Leavenworth Trip: Leavenworth to Lacey

The alarm went off around 8:30 and we eventually got up around 9.  We are not early morning go getters unless we have a schedule or have to be somewhere. We are definitely lazy in the mornings.  We got dressed, packed up our clothes, gathered all of our belongings we brought in the kitchen and living room, unloaded the dishwasher, took pictures of the inside of the chalet so we can show people where we stayed, put the furniture back (we had to move the couch around), finished up the check off list and finally, wrote in the guest book.

We made one final sweep of the place, loaded our stuff into the Edge and took a couple pictures outside before we left.  Ben wanted to have breakfast in Leavenworth at a place called Louie's.  We got into town and had a heck of a time finding a parking spot.  We did manage to find one and had to pay $3.50.  We then walked to Louie's from there.

Since Leavenworth is a popular place on the weekend, especially in the summertime, yes, we had to wait in a short line for about five minutes or so.  It was quick because there were only two of us and most of the people who were in line with us had like four or more people.  The host seated us outside, which was nice since it was going to be a beautiful day and was already starting to get warm.  She took our drink order and then came back for our meal.  We both got chocolate milk and for breakfast, I got the 2, 2, 2 (blueberry pancakes, sunny side up eggs and bacon) and he got the Denver omelet.  It was delish.

We paid, walked around town a little bit more and went into a store to get some saltwater taffy because my Dad likes it.  We walked back to the Edge and decided we were done with Leavenworth for now.  I'm sure we will be back again sometime soon. 

I had solved Tesla (GC920KB) the night before because we knew we'd be picking it up while we left town, so we had the coords and I told Ben where we had to go to get the cache, he parked near Dan's Food Market while I got out and grabbed it from under the lamp skirt.  There were a lot of people, so I had to be really sneaky.  I got our names on it and put it back just as sneaky. 

We got onto the Chumstick Highway and drove north to Plain.  Neither Ben nor I have been to Plain before.  We stopped and grabbed Washington Native Plants A-Z: J is for Juniper (GC77NZQ), Washington Native Plants A-Z:  O is for Oxeye Daisy (GC77P0E).  They were both park and grabs hidden in guardrails.   We reached the switchbacks and grabbed Washington Native Plants A-Z: D is for Douglas Fir (GC77NZF) and Washington Native Plants A-Z:  P is for Ponderosa (GC77P0Z) at the next switchback.  Most of them were easy park and grabs and the others required a little bit more looking to find them.

We drove down the hill and into Plain.  It was definitely a small town.  A couple of small stores and the rest is houses with some farmland and a few housing developments.  We drove to the furthest one north of town, Bear Paw (GC22399) was a snowmobile rental, horse rides and a zipline place.  Ben and I decided that we would have to come here when we were in Leavenworth again.  I told Ben that the last time I ziplined was in Ecuador.  We found the cache, signed our names and headed to the next one. 

Pea See See (GC86DQW) was on the corner of Beaver Valley Road and Chapel Drive with a view of the PCC Church.  Ben parked on the side of the road, I got out, grabbed it, signed our names and put it back. 

Next, we got back on the main road and turned into the hardware store for Plain Old Gang Saw (GC37VF6).  Of course, there were people standing outside of the store chatting.  I had Ben pull up in front of the old machine, we got out and started looking.  We knew it would be a magnetic cache but where did the cache owner put it?  Luckily, we found it quickly so we could sign it, put it back and leave without a lot of questionable stares by the small-town folk. 

Plain 25 (GC7NAR7) was on the same side road that the hardware store was on.  We turned down it and probably weirded out a guy who was walking his dog when we pulled alongside the speed limit sign.  I got out really quick, made the find, signed our names and put it back.  We were there less thatn two minutes.  

The next two, were south of town.  The first one was Hazel Nut (GC838QD) and we were both tricked into looking for this one for way too long.  I really thought the small trees on the side of the road were Hazel Nut trees.  We were almost about to give up when after reading some of the logs, Ben had an idea that turned out to be a smiley rather than a sad face.  The "nut" they were talking about was on the back of the stop sign.  We both felt super derpy and embarrassed after that one.  The last one in town was Plain Ranches (GC7XTPX) and I should have looked to see it had a few DNF's before we went looking for it.  However, sometimes you do find it when others couldn't.  We gave it a try and decided it was really gone.

