Rainier100: Alder, Elbe and Mineral Lake

I haven't gotten very many of the Rainier100 caches since February and I needed to get some more of them before the third series comes out in July. I committed for the second, third and fourth series and needed to get the cache pages done as soon as I could.  For the third series, I have one cache that is suppose to be at the Pioneer Farm area in Ohop.  I needed to get a hold of the manager and find out if we could do it and then find a spot that is accessible year round.  I chose to do this later and I called grandma to see if she wanted to go for a ride out towards Alder, Elbe and Mineral.  She said sure.

After work, I went home and got ready as quick as I could.  I let the chickens and ducks out, changed my clothes, got my passports, the GPS and brought my lunch with me.  I went and picked up grandma and we were on our way.

The first one, Rainier100 2:  Alder Ghost Town (GC63EX7) was down a road I haven't been on in at least five years, during my maiden voyage with my raft.  During that trip I got a cache on the bigger of the two islands.  This time we parked at the wide spot in the road and head down an old road with overgrown trees, shrubs and patches of grass here and there.  We saw a guy at the end of the road fishing.  The cache was hidden along a row of trees and hidden very obviously.  I pulled it out and we signed our names, took our pictures, got the word on the lid and put it back where we found it.  Like many of the towns that "used to be" in Washington, this one disappeared to make room for a lake due to the need of electricity and manufacturing for the second world war.  When the reservoir is really low you can still see remnants of the old town.

Rainier100 2:  Rolling By the River (GC63EXB) was located near the train station in Elbe.  We parked near the station and walked to the location.  I miscalculated what side of the brush it was on so we took a small detour before actually finding the cache.  We walked down towards the river looking at the rocks and the drift wood.  We took some pictures of the bridge from this location. 

We walked back up to the top and found it behind a loose power pole and brush.  We signed the log and got our word for the passport.

For the past few years I've always wanted to go to Mineral.  It wasn't too far from Elbe and Hwy 7 but I never seemed to have enough time to stop and check it out.  On this mini trip we had plenty of time to drive around.  Our first stop in Mineral was Rainier100 2:  Mineral Lake Lodge (GC63JBB) and I've heard that it's a pretty cool place to visit and to stay and it has a great view of Mount Rainier.  This one was a multi cache.  We parked at the lodge and filled in our missing coords with the signs outside the gate and the wagon near the parking lot.  Once we got them filled in, we got back in the Escape and headed to the final location.  It was at a pull out off the road tucked between some large rocks.  We signed it, wrote the word down and put it back.

I put the next one in and it was right where we parked!! Getting Hitched at Mineral Lake (GC49G24) was hidden inside the wagon we just got done counting things on.  Haha.

I had to take a couple pictures of Mount Rainier with the lake.

And now for the last one for the day, Rainier100 1:  Mineral Lake Boat Launch (GC5V6G0).  There were quite a few people using the boat launch for the day we had to kinda be stealthy.  Upon arrival I noticed pieces of the cache scattered all around the gravel driveway.  Uh oh!  The cache was vandalized and the location was compromised.  I gathered up all the contents and stuck it in a bag.  I made a temporary cache for the time being and contacted the cache owner.  I will have to wait for the code word when they emailed me back.

Then grandma and I met up with Ben in Lacey to check out a potential house that was for rent.  We had a tour, did the paperwork and waited the results.  Turns out we were approved but then we talked about it and decided we didn't want to be poor at the end of each month.  We will have to continue looking.  Wish us luck!

Next Adventure:  Key Peninsula:  Joemma Beach and Penrose Point State Park

The Sun's Out; Let's Go Get Some Caches After Work!

Monday, May 9th

Most of this week was suppose to be high 70's and low 80's and of course I was going to take advantage of the nice weather.  I get off of work at 3 so I had plenty of time to go and get some caches and take care of some errands while I was out and about.

