A Mini Winter Vacation: Mission Ridge Snowboarding

Our alarms went off at 8:30 and again at 8:45.  The bed was so comfortable that we had a hard time getting out of bed for our assigned breakfast time.  We put some pants on, a sweatshirt, shoes and I washed my face quickly and put up my hair.  We walked upstairs to the 4th floor and got in line.  We must have heard the lady's directions at least a dozen times.  We could almost recite to other hotel guests as we stood there.  This was the most epic hotel breakfast I've ever had but the Covid restrictions made the process slow.  We had to be patient.  I understood because they had to do it this way to continue to be able to serve breakfast to their guests.  

Ben and I got omelets, fruit, French toast, pastries, drinks and sausage and decided to take it to our room so we could eat and get all of our stuff packed up...plus all the tables upstairs were mostly taken and didn't want to waste our time looking for one.  The food was pretty good and I think we both ended up eating all of our food.

When we were done, Ben packed up while I walked back into town to buy one more die so we had a set of six.  It didn't open until 10 so I had to waste 15 minutes.  I walked to the end of the street and came back around.  I went inside the shirt store and talked to Mom on the phone while I got a shirt for her.  I hung up and then went to the store with the dice, got one more penguin one and ended up getting a set of six with cats on it.  I felt weird just buying one die.  Now we have two sets of dice, penguins and cats.  I will make sure we bring one set when we travel so we will have games to play while we have some down time.  

I walked back to the hotel and helped Ben finish packing up and loading the Edge. We checked out and started to head out of town.  We stopped at the Safeway for some more drinks, snacks and a sandwich to eat while we were on the mountain.  We paid and I needed to get the geocache in the parking lot.  Ben said he had found this a long time ago while he was here last.  Washington Native Plants A-Z:  T is for Thimbleberry (GC786CY) was hidden near the gas station portion of the parking lot.  I had to be really careful and really sneaky because it was icy and there were a lot of muggles going in and out of this location.  

We walked back to the Edge and followed highway 2 east into Wenatchee.  Our goal was to make it up to Mission Ridge before noon.

We followed the signs and the address that we plugged into Ben's car GPS.  We followed the road and watched the snow on the side of the road get deeper and deeper as we got higher in elevation.  It just didn't seem like there would be a ski resort up here.  We hit the last corner and saw the parking lot and Ben parked as close as we could to the ticket office.  We parked, changed some of our clothes, put on our boots and grabbed all the stuff we would need so we didn't have to come back to the Edge until we were done.  We walked to the ticket office, got our lift tickets and then walked up to the rental office to stand in line. 

Ben already had boots so he just needed the board and bindings.  I needed a board, bindings, boots and a helmet.  It took a while but not as much time as we spent last time at Snoqualmie getting our gear.

We got fitted, got organized and Ben took my boots back to the Edge while I strapped myself to my board and practiced standing up.  

Us waiting almost five years to do this definitely took away some of my skills I learned last time.  I basically had to start all over again.  We strapped the GoPro to my helmet and stood in line for the ski lift.  

We had to wear face coverings every where we went except for when we were by ourselves somewhere.  It wasn't too weird because most of the time you covered up your face anyway because of the cold weather.  The ski lift seemed to take longer than the one we did at Snoqualmie.  

I was pretty nervous because I remembered last time having a hard time getting off.  This time wasn't any different.  I fell every time I got off the ski lift.  I had a heck of a time getting on the board and staying upright the first time down.  I got frustrated because I knew I was better than this and I hated trying to get back up since it took a lot of energy getting back up on the board.  I managed to stay on my board halfway down the hill after falling a couple dozen times. 

We reached the bottom of the hill and needed to use the restroom.  I felt so much better after that and the next couple runs down the hill I did better.  

The last run I only fell once and that was because I was trying to white wash Ben.  We ended up and down the hill five times because that is all we hand energy for and we could only be there until about 4 p.m.  We paid for a full day but didn't get there in time.  I told Ben not to worry about it because we still had fun anyway.  We returned our rentals, Ben got my boots from the Edge and we bought some stickers from the small store.  We took a few pictures and then walked to the Edge so we could leave.

We took off our snow jackets, gloves and top layers and both put on a dry sweatshirt.  We kept our snow pants on, piled into the Edge and started heading down the hill into Wenatchee.  We ate our sandwich as we made our way down.  We decided to go to Walmart before we checked into our hotel so we could pick up a few things and try to find some shorts because we didn't bring swimming suits with us for pools and hot tubs.  We went inside and checked and they didn't have anything that resembled shorts...not even for working out.  We thought this was weird.  We left and saw there was a geocache at the end of the parking lot.  Wenatchee's Fake Mountain Range (GC7K0KP) was a pretty cool spot but we could not find anything that resembled a geocache.  So we moved on.

