Chelan Adventures: Day 3

We all got up later than we intended again.  Ben made us some scrambled eggs with rice and chopped up ham.  For a thrown together breakfast it was sure tasty.  We got some drinks together since the weather was suppose to improve and be in the low 70's.  I wore shorts and a sweatshirt.  We left after noon mostly because Ben wouldn't get ready and tried to wrestle with me on the bed.  I plugged all of the coordinates into Nuvi before we left, mostly to save time.

We got into the Escape and I was the tour guide.  Trish called it "traveling with Val".  My adventures are going to be called from now on, traveling with Val.  I decided the best route to do to avoid lots of back tracking was to start with 25 Mile Creek, Chelan, Daroga and Lincoln Rock and if we had time, Wenatchee Confluence and Peshastin Pinnacles.  If not, we will get them in about a month when we go back over to Josh's wedding.

We started with 25 Mile Creek State Park (GC4BC2X).  I do not remember ever coming to this park with my family...if we did it was very brief many years ago.  It took a while to get there.  When we got close, there was no cell phone service and the cache was located in the undeveloped part of the park.  It was a good thing I read the cache page because the parking coordinates were next to a gate with a very large no trespassing sign.  Trish and Ben questioned my parking.  I told them it was okay.  We followed the road and then it took a short geo-trail to the left.  I immediately stopped when I saw the giant 3 foot snake in our pathway.  It instantly got mad and I right away I thought it was a rattle snake.  Ben got out the GoPro and our 5 foot long selfie stick and videoed it.  The snake ended up biting the GoPro twice.  Ben then used the stick to fling the snake out of our way.  We continued with caution...no one needed to be bitten by a snake out in the middle of nowhere.  We made it to the trees that the cache was hidden under.  I singed the log and stamped my passports while everyone enjoyed the view of the lake.

We trudged back to the Escape very carefully especially near "snake zero."  I tip toed as fast as I could through the spot and safely made it back to the small SUV.  Everyone else behind me made it out as soon as they could as well.  Our adrenaline was still pumping.  Ben handed us the GoPro to watch the footage in the car and his hands were still shaking.  Later on, as we drove to the next state park, Ben found out that the snake we encountered was a gopher snake.  It poses and makes similar noises as a rattle snake to ward off predators.  It is also nonvenomous which was good to know.

As we drove back towards Chelan, we talked about various things, laughed, told jokes, stories and enjoyed the views.  When we arrived at Chelan State Park (GC4BC2T), I noticed the cache was on the other side of the road.  There must be a tunnel under the road that leads to the cache.  We parked near the bathrooms and saw The Little Bear Trail.  This must be the spot!  We followed the trail and we saw a really cool natural arch in the trees, a fun tunnel and some really cool old nurse logs on our way to the cache.  When we got closer, the coords jumped all over the place. I had to consult my hint.  I told everyone what we were looking for and everyone started looking.  I found the correct log but waited until they got there so they could find it.  Trish found it and Amy uncovered it.  We signed our names and got the passport stamped.  We walked back to the Escape.

We drove back into Chelan and onto the other side to the Hwy 97 Alt Route to North Wenatchee.  I haven't been on this stretch of road since 2011 when I went to the Methow Cache Machine in the early fall.  It was dark when I traveled so I really didn't get to see what was all out here.  The Columbia River sparkled in the sunlight, the orchards swayed in the light wind, long stretches of open highway; it was just great to be over in eastern Washington to soak up some warmth.  We reached Daroga State Park (GC4B4PC) and I vaguely remember coming here with my family in the late 1990's.  We parked in the nearby lot and we all got out and enjoyed the area before walking to the cache.  The beach was riddled in small seashells and rocks, we saw a dead fish and lots of birds.

We walked along the shore until we had to climb up the small bank onto the lawn.  We crossed a small bridge that allowed us access to the medium sized island and we looked for the cache.  It was hidden in a eroded stump.  I took a few pictures of the area and we all headed back towards the Escape.  There really weren't a lot of people around but a single worker cleaning the park and getting ready for Memorial Day Weekend.