I had to go to the west side to get some sealer from JoAnn's for my Seahawk signs and I had scoped out some caches to get afterwards.  I drove up towards the Olympia Auto Mall and took a side road to a dead end.  I guess it was also a walking path I didn't know about.  I parked the Escape away from the culd-e-sac due to the no parking signs and walked towards Madrona Tree (GC4PE2Z).  I really didn't know what to expect because the logs were pretty weird.  I started looking near ground zero and couldn't find anything.  Then I looked along the fence line and found a rogue Altoids can just chillin there.  This was probably not where it was suppose to be.  I signed my name and put it back where I found it.  I hope it doesn't go missing.

I drove about a half a mile out towards the Thurston County courthouse and found the three caches around the small loop full of intertwined businesses and apartment complexes.  I decided to drive the loop counter clockwise and pick up Geo-Basics:  Lock-n-Lock (GC58G1M) first.  I parked on the side of the street not even 10 feet from the cache and found it right where my phone took me.  I could have found it without the phone.  I signed the log, grabbed the trackable and put it back just as I found it.

I moved onto the next one along the loop, Itsy Bitsy (GC5FQ5W) which was at an intersection so I had to find a parking spot and then walk to the cache location.  I knew there would be a spider involved but how?  I walked over to a stop sign and started looking.  There was a spider attached to the inside of the bar with a magnetic geocaching screw towards the bottom.  I'm glad the cache owner went whimsical with it instead of the same ol' spider cache.

My phone was on less than 10% so I had to hurry.  The last one, Geo-Basics:  Ammo Can in the Trees (GC58FZ4) was in a place I've been to at least twice for caches that have been archived since then.  I quickly jogged to the coordinates with the phone, found the ammo can, tried to take a picture but the phone didn't have enough juice in it.  I signed the log book and put it back and covered it better than I found it.  I jogged back to the Escape and drove home.

Tuesday, May 10th

The next day after work I headed down towards Rochester to meet up with Ben once he got off work.  I had about two hours to kill so I decided to get a few I've neglected and one I saw publish a while back.

I had to go out of my way to get Scatter Brained (GC6800M), which was off the freeway onto Ol' 99 to 183rd and a few side roads.  It was located at a bridge over Scatter Creek and I didn't think I would see this much traffic the short amount of time I was here.  Several cars and a school bus passed me while I located, signed and put back the pill bottle.  I admired this section of the creek before I got back into the Escape and chose another area.

I chose the Michigan Hill area since it wasn't too far from Rochester.  Put a Cork in It (GC5QQQE) was published last spring so it was fairly new.  I had been up this area once before and can't remember why now.  I don't think I was geocaching but if I was, the cache has been archived since then.  I didn't realize it was going to be outside of a farm and the people were home.  I really didn't want to block their driveway so I tried to park as close to the hill bank as I could.  I got out and figured out how to get on top of the hill near their farm sign.  I struggled because you really couldn't tell how deep the brush was.  I signed the log and put it back as fast as I could just in case the property owners decided to leave...I really didn't want to be in their way.

I hopped back into the Escape and had time for one more in the Independence area.  It was a series called Welcome to My Office and I was getting Part 5 (GC35JBY).  I've gotten a few of the series in the past.  This cache owner works for the Post Office so they had a certain route that they placed caches on.  I followed Nuvi until she took me to a gate with a guardrail beside it.  I knew it was going to be in the guardrail.  I signed it and put it back.

I met Ben at the station and we drove into Olympia to have dinner at Buffalo.  It was delicious.

Next Adventure:  Rainier100:  Alder, Elbe and Mineral Lake

Mother's Day

Spent the day at Kevin and Karla's house for Mother's Day and Tracy's birthday.  We had a baked potato bar, we went outside for an Easter egg hunt (something we didn't do on Easter because it was too cold outside), took some family pictures with umbrellas (something mom wanted to do) and had cake, ice cream and opened presents.

Next Adventure:  The Sun's Out; Let's Go Get Some Caches After Work!