chose to walk around the informational trail being goofy.  We walked all the way down to the Wenatchee River just to see what was down there.  It was a pretty nice area for sitting, swimming and eating food. I will have to keep this area in mind the next time we come to Leavenworth in the summer.

We walked back to the middle of town and did the Hotel Edelweiss waypoint.  I opened the app and answered the question.  Ben said we should probably go do the ski hill one before town gets busier and we were not able to get our parking spot back.  We walked back to the parking lot and got in the Edge.  Ben said we could do the grange one before we left town.  He pulled over in a parking spot near one of the hotels across the street and I went and did it quickly.  I got it answered and jumped into the Edge with him while we drove north of town to the Ski Hill Lodge.  I had no idea this was even up here but then there was a reason why I didn't know.  Whenever we came to Leavenworth, we stayed in town so anything outside of town was unknown.

It was a short drive and when we got there, no one was hardly there so finding parking was easy.  There was a guy who was walking his dog but that was about it.  I opened the question and made our way to the lodge.  Ben said that the lady he was talking to about this spot was supposed to have a new informational board, but it wasn't up yet.  He was able to have people answer a question anyway and hoped that the lady would have the board up soon.  We walked back to the Edge and made our way into town.  Our parking spot was still available.

Our last stop was the Greater Leavenworth Museum, which was moved into town so more people would stop by and visit it.  We actually got to meet the lady who worked with Ben on his Adventure Lab project.  His information was historically accurate. We briefly chatted with her while we paid our entrance fee.  She was happy to have finally met Ben in person.  She handed us a book called Leavenworth Then, Leavenworth Now! (1996) by Honi Roberts, for free.  We thanked her for the kind gift. 

We spent the next half hour browsing through the museum.  I found out that Leavenworth used to be called Icicle, which is pretty cool.  They should have kept the name.  It was a booming logging town, which is pretty much what all towns did in Central and Western Washington back during the turn of the century.  That and mining.  It created lots of jobs, brought the railroad through town, buildings and houses started being built.  Life was good in this small Eastern Washington town. 

Soon, with the creation of Hwy 2 and better vehicles, people were getting jobs elsewhere, making this small-town sort of obsolete.  This was a common thing once highways and major interstates started to change the way people traveled, dined and stayed.  Fires destroyed most of the wood buildings in the early years of the century and most of the downtown blocks were rebuilt with bricks.  In the 1950's, most of the storefronts were empty and the town's economy was suffering.

By the 1960's, Ted Price and Bob Rodgers came to the rescue.  They bought two properties and remodeled them into a Bavarian motif.  Soon other businesses followed but with some slight hesitation.  They weren't sure if they should put a ton of money into remodeling, but they did anyway in hope that they bought into something that was going to be profitable in the long run.  It was a huge risk, but the remodel of the town soon brought money into the small community with tourism and over time they were able to expand and improve the facilities and add festivals throughout the years.  Just ask Woody Goomsba.  

A lot of hard work and persistence makes Leavenworth of what it is today.  2.5 million visitors worldwide visit this tourist destination every year all because of an idea to remodel the town after a German inspired theme.

We finished up the walk through the museum with artifacts from the Ski Hill section of the building. Ski Hill was pretty famous in the early 30's into the 50's and even had some ski jumpers represent the US in the Olympics.  We thanked her once again before we left and headed into the middle of town.  By this point Ben was acting a little strange and I knew he was up to something.  The gazebo in the middle of town was being used by a German band so he walked me to the side where he sat me down to work on the several letters, I gathered from each of the waypoints we visited on the Adventure Lab.

I sat there looking at the letters and honestly thought it was a code for the next step I would have to complete.  I didn't realize it was the end.  I started to unscramble them, and I knew what it said.  Ben grabbed the ring box out of his pocket, got on one knee and asked me to marry him.  Of course, I told him yes.  We exchanged hugs and kisses.  I put the ring on my finger and Ben got a few pictures of me with it.  He promised his Mom and other people we'd have photos of the occasion.

