Techically Vancouver

Bev talked to Bob about our caching habits.  We never seem to get to our destination caches when we are always stopping along the way to pick up everything and some of those caches we need to get to fill in certain grids or complete certain challenges.  It's one of those instances where, "we drove all the way down here might as well get them."

I got all of my stuff ready the night before.  I was so tired from the weekend it took a lot to get out of my bed at 7.  I got all of my stuff and made sure I had my lunch box and headed out the door when I saw their headlights.

On the way down we stopped at the traditional bathroom stop and shared funny stories the rest of the way towards Vancouver.  Our first stop was off of the first Mill Plain exit.  We grabbed four of them pretty quickly.  One of those four included a multi.  We rarely do multis unless they are simple.  The reason is, one part or many parts are missing or very vague.  For example, if you are looking for certain numbers on a sign and they tell you to count lines and many of them could be part of the solution and you pick the wrong numbers, it could be a long frustrating day.  This one was easy and simple. We found the cache before we even go to the tree it was hiding under.

The next three or four took us down a road that didn't show up on our GPS's.  That included a few guardrail caches, one hiding inside of a tree and one at the Northwood Park Cemetery.  All were easy grabs and were in great condition.

The next one took us to a small park off the side of a road near several housing developments.  We found the cache inside of a hollowed tree with a pair of jean shorts wrapped around it.  Of course I made a few jokes about it and weirded out Bev.

Whipple Creek Hollow was the next cache according to the GPS's.  We drove down a road where several new houses were being built.  Due to the call of nature, we stopped and used one of the porta potties before making our way to the trail head to the creek.  Once again, we should have read the logs before we walked all the way down there.  We didn't find it after looking for about a half hour.  At least the walk was pretty.

We got back onto the main road in the area and saw the fenced in area.  How in the world do we get in there?  We found a parking spot at a nearby apartment complex, Bev opted to stay.  I saw an opening in the fence so Bob and I walked over to the "Tiny Forest" to get the cache.  It was situated very tactfully inside the ivy on the old oak tree.  It took us a few seconds to zero in on the correct side of the tree.

We had a few more DNF's that we think the cache was actually not there but we did give a few minutes of extensive searching.  We moved on towards the hospital and found a few around the large parking lot.  Bob and Bev had been here once before and found one of them because on their way home from Mount Hood earlier this summer, they needed one on the way home to keep their streak going.

We found a few more before calling for a lunch break.  Of course we went to McBob's.  Before going in, we noticed there was a cache nearby.  They said they've been here before to look for it but never could find it.  I walked right up to it while a bunch of ladies were chatting and having a great time with their Starbucks while getting into their car.  I put it back without them seeing me.

After lunch we made our way east away from I-5.  We found many caches by Geek&Gopher.  The first one took us to the Heritage Historical Farm, a extension part of WSU, where Brenda works.  I found the nano on an old rusted piece of farm equipment.

We went to Luke Jenson's Sports Park to pick up a few.  This place really made me miss playing sports, especially soccer and fastpitch.    The one took us a while to find because the hint was terrible.  Bob ended up finding it in some random spot that didn't make sense.  We found two Geek&Gopher caches, one was a bison tube on a tree and the other was a baseball, it was very clever in its placement.

The next fifteen or so caches were micros in trees and bushes.  There were a few series that we've picked up before in this area, one was the Clark County Cache Run, Crossing Jordan, Pull Over for some Cache and the Black Cherry caches.  I really hate getting out of the car and digging through trees.

We grabbed one at the Costco, one called Watch Out for Sharks!, inside a park behind an elementary school, there I almost fell in a hole taking a picture of Bev with the cache and one so far up a tree I had to jump up and grab the branch.

At this point we had about 45 caches and now we were desperate to grab 50 of them before it got too late and started getting dark.

The last six caches were all unique.  The first one was on a guardrail, okay, that one really wasn't that unique but they were all different.  The next one was a magnetic key holder and we had no trouble making the find on this one.  There was a bird house near a church that contained the cache container.  Bev stayed in the car while we grabbed it.  The cache that came up next on our GPS's was a tricky one.  They let me out of the car and I walked to where the coords put me.  It was a key holder on the homeowner's side of the fence but you had to retrieve it from the sidewalk.  I was almost too short to grab this one but some how I managed to pull it out of its hidey spot and put it back without looking suspicious.  We found a micro in the brush and completed a cache challenge.  It was called 50 in a Day and we've done this task multiple times already.   The last people to find this cache was Ben and Jayme.

For our last cache of the day, which ended up being 51, we finished off with a letterbox, since there really aren't anymore around our area and now there are a bunch of challenges that require you to find 50 or more letterboxes.  This one would make number 26 for me and I still have a long ways to go for my 50 letterboxes. 

We made our way to the freeway and made it to the Sizzler in Longview for dinner.  We were all starving.  I had chicken fingers and fries and they had their senior meals complete with a salad bar.  We got home around 9 and I logged some of the finds before I got tired and went to bed.