We drove to the Target to see if they had shorts we could get and we got lucky.  There were some pairs of shorts on sale for $10 and they were pretty decent shorts too.  We purchased them and then went back out to the Edge and saw there was a geocache near the parking lot.  R.I.P Al, Bert and Sons (GC5WRA3) which was a film cannister hidden underneath a lamp skirt.  Those are lame but there really isn't anywhere else you could hide something like that.  I have a lamp skirt cache in Olympia one of my favorite restaurants that I check on at least once a month. 

Ben plugged the address of the hotel into his car GPS and we headed towards East Wenatchee to The Cedar Inn.  Ben checked us in and then we grabbed our luggage and got all situated.  We were going to go soak in the hot tub (why we bought the shorts) but they didn't update their website about no pools or hot tub because of Covid.  It was the reason why we booked this hotel in the first place...we knew we would be sore from snowboarding and a nice soak we were looking so forward to it.  We were disappointed of course...like we have been over the past 10 months already.

I suggested that we get some dinner before we settled in any further and we decided on some teriyaki and we knew we would have to pick it up and bring it back to our room.  We found a place, Original J's Teriyaki, which was about a mile or so from the hotel.  It had pretty good reviews so we went for it.  Ben called it in and we went and picked it up.  We brought it back and finished watching the Bills and Ravens game.  

After we ate, we played some 10,000 and watched some of the movies that were playing on the television.  

We got cleaned up and the hot shower felt nice on my sore body.  I did some Facebooking and uploaded the pictures thus far of our trip.  We finally went to bed around midnight or so.  I took some stuff so I would be less sore the next day.  I fell asleep instantly. 

Next Adventure:  A Mini Winter Vacation:  Exploring Wenatchee, Waterville and Chelan (US 97 Loop)

A Mini Winter Vacation: Lacey to Leavenworth

Ben and I haven't had any adventures away from home since the TriCities Geocoin Challenge in June 2019, which was terrible to think about.  Has it really been that long?  We looked back at our calendars and such and yes, that was the last time we took a trip together away from home.  That is insane!  A few weeks ago Ben had suggested that we go somewhere now that some of the Covid restrictions have been lifted.  

Because it was winter, there was a long weekend coming up and we both haven't been snowboarding since the last time we went together, which was 2016--ouch, five years ago!?  So we threw around some ideas on where to go.  He suggested that we drive down to Mount Hood since we've never been there before.  However, the weather didn't seem to be favorable and the hotels were so stinking expensive.  Then we looked into going to Wenatchee to the smaller ski area called Mission Ridge.  Ben asked if I've ever heard of the place and I told him that I had heard of it.  During my first Cache Machine, back in 2012, which was located in Wenatchee, and I remember seeing many signs for Mission Ridge.

We spent the week gathering up all of our winter gear that we had scattered all around the house.  We did laundry and tried to get everything ready the night before so we could pack in in Ben's Edge and head out.  I also made an elaborate instruction "manual" on how to take care of our kittens for Erika to follow while we were going.  I labeled everything with sticky notes, set everything out and even hung poop bags on back of the cat room door so she didn't have to go searching for them.  I felt bad that we had to keep them inside the room the entire time we were gone because we just didn't quite trust them to be in the whole house just yet.  We ran the dishwasher and took out the garbage so we came home to a clean house.

We got up around 8:30-9:00, washed my face and got dressed for the day.  Ben shaved because his face was scary.  He got dressed and got the rest of his stuff ready to go.  We got all of our stuff piled up in the living room, fed the kitties their breakfast, finished getting the cats ready for the weekend (moving their cat tree into the cat room, etc.) and started to pack everything in the Edge as organized as secure as we could.  We told Wade and Oliver to guard the house and that we would be back on Sunday.  We left around 10:15.

We stopped and got gas at the Martin Way Safeway, since we didn't eat breakfast, I bought some maple bars, chocolate milk and some chips for later and then met Ben outside once he was done pumping gas.  We headed out towards Tacoma so Ben could meet up with a guy he found on Offer Up.  We got to the area pretty early so we drove to Wapato Park and tried to find a cache near the dog park.  We had no luck finding Harley & Indie (GC4QRGM) while I talked to Dad on the phone the entire time...he wanted to talk about the stuff happening at Grammie and Grandpa's house.

We met the guy at the gas station just up the road and I stayed in the car while Ben made the trade.  It was an entertainment device that they talked about and he gave it to Ben for free.  We made our way back to I-5 north to Hwy 18 east.  We followed the highway to I-90 interchange by Snoqualmie/North Bend.  I remember telling Ben about the interesting stuff I've learned about serial killer Ted Bundy and the bodies they found out by the Tiger Summit area.  I told him that they sprinkled his ashes somewhere in the Cascades nearby where we were in an undisclosed location.