"She said yes, let's go get some fucking beer!"

But first,

He thought about taking us on a horse carriage ride through Leavenworth, but we didn't have cash on us, which was fine, so instead we had a caricature of us drawn by one of the artists in town.  We thought it made more sense to do that because back in 2015 we had one drawn of us at the Puyallup Fair.  We sat in chairs, had our faces drawn, gave them a tip and paid at the next tent over.  We took a few more pictures in town and then went to Icicle Brewing to celebrate our engagement! 

We went inside and purchased two beers with a pretzel and cheese.  I bought a pint glass and a sticker...mostly to commemorate this moment.  I had a Dirtyface Amber, and Ben had the Crosscut Pilsner as we ate our pretzel with cheese.  We needed a snack to tie us over until dinner.  As we sat there, we talked about some of the wedding ideas we've had prior to getting engaged and if we had any more ideas to add to the list.  Ben posted the first picture to Facebook to see if anyone noticed the ring on my finger.  One person did right away, haha!

We finished our beer and food and decided to walk around downtown for a little while.  Ben bought his sister a Friends themed shirt, I found a Rainier Beer Sasquatch shirt for Doug and some stickers for myself and others as gifts.  Then we went over to Blewett Brewery to have one more beer to celebrate. We both had the Fool's Gold Pale Ale, and I liked how crisp it was.  We walked around town some more after we were done.

We walked to the Hills Are Alive (GC4QEDW) so Ben could find and log that one.  I had already found it several years ago when we came for the Christmas lighting in December 2018.  

I decided that Ben needed to finish the webcam cache, Bavarian Village (GCJHC9).  He said he did it several years ago but didn't log it and had no idea where that picture was.  I told him I did it back in March of 2011 when we came over for the Wenatchee Cache Machine.  We agreed to take one together and he would log it for that day with that picture.

We walked to the parking lot and hopped in the Edge.  I asked Ben if we could find a few more caches around town and he said sure.    We found Back Alley Rock (GC417A1) and couldn't find Frankie Goes to Leavenworth (GC7XXJ3) because the container was missing.  We drove to the other side of town to grab Link (GC920JN) and Willkommen (GC86DTM) where we posed as a newly engaged couple because it was at the east end Leavenworth sign and felt it was appropriate.  We decided to get two more on our way back to the chalet on the back road. 

We pulled into the public boat launch area, found a place to park and walked to Millpond (GC88PT1).  We followed the trail and got to near ground zero.  I wasn't sure what we were looking for, but it had a lot of favorite points.  I really didn't think it was going to be beyond the no trespassing sign, so I didn't bother looking over that way.  Ben wanted to go check that area, so I let him go to inspect it.  He pulled something off of a pipe sticking out the ground and told me that it was it.  I asked, then why is it beyond the no trespassing sign?  He shrugged. We signed our names and put it back the way we found it.  We walked to the other one in the boat launch area.

The Fly vs. Me (GC7XARG) also had a bunch of favorite points.  Again, we really weren't sure what we were looking for.  I thought it was going to be a plastic toy fly stuck on a bison tube hanging from one of the trees it was zeroing in on.  We searched the grouping of trees for a little bit longer and found a fly swatter on the back of one of the trees.  I could tell you I've never found a fly swatter geocache until that day.  We put our names on the logbook and put it back. We went back to the Edge and drove back to the Chalet for the evening.

Once there, I logged the caches we found and then started making dinner.  Ben made the chicken we bought yesterday on the grill out front while I heated up the corn and the mashed potatoes.  We had to eat all of it because we would have no way to bring it home. When it was done, we each had two pieces of chicken, the corn and mashed potatoes while we hung out. 