We hopped back into the Escape and drove the short mileage south to Lincoln Rock State Park (GC4AW4H).  I have been to this state park within the last 5 years, in fact, we stopped here to grab the only cache that used to be here in 2011 on the way to the cache machine.  We also checked out why it was called Lincoln Rock State Park.  Upon returning again, there were a lot of people wandering around, walking their dogs and playing on the playgrounds.  We parked and walked over to the last cache of the day was.  I knew it was going to be hidden in the rocks lining the river and because the hint said rocks.  When we got there all four of us started looking.  It shouldn't have taken that long to find but I managed to come up with it.  Then I heard Ben say "Beaver!  There's a beaver!"  That's not a beaver it's a marmot!  He immediately got excited and we got a gazillion pictures of the marmot.

It was getting late and we needed to get back to Chelan soon.  We all decided to eat dinner in Wenatchee so I put one of the brewery addresses into Nuvi and she took us where we needed to go.  There were so many one-way streets we had to do a couple of circles to get into the correct parking lot.  We changed our minds and went into Rail Station and Ale House right on the tracks.  This area was somewhat familiar because of the Wenatchee Cache Machine back in March 2011.  We sat outside, ordered drinks and waited for our food to come.  I ordered a Tricerahops brewed by Ninkasi in Eugene, Oregon.  For food I tried the fish and chips.  It was delicious!

We got our fill and headed back to Chelan to pack up our stuff and start our long trek home.  We got a late start and ended up getting home after midnight.  I dropped Ben off at the station and I got home and passed out.  I was exhausted.

Next Adventure:  Travels with Val:  Thurston County

Chelan Adventures: Day 2

When we got there late last night, we all got up later than we anticipated.  We knew we only had a short time at Chelan so we had to make the best of it...rainy weather and all.  I was really hoping the weather would get nice but it never did that day.

We had to go to the store before breakfast to get lunch meat and a few other things we didn't have.  We also got gas before going back to the resort.  Ben made us all a breakfast sandwich, eggs and meat between some toast.  I tried getting my computer on the internet but Trish gave me the wrong password.  There could only be two registered computers on the internet and I was unlucky.  I couldn't even do a query on Ben's computer because it wouldn't let me.  We had to go by his phone.  We got our adventure pants on and headed out the door.

We decided to do a few caches in town before trying to figure out where to stay for Josh and Sam's wedding in June.  The first one we came to was called Kirk at Work (GC2530F) near the St. Andrew's Parish in downtown Chelan.  It is a historic log church building that has been holding services since 1898.  We found it pretty quickly.

The next cache, Snow Cache (GCHAMF) took us up the hill to an undeveloped housing area.  We parked 40 feet from the cache, I got out and headed down the slight hill to a tree, of course avoiding rattle snakes (we are in central Washington) to grab the not-so-great hidden cache.  I brought it up to the car and the road and we logged our find.  I left a pathtag inside for the next cacher.  As I put it back, Ben turned the car around in the culde-sac and we found an ultimate Frisbee disk and some old socks in the road.  We took the Frisbee home.

We spend a good hour looking for a place to stay in June.  A lot of the hotels were already booked and very expensive.  We could not find a room at the same hotel so we looked at another one and called some places in Wenatchee.  After striking out at the hotel game we drove over to the jet ski/boat place so Ben could plan out Josh's bachelor party coming up in the next two weekends.  We priced parasailing, boat and jet ski rentals and took a few fliers with us.

We got three more caches along the lake.  One was inside Centennial Park, Chelan Centennial Park (GC1BQNM), the coords were horrible but with the hint it was easy to find.

The next cache, Mary Kay's Pond Christmas Cache (GCRGTA) took us to a dried up pond.  The cache was visible from the street.   We signed the log and posed with the statue in the pond before we hid it better than we found it.  Isn't Ben precious?

The last one we found was Sunset Bench (GC465PH) and it was very easy we had to be sneaky or the Mallard ducks nearby would have seen us.  Ben signed our names and we enjoyed ourselves

We drove back to through town and towards Manson.  Ben wanted to show me Josh's cabin.  He did it all from memory.  As we climbed higher on the uphill grade, he stopped for a cache called Beauty of Boyd (GC5QVW9), he had found this about a month ago but never logged it.  We found it under some sage brush.  We signed our names and put it back better than we found it.

He showed me the cabin but because we didn't have keys to the gate we couldn't go in.  We admired from a far.  At that point it was almost time for dinner.  When we got back into cell reception and told his mom we were on our way back to the resort.  We decided on pizza from across the street, Company Creek.  We walked over, ordered it, sat and waited and took it back to our room so we can enjoy it at our own table with our own beer.