As we merged onto I-90, we noticed a gray van on the shoulder and a semi fat kid looking like he was taking a pee so Ben honked his horn when we went by and startled the kid...we shared a laugh.  Ben was getting hungry, the maple bar didn't hold him over very well, so I suggested that we stop in North Bend but he decline and told me that he could wait until Cle Elum so we started up the pass.

About three miles from the summit is where you started seeing snow on the side of the road.  The other day, I read an article on Facebook that stated this winter was the most snowfall the Cascades had seen in 10 years.  We will definitely need it this summer since our past few summers have been the worst wildfire and smoke season since I could remember.  We made it past the mountain pass pretty quickly and saw the wildlife bridge just before Eason and we made some comments about it.

I looked at the caching app and decided to make a short detour before we got to Cle Elum.  I've always wanted to stop in Rosyln and explore and cross another one off of my Towns and Cities Challenge. This town was made famous by the TV show, Northern Exposure.  I've never seen the show but I heard it was very popular while it was on.  We pulled off of I-90 and grabbed our first one of the day, Roslyn is the Other Way (GC5NVH3).  Ben pulled over and I got out.  The coords went wonky for a few minutes and then I walked over to the tree and found the container hidden underneath some bark.  There were a few patches of snow on the ground as well.

I hopped back into the Edge and across the freeway we went towards Rosyln.  I wasn't really sure what to expect.  I knew it was a small town, a show was filmed here and there were a few geocaches.  I just wanted to see it for myself and to get a picture of the mural.  We drive through town, made a left at the main intersection in town and found a place to park.  We found Roslyn Cafe:  An Oasis (GC2FP2W) hidden next to the building.  I feel the cache owner missed an opportunity when they hid this one.  

We walked across the street and took a picture of us with the famous mural.  We walked back to the Edge and left town following a back road towards Cle Elum.

Along the way we noticed we were driving near Suncadia, a place I've heard of but never been.  I see posts all the time from people I know who has stayed here.  I've always wondered where it actually was in regards to Cle Elum.  I also noticed there was a cache nearby so I had Ben stop.  I got out and found Progress Path (GC8DMP9) and I noticed a name on it I recognized, Papa Ski.  I remember when he and his family were enjoying a weekend at Suncadia.  I walked back to the Edge and we headed into town.

We stopped at a small park to find Log It (GC6KW5Z) and then Double Welcome (GC8GMRN) which was right before you drove down the hill into down town Cle Elum. 

We called the Cottage Café to find out what their Covid rules were and they said we could order it to go and pay and pick it up inside.  We drove through town talking about the last time we came through here which was a while ago.  We arrived at the restaurant, went inside, ordered, used the restroom and both Ben and I paid for it.  I had a bunch of cash on me from watching Alicia's dogs back at Christmas time.  A few minutes later, we had our food.  I ordered a burger and fries and Ben ordered the club sandwich with fries.  There were a lot of fries.  We ate it outside at the picnic table since it was dry but it was chilly when the wind blew.  We drank the drinks we bought at the store earlier that day.  We hung out, ate our food and talked about random things.

We threw our garbage away and got back on the road, continuing down SR 910 at the SR 10 junction, we stopped once again for a cache, this time it was a multi cache called SR10 - A Rest Stop No More (GC8EG9A).  This was my third time grabbing a cache here over the years.  I got out, got the numbers off the sign, plugged them into the equation and then put them in the coord checker.  BAM!  We did it right, added the waypoint and the cache was literally 50 feet from the posted coords.

We linked up with US 97 and drove up Blewett Pass (we were slowed down by having to follow a semi truck for about 10 miles) and there was a bunch of snow on the side of the road.  It took us roughly 40 minutes to get up and over the pass to our Hwy 2 junction to either Leavenworth or Wenatchee.  We made our way to Leavenworth.  We got into town and loved how it wasn't busy.  The last time I came here was December 2018 with Erika, Mom, Trish and Grandma to see the tree lighting and the place was so busy you could hardly walk around without bumping into people's shoulders.  Before we found our hotel, Ben wanted to drive me down Icicle Road to show me The Sleeping Lady, apparently he's stayed here before many years ago and would like to again someday.  We drove back into town, parked at the gas station and attempted to find Welcome to Der Place (GC47TG7) which we couldn't get to because of the snow, it was too high...lame.