I did stuff on my computer for a bit, looked up some hikes in the area, we did some of the dishes and watched National Treasure 1 and 2.  I did some Instagramming--because I needed to catch up, we had some of our ice cream later and then went to bed around 1 a.m.     

Leavenworth Trip:  Icicle Gorge Trail Hike, Wenatchee BBQ, Geocaching and Hot Tub

Leavenworth Trip: Lacey to Leavenworth

Ben has been working on this trip for the past 6 months or so.  I told him that he could plan the whole thing and that I would be fine with it.  Deep down I knew he had planned to propose but I just didn't know how he was exactly going to do it. I mean come on; we've been dating for almost 9 years--you knew it was bound to happen soon. 

He got everything squared away, we set aside a few days on our calendar in July, put in our vacation time for work and just waited until those days approached.  The night before, we got all packed up, set Doug up for success while we were gone and went to bed late like we always do.

We set our alarms for 8 a.m.  We slowly got up, got ready, dressed, finished packing our last-minute stuff and ate a quick breakfast (Ben cereal and me yogurt and half a blueberry bagel) because we wanted to get on the road as soon as possible.  We were so glad to have a few days off from work away from home.  I am always a fan of missing work when I can.  

We started the dishes, so they were clean, put a few things away, made sure the kitties were fed, gave them treats, scooped the box and gave them a bunch of pets, gathered the rest of the stuff we needed including our childhood stuffed animals, packed up the Edge, Dad came over just as we were about to leave to check on Doug, we chatted for a bit and then left.  We left home around 9:30-10 a.m., got onto I-5 north and didn't hit any traffic until we hit Seattle.  It was slow around downtown but not too bad.  We decided to go this way for a change of scenery, to get some caches along the way and neither of us has been over Stevens Pass in a very long time or have ever.

We scooted on through up to Everett where we merged onto Hwy 2.  I was telling Ben how crazy it was up here the last time I was up here.  It was last year in June during shop hop with Mom.  The traffic was unforgiving, and it was also during the infamous "heat dome" in the Pacific Northwest.  As Ben and I drove through, it was a nice, smooth drive with hardly any traffic.  He did mention that we needed to stop soon though.  I told him Monroe wasn't too far up the road.

 We stopped at the Fred Meyer to get Ben some coffee and to use the restroom since we've been in the car for about 2 hours.  It was sure nice to stretch out and walk around a little bit.  After using the restroom, I was in search of a few candy bars for the road.  It's always nice to have some Milky Ways on a road trip.  I grabbed Ben some Reece's Cups. We got back onto Hwy 2 and continued our journey east.

A few days before we left, I wrote down some of the caches I wanted to stop at along the way.  Some were because of the favorite points, a few were the locations, and the others were because we needed them for the towns and cities challenge, I've been working on for over 12 years now.  I am whittling it down slowly but surely.

Our next stop was in Sultan, just because.  In the past I've found caches here, but I knew Ben didn't have any in Sultan, so we stopped at a small "park and ride" with a large hunk of tree.  Sultan History (GC8K890) was near some landscaping just west of the large hunk of tree that shows the history of it.  Ben found the cache, we signed our names and put it back.  We spent a few minutes looking at the tree and then got back in the Edge.  

I navigated Ben towards the other one I had on the list also in Sultan. 

Spirit Quest - The Sultan Cemetery (GC5ZRD4) was off the highway a little bit along the back side of the cemetery in the tree line.  We drove the Edge as close as we could and parked it.  We got out and the coords jumped all over the place.  We knew there was a pretty obvious spot in a tree but for some reason we both missed it the first scan through.  We finally found it, added our names to the logbook, got a photo and put it back.

We jumped into the Edge and got back onto Hwy 2.  We put a few miles behind us before we stopped in a small blip on the map called Startup.  Earlier that week when scanning the map, I saw there was a cache here with a lot of favorite points.  I noticed the name of it and assumed it was probably because of the location rather than the container.  I added it to my list.  I had Ben stop at Old Skis Wanted! (GC28J7H). We parked outside the gate, since it was private property, got out and saw that it was a pill bottle on the edge of the ski fence when Ben pulled it out of its hiding spot.  We signed our names, got a picture, put it back and merged back onto the highway.  