The pool and hot tub closed at 10 p.m. so we all took advantage of it.  We ended up finding a nerf-like football that someone left behind so we played around with it.  A group of older people from Yakima joined  us in the hot tub followed by some young kids from Bremerton.  We got hot so Ben jumped in the pool and basically bear hugged me into the pool, I had no choice.  When we were done, we went back into the hot tub and then we had to hurry back to the hotel room because I had to go potty.  We showered and got ready to teach Trish and Amy how to play beer pong.  I was the grand champion with a record of 4-1 and watching Trish play was quite amusing.  We took pictures and some GoPro videos.

We played for a good two hours and decided it was time for bed.  We spent some time deciding what we wanted to do tomorrow.  We thought about going to Stehekin but it required a ferry boat ride since you can't drive there and we decided to save that for another time.  I asked them if they wanted to go to a few state parks and drive around.  They said sure.  I spent some time drafting a fun day trip plan and writing down the coordinates to six different state parks in the area.

We all went to bed.

Next Adventure:  Chelan Adventures:  Day 3

Chelan Adventures: Day 1

Trish has a time share and decided to take her vacation mid May.  Last year they went to the ocean this year they chose Lake Chelan.  I thought it would be fun to go visit and to get away from the area for a few days.  Trish was excited.  We had to work around our schedules.  I spent most of my day cleaning out my car.  I took all the stuff I didn't need out and put it into bins.  I vacuumed, which I haven't done since I got the Escape in September, and wiped down all the flat surfaces and inside all the crevasses.  I washed clothes, cleaned the house, took a shower and packed up all the stuff I might need, I got gas and made it to the store for a few things.  I made Ben a lunchbox dinner and around 7 that night I headed out towards the fire station in Rochester to pick him up.

He got there around 8 and he had nothing packed.  I was upset, but mostly jokingly.  I really wanted to leave as soon as we could because it was going to take at least 4 hours to get there.  We would be arriving after midnight as it was.  He spent some time throwing stuff into his bag, he changed out of his work clothes, made sure he had his computer, camera and the stuff he kept out in his car.  I helped him pack it up and we left around 8:30.

I drove while I gave him a chance to eat his dinner and relax a bit.  We listened to music and talked about a bunch of things while we put I-5 behind us.  It got a little slow around the Tacoma S-curves near the Tacoma Dome.  We had hassle free traffic through Fife and all the way to our turn onto Hwy 18.  We flew down Hwy 18 and got onto I-90.  It was already dark so there really wasn't that much to look at.

There were a lot of semi trucks up and down I-90 and it started raining as we started up the pass.  We didn't realize we could have taken the 970, which would link us to US 97 instead of driving clear into the west side of Ellensburg.   We stopped at Indian John Hill Rest area to use the bathroom and to get out and walk around.  It had finally stopped raining.  I am glad we missed our short cut so we could stop for a while.  We followed I-90 to the US 97 exit.

As we climbed Blewett Pass, we busted out the Doritos as Ben worked on his human resource report and I battled the rain.  Yes, it rained the entire length of Blewett Pass.  It stopped when we got into Wenatchee.  We followed the road north towards Chelan.  I drove right through a roundabout...mostly because no one was around at midnight and it was flat enough you really didn't need to drive around it.  Ben laughed his face off.  He pointed up towards the hill to Ohme Gardens and told me that's where Josh's wedding was going to be in June.  We drove pass Entiat, a small town along US 97 known as the Gateway to Recreation, with its location so close to the Columbia River and the mountains to the west.

Twenty minutes later we arrived in Chelan with the lake welcoming us as we drove down the hill.  Ben guided me to The Lake House near downtown Chelan.  We really didn't know where to park so we parked inside the parking garage under the building.  We grabbed one of the carts to put our stuff on and wheeled on to the elevator and onto the 3rd floor.

We had finally arrived around 1:15 and Trish was barely up and Amy was on the computer.  I know they struggled to stay awake for us to get there.  We talked for a bit and unloaded our cart into the room we would be staying in.  We all got ready for bed and finally passed out.

Next Adventure:  Chelan Adventures:  Day 2