We left town and got back on the Chumstick Hwy south back towards Leavenworth.  We made a left turn onto North Road which paralleled Hwy 2.  We followed that road into Peshastin where I wanted to get a cache at.  The one with the most favorite points was 1-11-11 (GC2MA52) and it was a magnetic key holder stuck to the side of a newspaper dispenser in front of the post office. Another quick park and grab. 

We got onto Hwy 2 and headed east to the junction of US 97 but stopped at the park and ride to grab Washington Native Plants A-Z:  Y is for Yarrow (GC77P1M).  It was a water bottle stuffed in the guardrail.  I got our names on it and put it back before someone saw us.

We merged onto US 97 and drove south towards I-90 and Cle Elum.  I wanted to make a stop along US 97, so we stopped at The Rock for the geocache Rock It (GC7WBYH) and some milkshakes.  Over the past couple years, I've always wanted to stop to see what was here.  It was a fun little area to stop, use the restroom, eat and drink.  My strawberry milkshake sure hit the spot. 

We stopped in Cle Elum to do the Adventure Lab, Historic Cle Elum, which took us to five historic downtown buildings to gather the code words.  Ben drove while I got out and grabbed the word.  We both entered it into our phones until we were done.  This particular Adventure Lab didn't have a bonus cache afterwards.  

We got on I-90 and the traffic was terrible throughout the Easton area all the way to the edge of the eastern part of the mountain pass.  There was absolutely no reason for it.

We got home around 6:15, unpacked, put stuff away, Trish stopped by on her way home from the ocean (she was visiting her friend Laura), and we chatted for a little bit, showed her the ring and then she went home, we ate the rest of the leftovers from BBQ and watched Old School, vacuumed and showered.  Ben got ready for the work week, and I had another day off to recoup and unwind.  It was a fun, memorable trip, and we came home as an engaged couple.  Took us 9 years to do it but we did it!

Next Adventure:  Paddle Caching on Lake St. Clair with Mom

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

The alarm went off around 8:30 but we didn't get up until about 9ish.  We got ready for the day with our hiking clothes and shoes, washed the rest of the dishes and made the same food from yesterday so we could use it up.  I tried my Keto cereal I bought from Costco for the first time, and it wasn't that bad.  We cleaned up and finished getting ready. 

We got the rest of our hiking stuff together, made sure we had plenty of water and chewy bars.  I even threw in a couple apples just in case.  We were going to do the Valhalla hike, out near Stevens Pass, but there was still snow and ice in spots and we didn't want to risk it.  We had a really late winter and spring that spilled into our summer, so our summer started super late this year.  It was disappointing.  Instead, we chose the Icicle Gorge Trail, which is a 4.5-mile loop around the Icicle River.  

We looked at the several maps on the computer the night before, so we knew where we were supposed to go and if we needed certain passes.  We did need a NW Forest Pass, which we could purchase at the trailhead for the day.  At only $5, the pass was pretty cheap for a memorable experience out in the wilderness. 

We left around 10:45ish and headed to the Icicle Gorge Trailhead, which was west along the road the Icicle Chalet was on, roughly around 18 miles from downtown Leavenworth.  Icicle Road is also FS76 and the paved road eventually turns into a potholed filled gravel road, which makes travel to the trailhead take a little longer.  There were several spots along the road to enjoy views of the river and tons of spots to stop and climb the towering intrusive basalt rocks along the river valley.

We finally arrived at the trailhead and there were plenty of parking spots.  It looked like this was a popular place to enjoy a day hike with all the vehicles that were already here for the day. I walked over to the registration board and grabbed an envelope to fill out and stuff money into. I filled it out while we were getting our stuff ready, put the $5 bill inside and kept the ticket part to stick in our window just in case a ranger came by to check. I took it back to the registration board and dropped it in the slot.

We finished putting our socks and hiking shoes on, grabbed our water, my backpack, and walked over to the beginning of the trailhead. We briefly looked at the map, snapped a photo (just in case) and started our walk along the Icicle Creek.  I had terrible service out there so luckily, I saved the caches on an offline list, but if my phone restarts itself at any point, we won't be able to see them. 

And we were off!