We traveled maybe a mile before we stopped again.  Stat Padding Gold Bar #0! (GC8VVAA) was the one I actually needed for the towns and cities challenge I was working on.  Grabbing this one quickly behind the grocery store made my count now down to 21.  I still had one more in Western Washington that will require a long weekend trip to complete and several in Eastern Washington to grab.  Those will have to be done in several trips.

Our next stop was another cache I found on the map while looking for cool ones on the map.  This one had a lot of favorite points, and it was a wooden bridge over the South Fork Skykomish River.  It was just outside of Index near Baring.  The Index Wood Bridge (GC7KZ4H) was a one lane bridge over a fairly wide river and takes you to a small community of rural people.  We crossed the bridge to the other side and parked in the first wide spot to turn around.  Ben and I got out and checked the tree and finally found it after a few minutes.  Meanwhile, we had to wait for an Amazon truck to cross the bridge before we could get our picture.

We put the cache back and I had Ben drive back over the bridge as I took pictures of him driving across it and some pictures of the river down below.  I hopped in and we got back onto Hwy 2. 

We started up the grade towards Stevens Pass.  It has been a while since I've been out this way.  The traffic was minimal, so we made some pretty good time.  There were small pockets of vehicles parked on the side of the highway.  A lot of them probably on various hikes throughout the area.  There was one, Iron Goat Trail (GCK0H9) I still have on my list left to do. That will definitely be another trip for another day.

We started on the down slop of the pass, and I checked my phone to see if we had service and it was spotty.  Some of the caches loaded and I saw that we could make a quick stop along the Wenatchee River.  Plus, we've been in the Edge for a while and needed to stretch out.  I saw there was a cache, a bathroom and a picnic area.   I told Ben to stop so we could use the restroom and grab the cache.  The coords didn't load very well and we couldn't see the hint because of very poor cell service so I just basically guessed at where it might be.  We found Druid Training, Exercise 5:  Calm Before the Swift (GCQGX7) within minutes, got our names on it, took a picture and walked down to the river.

We enjoyed the ambiance of being in north central Washington next to the Wenatchee River before using the restroom.  Then Ben climbed a large rock for fun.  

We decided we were good, got back onto Hwy 2 and continued onto Leavenworth.  Once we reached the town limits, I reminded Ben that we had to stop at the sign so we could avenge a DNF from January 2021, when there was too much snow to retrieve the cache.  Ben parked in the wide spot along the road, I got out and found Welcome to Der Place (GC47TG7) instantly.

We drove to our Air BnB after finding out we could check in early.  We got onto Icicle Road and followed the directions to our cabin for the weekend. We found it tucked right off the road, we parked and went inside to explore.  We called our moms to let them know we arrived safely.  

We spent the next half hour bringing in our belongings and checking out the place.  It was a quaint little cabin with tons of charm and a hot tub. We decided that we needed some dinner but then I saw someone walking around the front of the house and Ben went to go see who it was.  It was a guy to came to service the hot tub and Ben called the homeowner to make sure he was supposed to be there, and he was.  He did what he needed to do and then we got ready to go into town for some food and walking around.   

We got onto the road and followed it into town.  We had to wait in a line of cars near the one lane bridge because they were working on it.  Meanwhile, we looked to see what we wanted for dinner.  We chose Andreas Keller Bavarian Restaurant because we wanted some German food. Once we did get into town, we had a heck of a time finding a place to park but we eventually did and had to pay $6.

We walked to the restaurant we chose and went inside.  We were seated, Ben ordered an Oktoberfest beer, and I got the cider.  She came back around and got our orders.  Ben had the schnitzel, and I had the bratwurst, both came with German potato salad and mine with sauerkraut.  The dipping sauce was mustard.  For dessert we splurged on the apple strudel, and it was delicious! 