Next Adventure:  Geocaching in Space

Haunted House, Freaker's Ball and My First Sounders Game

Megan had invited me to go to the Haunted House, My Morbid Mind, on the Friday before Halloween.  I haven't been to a haunted house since 2006, when we went to the Haunted Palouse while at WSU.  I rallied and got a text message out to everyone I thought would be interested.  I invited Ben, someone I had gone out on a date with a few days ago.  I thought he would like to meet my friends and enjoy a haunted house as well.  What I didn't know is how interested he was in me and I wasn't sure how to handle it in front of my friends who know me in a certain way.  Eventually I got more used to it as the night went on.  Everyone got there and we had to wait for Lindsay because she worked until 9:30.  We all had beers and chatted for a bit.

Megan, Erin, Lindsay, Curtis, Nicole, me and Ben all made it to the haunted house in two cars.  We paid and stood in line for our turn.

The haunted house wasn't all that scary but more creepier than I had envisioned it.  It had a creepy doll room, a really cool black light paint room, a poo room and other random crazy rooms.  At the end was a guy with a chain saw, a lot of people screamed.

We went back to Megan's for more beer and to chill for a while and visit.  We watched some SNL videos, Megan showed us some wedding pictures and talked about Halloween.  I thanked everyone for coming out and I chatted with Ben out in the driveway for a bit.

The next day we met at Celeste's house to get ready to go to the Freaker's Ball at the Lake Lawrence Lodge.  I waited too long to get a costume so I was frantically trying to find one at the last minute.  I had some great ideas for costumes back in August but time just caught up to me.  I finally found one a few days before at Target.  I was going to be Leonardo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.  A few years back I was Michaelangelo while in college.  I arrived at 5, after mom helped me get into my costume, it was made for a kid about an inch shorter than I was.  I had to be safety pinned in.  We chatted with Celeste's mom and dad and took a few pictures before being dropped off at the lodge.

We got there and immediately found what tables we were going to call home base.  We found Charlie and his family.  I found out he was related to people I had no idea he was related to.  Very small world.  There were some really creative costumes including Garth and Wayne from Wayne's World, Clark Kent, many pirates, zombies, nuns, clowns and others.  I was the only ninja turtle.  We ate food before all of it disappeared and we mingled and danced.  Eventually it got weird.  Nicole had way too much wine and we ended up taking care of her because she fell down a lot.  It wasn't even midnight yet and we all walked home, holding Nicole up.  It was very hard since she wore her costume.  She said many strange things that made us laugh and we both ended up with kisses just before we got her back to Celeste's house.  We took care of her and put her to bed.  Then Celeste and I chatted for a while.  It was a nice visit.  I drove home and went to bed.

Ben had asked me if I wanted to go to a Sounder's game with him and his best friend Mike Sunday evening.  I had never been to one so I was very stoked to attend one.  I met them at the train station in Puyallup but the train never came. Ben wore a Where's Waldo outfit because it was almost Halloween and just to see how many people would notice.  Ben gave me a Sounders scarf to wear to the game.  I smiled.  We jumped into Mike's car and headed to the Tukwila station.  We got out tickets and waited for the Link.  According to Mike, we would have about a half hour before the game and we may or may not make it to the march.  The march is several thousand Sounder's fans meet at Occidental Park and Drew Carey gets them pumped up.  Then they all head towards the stadium chanting Sounder's songs.  There are signs, scarfs, banners, beer and lots of excitement.  Sadly, we did not make the march this time.

We went to Temple Billiards for some beer before the game.  We ordered two pitchers of Mack and Jacks and had less than a half hour to drink them.  I have never drank that much that fast ever.  I ended up having three pints of beer, Ben and Mike had about six.  It hit me when we were in line to get into the game.  I was officially drunk.  We got inside and we sat in the 253 Defiance section which was behind the south end goals.  They had chats, flags and songs, we were clapping and I don't think we even sat down.  Technically we weren't suppose to be in that area but Mike and Ben knew most of the people around us.  I learned the songs fairly quickly.  It wasn't just a soccer game it was epic!  We played the LA Galaxy and the game ended up in a tie.  That was our third date and I knew I definitely liked him.

We got back on the train and Mike drove us back to the train station.  I told Ben I had a great time and if I had to give back the scarf or not.  He said no, that is yours to have because we will be going to more in the future.  I thanked him for inviting me and he and Mike drove off.  I went home as well.  It was quite the weekend and I look forward to hang out with him some more in the future.

Next Adventure:  Caching in Vancouver, Wash.

Ridgefield, Battle Ground and La Center

We planned on heading down to the Vancouver area again but we never seem to actually make it to the place we plan on going to.  Bob always has to stop along the way to grab them as we go to our final destination.  Because we stop at all of them, we never seem to make it to where we're going.  Instead of Vancouver, we ended up caching in Ridgefield, Battle Ground and La Center.  Which isn't a bad thing, we did end up getting 50 caches, but it is tough because they've been down here more than I have and our queries are different and he won't stop at ones he's already gotten.