We hiked the trail clockwise, so the creek was on our right side, as we meandered up and down on the small elevation changes.  The natives named the creek Nasikelt and if pronounced correctly, it sounds a lot like "icicle", but rumor has it that some of the early settlers mistook the proper native name and called it Icicle. 

Early on, less than a mile into our hike, we crossed the Icicle on a really nice footbridge.  This is where the first cache, Chatterbox (GC599E) was but didn't search for it because we forgot to look at my phone to see that it was there.  We enjoyed the creek and the views from the bridge.

We rounded the corner and slowly gaining some more elevation and we made our way into a crop of trees.  During most of our hike, Icicle Creek was in view.  There were several places that we stopped along the way to take pictures.  I love hiking along rivers, it's so peaceful.  We gained more elevation as we got up on a great 360 view of the river and surrounding areas.  Ben messed with a chipmunk for a few minutes while my breakfast caught up with me.  I guess the Keto cereal makes you poop.  I went to find a spot hidden away from view to do my business.  We moved on along the trail after about 10 minutes or so.

Within about a half a mile or so, we found ourselves in a mostly grassland, thinly vegetated, dry area of the trail.  You could see some of the mountains in the distance were still snowcapped.  We took several pictures along the way through.  It was such a nice day!  It was so much fun exploring a new area with my fiancé!  It was so weird to say that.

As we reached the midway point of our hike, we made our way to another bridge.  This time it was a smaller footbridge over a picturesque part of the creek. We took a small break here while we enjoyed the area.  We gathered up all of our stuff and continued down the trail.  We made the turn and hiked through the Rock Island Campground.  I told Ben we may have to come back and camp here someday and he agreed.

This part of the trail was canopied with forest, so we got a lot of shade while hiking this area.  I tried to open up the cache that wasn't too far away from where we were.  The distance showed but I could not open it up to check the hint, so we were going to have to guess.  Hiking the Icicle (GC7QFPK) was a little difficult to find but Ben and I fanned out and he ended up finding it behind a tree.  We signed our names, got a picture and put it back.   I was getting hungry, so I pulled out my apple as we continued down the trail.

I saw we were getting closer to A Brownie Elf in the Forest (GC7QFQ0) but because I could not open the cache page due to the cell coverage, I could not see any information about it.  We ended up looking for it for about a half hour.  When I did get some cell service, I found out it was missing.  Bummer.  We moved on and meandered our way throughout the rest of the hike.  The parking lot wasn't too far away from where we took a half hour to look for that cache.  There was another one called Icebox (GC6C23) but we were not able to do the multi cache because of the cell service. Maybe next time?

This was an easy hike for Ben and me, but we are pretty active, so we didn't have any trouble walking the trail in its entirety as quick as we did it.  We took a couple breaks but those were mostly to enjoy the area and take pictures. It is family friendly, and I do recommend doing it in a clockwise direction.  We got back to the Edge, took off our socks and shoes and made our way back to the chalet.

On the way back, we stopped for two caches, Ice Fall (GC87XXX) and Icicle Creek Hollow (GC2DVA8).  Ice Fall took us a little bit of time to find because it was hidden among the boulders that lined the banks of the creek. Eventually, we pinpointed the container, signed our names, took the TB and put it back.  I ended up with a scrap on my knee. Icicle Creek Hollow was a quick grab at an informational sign.  We thought it was going to be hidden on the sign, but we found it in an awkward place behind the sign.  We got our names on it and went to the chalet.  

There, we changed our shoes, picked up our phone chargers and made sure we had our wallets.  We decided to drive into Wenatchee for some food.  Sadly, there isn't a Buffalo Wild Wings in Wenatchee yet, so we had to find something else in that food genre.  I did a quick search and found a place called Sweetwood BBQ over by downtown Wenatchee.  I set my phone to that address and navigated Ben to the correct place.  We pulled into a spot in front of the building and went inside.  I was glad to see it wasn't busy. 

We browsed the menu to find out what we wanted.  We ended up getting a platter.  Three different kinds of BBQ'd meat, beans, cornbread, coleslaw and fries.  It was a lot of food, but it was delicious.  We knew we would end up with leftovers so we ate as much as we could of the stuff that doesn't heat back up very well, like the fries and cornbread.  The trio of meat (chicken, brisket and pork) were really good.  We packed up our leftovers and headed out.