After dinner, we wanted to avenge another DNF we had in January 2021 while we were nearby.  We should have found Blackbird Blvd (GC76WM1) the first time, but it was missing.  We walked down to the cache area and saw there was a lady there who was on vacation from Kelowna, BC.  It was fun getting to know her while we searched for it.  Turns out it was missing again.  Bummer.  Some day we are determined to make it an actual find. 

We walked back up the hill into town, walked around a little bit more and did the virtual cache, Leavenworth Maibaum (GC9P4ZQ) before we went back to the Edge.  

Ben suggested we go to the Safeway and pick up some groceries while we were in town for the next couple days.  We bought bread for French toast, sausage, eggs, chicken, corn, mashed potatoes and ice cream.  We went back to the chalet, unloaded our groceries, settled in and watched the rest of our Obi Wan Kenobi series, the Dr. Strange movie and Chip 'n Dale:  Rescue Rangers, ate our ice cream and enjoyed the snacks we brought with us.

We went to bed after midnight and set our alarms for 9 a.m.  As we got settled in, I said that the blankets and sheets are like clouds, I feel like they are hugging me to sleep!

Next Adventure:  Leavenworth Trip:   A Proposal, Beer, Geocaching and Adventure Labs  

4th of July Weekend

Friday, July 1

I worked up until 2, put in some vacation hours and had the rest of the day to do whatever.  I spent about a half hour decorating the house for the 4th of July.  It is mostly decorating the front door and the entertainment center inside the house.  

Today was the last day of my daily working from home Facebook post.  I got to 523 working days with my first post being on March 24, 2020.  It seems like such a long time ago now but during that time seemed like it was taking forever, and life went slower.  Back then, we weren't sure when it was going to end or even knew if it was going to end.  I wanted to get back to my normal life because I missed it so much.

Doug needed to upgrade his phone and had been sitting on it since January and mine would not make or receive calls or text message since Tuesday.  I had to be on Wi-Fi calling to use it.  I was annoyed.  I thought maybe something really horrible finally happened to my phone and it wasn't paid off yet. I was a little nervous on what they'd say once we got there.  We hopped in the Escape and drove to the west side.

We got to the mall and went inside hoping to be seen right away by a AT&T rep.  We were immediately seen as soon as we walked through the door. He asked us what we came in for and Doug said an upgrade and I told him my phone hasn't been working since Tuesday.  The rep told me it was because of the AT&T service...apparently it was down for a few days in the greater Olympia area.  I called Mom and told her about my phone and that Doug was sitting with the rep to go over his options.  They didn't have the phone he wanted in store, so he had to wait until in came in the mail a few business days later.  No big deal.  We walked over to Best Buy, and he purchased himself a new Fire Stick because his wasn't working properly. 

We got on the freeway and headed to Hawks Prairie to drop off the recycle that had accumulated and went to the store.  We hadn't been grocery shopping in two weeks.  So, we did those two things while we waited for Erika to get home from work.  Around 4:30, we drove over to Erika's house and picked up his Nintendo Switch he let them borrow.  She and Zach were on their way out to dinner.  Doug and I went home, unloaded groceries, Ben made it home around the same time we did, we put the groceries away, made our pizza and watched an episode of Obi Wan Kenobi.  

I had Ben invite the Pablo's over for some s'mores.  I started the fire in the pit to get it going.  They stayed until about 9:30ish and then Ben had to go get ready for his fire shift the next day.  I stayed up a little bit longer working on my blog and logging caches from the weekend before.    

Saturday, July 2

Apparently, Mom and Erika made some plans to make jelly at my house at the last minute for Saturday and told me on Thursday night. Ben was on shift at the station.  They both came over around 10ish and we started preparing the strawberries.  Mom brought everything over we might need including the pectin, the jars and the bowls and utensils.  Mom and Dad decided to seal them old school with wax.  I haven't seen this technique done since the early 1990's.  We all grew up on our jelly having a wax coating on top, so this wasn't unusual for us. 

