An Eatonville Traveling Cache

I got an email from 1nascarnut about a day or so ago explaining a cache that I had to go find near Eatonville.

Hi cougarcach24,
I wanted to let you know that I placed a traveling cache sorta in your neck of the woods a couple days ago. Nobody has claimed it yet and most won't know about it unless they are following it because the listed coords still show in California. Traveling, Little Known Parks Finder, GC6ADF, is the cache and it's in Dogwood Park between Eatonville and NW Trek. My last post has the coords where it's located. I wanted to let someone know about it so it can start moving again. BTW, Kaydekay and I are riding the Yelm-Tenino and Chehalis-Western trails again tomorrow in hopes of finishing your Asphalt Adventures series.

Happy Caching! 

1nascarnut

Wow, what an awesome cacher! I wouldn't have known about it unless someone shared the info. I needed to go find this cache before it moved again in a couple days. It wasn't that far from home so I asked Bev if she wanted to go get it before it disappeared. She said let's do it! this cache was around a few months ago in the Snoqualmie area back during the Ape Cache event. I didn't hear about it until the end of the day and by that time I was ready to go home after a very long day. I was hoping it would either stick around or some how make it to my neck of the woods. Bev picked me up and we drove towards Eatonville. We arrived and Mount Rainier was BAM right in your face in all its glory. We retrieved the cache, dug through the contents,
wrote down the trackables, signed the log, took a pic and put it back. This is the first traveling cache I have found so far.

 
We drove into town to grab one Bev had the coordinates for, Penultimate Drafts, one I have looked at several times but never solved. She said it was at K2D2's house. We found it quickly on the side of the fence. Bev pulled the cache out and a bunch of bugs fell out. She squeaked. I laughed. 

We took another pic of Mount Rainier on our way out. We headed home and logged our finds.
 
Next Adventure: Enumclaw Plateau Trail

Geocaching in Space

Throughout the last two weeks or so I've been getting emails to my inbox from Geocaching.com and one of them mentioned about geocaching in space.  Bev had also heard some stuff at a GeoCafe event from Ben and Jayme.  She mentioned it to me and we decided if we wanted to go or not.  It would be on a Wednesday in Seattle at the Pacific Science Center.  There will also be over a thousand events world wide and we were going to go to the coolest one.  Each event commemorates the launch of a Geocaching Travel Bug® as it journeys to the International Space Station. Astronaut Rick Mastracchio will use the Travel Bug as a tool to teach students back on Earth about geography and science. He's scheduled to launch from Kazakhstan in the early morning of November 7, which will be November 6 in much of the rest of the world.  There is a geocache on the ISS (GC1BE91) which was FTF'd on November 17, 2013 by Rick.

On our way to Vancouver for some caching, we decided we did want to go and we ordered our free tickets while driving down I-5.  We were official and now we just had to wait for the day to get here.

That afternoon I went and grabbed Bev around 2:00 and we headed north to Seattle.  I had to stop by the ATM for some money for parking.  We got to Seattle without any trouble or bad traffic.  I've been this way so many times in the last year I didn't even need to use my GPS.  We parked at the parking lot closest to EMP just because I know how to get in and out of there fairly easy.  I paid for parking and we started looking for caches in the area.  I took her to the one at PBS first.  It was part of the Dinosaur Train series which is a kids show played on PBS.  We had no trouble finding this one.  It did change since I was here last.

I took her to the next one, Under the Needle, near the fountain in front of the Key Arena.  I was hoping it was still there because it is a tricky one to grab and put back with all the people wandering around nearby.  I couldn't remember which bench it was exactly but we found it quickly.  We took a few pictures before we walked to the next cache.

We walked around Key Arena and grabbed Stormy Normy, a micro cache on the side of the building roughly shoulder height.  We found it quickly and we were not seen by any muggles.