Making Errands Fun #4 (GC7PBKB) was less than 200 feet from where we parked.  Of course, we had to go grab it.  Quick and easy.  I wanted to go do the Adventure Lab, Let's Get Outside Wenatchee, in Walla Walla Point Park, so we drove over there after dinner.  We parked in the lot and began our five-point adventure.  There were also a couple caches along the way as well.  We picked up Linston (GC50JXM) and Hideaway Again (GC6Z1F9).  When we were done with the Adventure Lab, we tried looking for the bonus cache, Let's Get Outside Wenatchee!  Adventure Lab Bonus Cache (GC8Z233), but we couldn't find it plus, the mosquitos were terrible!  Ben had enough of the mosquitos and started heading back to the Edge.  We were even wearing repellent. 

 

 Ben wanted to go get gas, so we found the Safeway that was nearby.  While he pumped gas, I walked over to grab Making Errands Fun #1 (GC7MDW9) in one of the lamp skirts. It was really hard to be stealthy but somehow, I managed.  I signed our names, put it back and walked back over to the gas station part of Safeway. 

I asked Ben if we could stop by Walmart because I wanted to see if they had any new Cougar sweatshirts.  They didn't have any, but we did get some more drinks, I bought some green shorts and Ben found some mucus medicine because he was having a rough time with the sage brush since he is allergic to everything in the spring and summer.  We left and I wanted to make two more stops before heading back to Leavenworth.

We stopped at Wenatchee Confluence State Park for a very popular TB hotel (GC273E6) by Mr. Gadget #2. For some reason when we were here last, we didn't grab this one.  Not sure why.  We parked as close as we could get to it, got out and could see it from the parking spot. We walked around the fence and studied it for a few seconds.  Signing the log was easy but you needed a code from the cache owner to trade out TB's.  At this point, we didn't care about the TB's, so we just signed our names, Ben got tired of standing there being eaten by mosquitoes, so he went to the Edge as I finished with the cache.

We got onto Hwy 2 and made sure we were in the correct lane to go west towards Cashmere.  I told Ben where to turn once we got to the first intersection to turn off the highway into Cashmere.  I told him that this is where the Aplets and Cotlets were made and navigated him to Riverside Park where the Spirit of America (GC63VMD) and the 9/11 Memorial was.  I had to stop here.  I have been to several 9/11 memorials all over Washington State and was even able to visit Shanksville, PA and the United 93 crash site in November 2019 and this past spring I was able to visit the 9/11 Memorial and Museum in NYC.  These memorials are very important to go visit if you can.  This one is Cashmere was very well done.

We drove the quick stretch down Hwy 2 west to Leavenworth and back to the chalet for the rest of the night.  We decided to use the hot tub since this was our last night before having to head home the next day.  We changed into swimming suits, showered, jumped in, relaxed about a half hour while we enjoyed the mountain air, got out and showered again.  We decided to do a load of laundry while doing the dishes before we settled down for the night. 

August of 2018 was a rough one for me.  Probably the worst one in my life thus far.  That August, we lost my grandmother Eileen, and I was absolutely devastated.  I never knew what it was like to lose a loved on until that point.  Mom, Erika and I needed to get away, so we planned a trip to Nashville, Tennessee.  While we were there, we booked a tour of the Jack Daniels distillery in Lynchburg.  I always bring home a souvenir from wherever I go.  I bought a fifth of honey whiskey to bring home with me and it sat on the shelf from when I brought it home to our last night in Leavenworth.  So almost four years it waited for a special occasion.  This was a special occasion.  We opened it up, poured it into our whiskey glasses with some ice and toasted to a new chapter of our life. 

We played 10,000, Speed and Phase 10 for a little bit.  We each won a couple games so no one would be a sore loser. Ben and I set up the TV and watched The Nutty Professor while we finished up the laundry.  I looked up geocaches to grab the next day on our way home while we watched.  That movie will always remind me of happier times.  Grammie loved the part in the movie where the mother clapped her hands together yelling Hercules!, Hercules! and would often imitate it during family get togethers.  It has been a while since I've seen the Nutty Professor.

We soon got ready for bed afterwards and hit the pillows around 1 a.m.  It was nice to sleep after a long day.  Poor Ben had mosquito bites all over his body.

Next Adventure:  Leavenworth to Lacey