Erika spent some time at the sink washing and cutting the tops off the strawberries.  Mom blended up the berries that were ready in the food processor and I mixed in the pectin and sugar and mixed it in the large pot until it boiled.  Doug kinda helped by getting the first set of jars ready but after that, he was pretty much worthless.  When it came to sealing them, Erika cut up the wax, melted it and poured it over the cooled jelly to seal it. 

We did three batches, and everyone got 12 jars each.  We owed Mom $20 for the supplies and strawberries.  We cleaned up, little did I realize I would be cleaning up sugar for weeks, Erika went home, and Mom and I went to Winco to pick up a few things I couldn't find the day before when I went shopping.  This is the savage truth of the long-lasting effects of Covid, supply and demand and inflation. It sucks a lot.  Winco had some pretty good sales on meat, so I bought some chicken and steak for our upcoming meals.

Mom wanted to go to the Dollar Store, so I took her over there, we also went inside the Value Village for fun.  I found a shark stuffed animal and I had to bring him home.  We stopped by the Walmart near our house to see if they had my Patriotic Funfetti cake mix.  For some reason no one carried it this year.  I had to make my own with white cake, white frosting and red and blue sprinkles.

We went back to my house.  Mom went home and I made Doug and I some sandwiches for lunch.  I got started on the cakes and realized I didn't have anything to put the done cakes in.  I drove out to Tumwater (because I know they have cake boxes) and purchased a couple boxes at the Walmart.  I bought some flowers and drove across the street to the cemetery to change out the flowers for Grammie and to wish her a Happy 4th of July.  The 4th was my favorite holiday growing up and it makes me miss her more during this time of the year.  

I went home and continued making the cakes until it was time to clean up and go to bed.   

Sunday, July 3

We wanted to go kayaking on Alder Lake, but I heard it was supposed to rain.  This summer's weather sure has sucked so far.  It wasn't even consistent crappy weather either.  We have a couple of nice days and then it gets cold and rains.  It was hard to make plans especially on the weekends. So, we decided not to go kayaking and do it another time.  Instead, Ben came home from shift and played his video games until I got up.

The night before, we made plans to go hang out with Trish, Amy and Ed in Bonney Lake because his mom decided to forgo 4th of July plans at the lake with us the next day.  I was bummed out. We got our stuff ready, grabbed some games and headed up to Bonney Lake.  We left our house around 12:30 and got there around 1:20ish...so not quite an hour.  We sat around a bit and hung out while looking at the two games I brought.  We brought chips, beans, one of the festive cakes I made the night before

Trish started dinner.  She was going to grill the burgers on the BBQ, but the rain ruined that unfortunately.  Instead, she cooked them on the pancake griddle.  I started the beans and we put the chips into shareable bowls.  We had to yell at Amy so she would stop eating all the chips before dinner was done.  Ed showed up shortly after 2.      

Of course, we all ate way too much and then played some Yahtzee and Risk.  Amy actually played Yahtzee with us.  Ed won the first game, and I won the second.  I actually got two Yahtzee's!  Then Ben pulled out Risk (I've never played this game before and had some learning moments) and briefly taught us how to play.  We had to cut it short because we had to start heading home for the fireworks at Rainier Vista.  We invited Josh and Heather to go with us.  We thanked Trish for inviting us over, gave out some hugs and headed home.  We got back around 7:30 and noticed that the weather improved just a little bit.

Ben played his game for a while and Josh and Heather were late getting to our house.  Once they did arrive, we didn't have much time to waste.  They brought their nephew Cooper with them.  We literally had time to grab blankets to sit on and start walking over.  There were people everywhere while we walked to the park.  We found a place over by the tennis courts, laid our blankets down and hung out until the fireworks started.  Josh and Cooper disappeared and brought back ice cream.