I got up around 7 because they were going to be here around 7:30.  They meet with their kids in the morning for coffee before they head to work.  I got all my stuff together and made sure I had some snacks for the trip down because we never know when we'll have time for food.

They arrived just after 7:30 and I got in the car with all my bags and lunch box.  We were on our way to the Vancouver area.  I actually wasn't as tired as I thought I would be.  On the way down, we talked about several different things and even stopped at the Toutle Lake Rest Area, one of our traditions on our way down.

We got to our first one on the list.  It took us towards Ridgefield right off of I-5.  It was a bearsnme cache called Bee Careful, one of the many I-5 series she has put out in the last year or so.  There was another one not too far down the road we grabbed quickly.  We saw a crane standing in the middle of the field just doing its crane thing.  From there, we went west towards downtown Ridgefield but made a few stops along the highway.  We grabbed many guardrails, tons of micros hanging in trees (we knew better coming down to Cowlitz/Clark county, they are riddled in them), and some actually hidden near bottoms of trees and stumps.

We got into town and tried looking for this park and ended up driving in circles because Bob got frustrated with our directions.  We've never been here before Bob, chill.  We parked to grab one that wasn't there.  Go figure and found the road that lead to Abrams Park.  All of them but one was missing and we barely found that one.

We went back into town to grab one more before we got hungry.  Instead of having lunch like normal people, we each bought a bag of chips and when we went to pay for it, I found a unscratched lotto ticket left in the tray so we took it with us.  We didn't win.

Next on the list was Old Carty Place, one of the remaining oldies in Washington State.  I thought about grabbing it the last time I was near here but it got dark and I know it's a small hike.  We tried stopping for two along the way but they were missing...we really need to check logs before we stop.

We followed the GPS to the refuge.  We parked the car and made our way to the trail head.  There were a bunch of little kids with their moms.  We were hoping they weren't going to be on the trail with us.  We walked up over the train tracks, we got to see a train go by, and onto the paved trail.  The cache was .60 away from where we were.  It took us a lot to convince Bob to come get this one since it was out of the way.  But we told him this was the only one up here and we know he doesn't like leaving ones, so we had a good case.  We took a few pictures along the way, the weather was beautiful.  The high was around 71 and sunny.  It was t shirt and shorts weather.  I should have brought shorts with me.

We admired the 300 year old oak tree and the fall foliage as we made our way down the neatly groomed nature trail.  Bev led the way towards one of the oldest ammo boxes in Washington State.  We chatted about the history challenge to pass the time while we walked.  I still had quite a few more before I was finished.  I may or may not get to finish it next year.

After a short hike we finally got to the grassy knoll where we found the uprooted tree and Bob found the ammo can hidden in its twisted roots.  We got to sign a 12 year-old log book.  Pretty epic.  We took turns taking pictures of ourselves with the cache and placed it back where we found it.  Another one done and many more to go.

We made the walk back to the car.  The warm wind blew softly from the river and reminded me again on how much I missed summer already.  We moved onto the next couple along the refuge, Refuge Entrance and Turn Around Cache.  One of those wasn't found in a while and had several DNF's, but we found it.  Haha.

We went to a really cool one inside a cemetery dedicated to the pioneers who settled on this land back in the 1800's.

We went to several skirt lifters, many small parks and found tons of micro caches in bushes and trees.  We were almost tired of it but Bob loves his numbers.  We found ourselves near Battle Ground once again and managed to turn a few DNF's we had last July into finds.  The two were D'Anjou #9 and Kellen's Cache on Daybreak Park/Trail near the East Fork Lewis River.  We completely looked in the wrong spot and I finally moved my way towards the river and found it with a stick.  Go glad that one's off the list.

We continued up the 503 picking up a ton of guardrail caches, specifically a series called Woodland to Coug to BG, most of them were easy and some of them we actually all had to get out of the car and look.  We should almost have this series done unless they add more.  When we got to Fargher Pond area that's where we turned around and started heading west towards I-5.

We grabbed two off the the 503 at a cemetery and a grocery store.  The sun started to set.

We stopped at a small business connected to a cranberry farm to look for a cache near an old boat along the road.  It was funny trying to remember which side was starboard and which side was port.  We eventually got it right because we found the cache.  We took a few pictures of the area because I thought it was a great view.

 

 Once we were going towards the freeway, we found a couple others along some side roads.  Several of the caches had recent DNF's.  We were going to prove them wrong.  Bev and I found them on the ground and tucked away in places not helpful by the hint.  We made it to La Center and we managed to find our fifty caches before it got too dark.  One of our last short hikes took us down the Breezy Creek Trail.

On the way home we verified our caches on the lists we wrote down along the way.  For some reason they didn't match up.  We found our error and was happy with the results.  We stopped in Kelso and had some Taco Time because like Bev always says, "there's always time for tacos."

Next Adventure:  Haunted House, Freakers Ball and My First Sounders Game