One Degree:  Sciuchetti was the next available traditional cache a few blocks from where we were.  We had a nice pleasant walk to the parking garage.  This wasn't the first time we've found one on the top floor of the parking structure.  This one was underneath a lamp skirt and it had a great view of the Sound to the southwest.  We walked back down and we both decided that it was dinner time.  I told Bev about Dick's, which is just down the street, on Queen Anne, from where we were.  She was like, sure, let's go for it.

She couldn't believe how cheap everything was.  I told her there were many locations near Seattle and one in Spokane, we frequented that one a lot while we were in high school, she wondered why she's never been to one before.  I ordered two cheeseburgers, she got one, we shared the french fries and she had a root-beer and I had a coke.  It hit the spot.  She was very excited that the fries were homemade.  We finished up and walked back to the Seattle Center.  I took her inside the Armory, to look at a piece of the Berlin Wall and to just hang out until it was time to get in line.  We figured it would be okay to jump in line around 5, just because we didn't know how many people are actually coming to the event.

We made our way over to the Science Center and instantly we saw a couple that we've seen before.  It was the Dutchgoers.  I haven't interacted with them since the Ring of Fire cache event in Montesano May 2012.  We chatted with them for a while since they wouldn't let us in until 6 p.m. sharp.  A Magellan rep joined us a while later.  While hanging out by the entrance, when the Magellan guy, Jeff's phone went off. He asks, you all wanna go for the FTF that just published? We followed him and made it to GZ and saw a group of people hanging out signing the log. I don't know if it's a co-FTF or not but it was fun to find a new one in Seattle at the coolest event in town! On the return, we noticed a group of people on our way to the FTF, by the rock wall.  I wondered if this was one of the puzzle caches.  Sure enough it was, we grabbed Word Freak to add to our collection of found caches for the evening.  We got back in line and we were at the front.  We told more stories until it was time to be let into the Science Center.

We walked through the outside part of the center and into the laser dome area.  I reminisced about all the times I came here while in Girl Scouts.  We would come here every year and spend the night inside for our Camp-In.  The one thing I remembered were the chicken sandwiches and Ding Dongs they gave us for dinner and camping in sleeping bags near the Planetarium.  We walked into the building and immediately signed the logbook and saw the caching in space patches. I didn't have anymore cash on me so Bev bought me a patch along with hers.

We wandered the area and noticed a coloring station.  We sat down and colored a signal hat.  Many other people joined in.  We ended up talking to Ohjoy for a bit while we waited for the laser show to begin.

Picture from Jim_Carson's log.

We talked to a few more people we knew, used the restroom and made our way to the laser dome to watch the show.  We found some seats and that's where we remained through the entire thing.  The guy sitting next to Bev started singing the songs from the laser show, hilarious! 

The itinerary for the evening:

6:00-Social time and exhibits

6:40-Event welcome

6:45-Google hangout with the owner of the TB going into space

6:55-Space themed laser show

7:25- Intermission

7:35-Geocaching videos in laser dome

7:50-Geocaching Co-Founder, Jeremy Irish

8:00-Google hangout with world wide events

8:10-Prepare for rocket launch with play by play 

8:25-Q&A

The laser show was pretty cool.  It showed some Star Wars stuff, lots of fun music from Top Gun and Elton John's Rocket Man rocked the laser dome.

Picture from Moun10Bike's log.

Afterwards, they had us on Google hangout with other events going on in the world simultaneously.  There were events in Australia, Canada, Germany and other parts of the US.  It was pretty cool until the feed stopped working.  Then we moved onto videos and chatting with our neighbors.  

Then it was time for the launch.  I have actually seen a launch on TV or in real life.  This was pretty cool.  Before, during and after the launch we had a person tell us what was happening and why.

It didn't take long for the rocket to leave our atmosphere and enter space. It was pretty awesome to watch.  This has been the event of the year so far.  They thanked us for attending and we made our way back to the car but decided to grab a hot chocolate and warmed flavored milk before actually walking back to the car.  It hit the spot.

It didn't take us long to get home, a little more than an hour.  I dropped off Bev and went home.  I logged our finds from earlier in the day and then went to bed.  It was an awesome day.

Next Adventure: An Eatonville "Traveling" Cache

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