Fireworks began promptly at 10:00 and lasted until about 10:20. 

We sat there for a little bit to let the crowd die down a bit and then picked up our blankets and started the walk back to the house.  Yes, we had to wade through people.  We got back to the house, hung out with some drinks and snacks.  We chatted for a bit.  Meanwhile, I found out through the Thurston County Scanner Facebook page that someone had gotten shot after the fireworks and that person died.  We were just there!  I also found out that it was near where we were!  The Pablo's waited until the traffic slowed down before heading home.

Later on, that evening, I learned that the person who died was related to some of the people I went to high school with.  Small world!  We went to bed shortly after. 

Monday, July 4

The next morning, we got up, ate breakfast and tried to get some stuff done around the house since none of us had the next day off because it technically isn't a holiday, which sucks.  The day after the 4th of July should always be a day off when it falls on a weekday.  It really didn't matter to me since I only worked two days this next week anyway.

I went outside and saw Rhonda was in her yard, so I walked over, and we chatted for a bit.  It was mostly about the shooting that occurred the night before.  I told her that I knew the victim's family and that I grew up with them.  She and I both agreed that it is indeed a very small and stupid world.  We wouldn't be surprised if they changed the way Lacey or any other town in the area did their public events.  Ben played his game most of the day and made us late going into Rainier to pick up Mom and Grandma.  I wanted to leave at 3, but that didn't happen.

We finally got into Rainier, picked up Grandma and then Mom.  Mom made it even later by having to stop by the dentist office in Yelm to drop something off.  I was more upset because we were going to be even later to the lake.  We were finally on our way...about an hour late.

We got there around 4:30, unloaded the Escape into Mom's collapsible wagon and wheeled our belongings to the front of the house with the lake view.  We set up our chairs and tables and was disappointed that Mount Rainier was covered by clouds.  What was even more disappointing was it was barely summer and kinda cold for a July holiday.  This summer sure took its sweet time this year.  Last year we were at least able to swim by this time.  That didn't stop some people from swimming and tubing.  I also found out that we were so late we missed the 4th of July boat parade.  Lame.

Instead, we hung out a bit, talked to a bunch of people and then they wanted to take a bunch more people around the lake in the boat.  I went and it took about an hour.  It was fun hanging out and talking with the people that went. Mom got to meet some of her relatives she's never knew about including my Mom's grand aunt, who is 100 and her 1st cousin once removed.

We got back to shore, and burgers, hotdogs, sides, chips, desserts and drinks were being brought out of the house.  It was quite the spread.  Meanwhile, people in our group and others around the lake were starting to do the daytime fireworks off of their docks.  Once the food was ready and put out, there was a mad rush to the porch to pile food one plates.  I grabbed a burger, some sides and fruit for the time being.  My plate wasn't big enough to put all I wanted on it.  As everyone ate, we noticed that the clouds finally went away from our view of the mountain.  It got darker and darker, everyone started putting their flares out on their docks.  I actually got cold this year and had to go put sweatpants, socks, sweatshirt and my winter hat on. 

Around 10, we watched the barge putter out to the middle of the lake. I just love a good firework show.  Every year I could not wait for the 4th of July at my Grandparent's house.  The last 8 years or so just have not had the same impact as it did when we went over there.  I am grateful of what I have but I just miss it, a lot. Once the show was over, we packed up all of our stuff, placed it in our collapsible wagon and pulled it over to the Escape.  

We thanked Paul and Peggy for a nice time and headed back to Rainier.  We dropped Mom off first and then Grandma.  Ben and I then went home.  I showered really quickly and got into bed.  The new work week was going to suck because I went to bed too late.  Next year I might consider taking the day after the 4th off. 

Next Adventure:  Leavenworth Weekend:  Lacey to Leavenworth