We went to our hotel, The Enzian Inn and checked into our room.  We parked closer to where our room was and brought in our stuff to room 133.  The room was so nice!!  It smelled good, the bed was comfy, the bathroom was amazing and it was so totally worth it.  We got settled in for a bit and then decided to walk into town for a few hours.  We went into a few shops and got a couple of things including penguin dice so we could play some dice games in our room later on this evening.  We also tried finding Blackbird Boulevard (GC76WM1) which was behind the buildings down by the river.  Ben and I walked down there but couldn't find it because it was indeed missing.

We walked back up and decided to eat a pretzel with cheese and drink a beer from a place called Stein.  We both had a pint of Kickstand Pale Ale made by the Icicle Brewing Company, a local brewery in town.  Because of the Covid rules, we drank and ate outside at a picnic table in the freezing cold weather.  We were bundled up pretty good so we didn't mind.  It was part of the experience.  We talked about various things including eventually getting some sort of van or old ambulance and remodeling it and driving it around the country while we worked from home.  It's only a dream so we will see if it actually happens.

We decided it was probably time to walk back to the hotel, because it was getting late and colder, but first we were going to pick up two caches along the way.  We grabbed Washington Native Plants A-Z:  C is for Cottonwood (GC77NZ7) and that one took us a while to find because it was dark and hidden near a very large snow bank which was made when the plows pushed the snow away from the park and ride lot.  I was glad we managed to find it!

The last one, Cap, Seek 'Um (GC7E46C) was just up the trail from the park in the middle of town.  Since there was snow everywhere, it made it really hard to walk around in some places because it was deep.  The ice also made it hard because you didn't want to slip and fall awkwardly in the dark.  We found the cache zone but had to wait for this car to leave because it was parked right where we needed to look.  They eventually left and we started looking near the rocks and Ben made the find.  It was a green plastic bell pepper with a log book and trinkets inside.  We signed it, put it back and walked down the trail back to the main sidewalk to our hotel.

We got settled in once again, got cleaned up, dressed in our comfy clothes and got set up to play Yahtzee (I had bought dice from one of the stores but didn't buy enough for 10,000 so we played Yahtzee instead) and I destroyed Ben in all three games.  I got a total of five Yahtzees and have never done that before in my whole life.  I was super jazzed about it.  We ate snacks and watched Sportscenter in the background.  We got ready for bed and didn't go to bed until about 2 a.m.

It was nice to get away from work for a while and to finally go somewhere after being stuck at home all year long.  It's just too bad it goes by way too fast.

Next Adventure:  A Mini Winter Vacation:  Mission Ridge Snowboarding

A Covid New Year's Eve

I was so glad to say goodbye to 2020.  It was a huge dumpster fire.  

2020 started out so promising.  I had so many things I had planned on doing, had enough leave saved up for it, had money saved up and all I had to do was wait until those events happened.  I was so excited for my trip to Peru and Ecuador in March, the TriCities Geocoin event in June, our concert with Lindsay and Justin in July, the two huge geocaching events in both Seattle and Abbotsford, Canada in August and a possible trip to New Mexico to visit Ben's aunt and uncle in the fall.  My two personal leave days were set aside, we were going to do more hiking and exploring and none of that happened because of stupid Covid.  I know my stuff is pretty trivial to those experiencing worse things but this was my life, my reality and my stuff I was looking forward to.  This is why I have a job; to travel and experience things with family and friends.  Not to sit at home working my life away.  The entire year was wasted and we won't get that time back.  It was so frustrating!

Anyway.  

Ben and I still wanted to celebrate New Year's Eve since we won't be doing it with our friends this year like we always do.  Last year, we didn't either because we spend it at his mom's house because she asked us first.  This year we asked her if she wanted to come over and she was hesitant because we had also asked Josh and Heather to also come over and they had Covid about two months ago.  We eventually talked her into it and she brought Ed and they were going to spend the night in the guest room.

I told Trish that we would wipe down everything and to make sure that Josh and Heather knew that she and Ed were coming and not to be offended if  they kept their distance and wore masks.  Josh and Heather didn't care, they were just happy to go spend time with friends and such.  We discussed what kind of food was going to be made and divvied it out accordingly.  Josh and Heather wanted to make two meat dishes, one was a chicken dish you ate with homemade tortillas and the other was Josh's famous BBQ short ribs.  I told everyone we would make a bunch of rice and Trish said she would bring some mac and cheese.  I had an assortment of cookies and chips as well.  The food was all set and all we had to do now was wait for that evening.

I had some fireworks leftover from previous 4th of July's so I dug those out.  Trish said she would bring some stuff and Josh and Heather also had a couple things they were going to bring.  I said there would be some games and if anyone wanted to bring other games that would be welcomed.  

That day, Ben and I worked the whole day.  I decided to just work the whole day so I could save the hours for when we got to travel again.  When I logged off, my friend Alicia stopped by to pay me for watching her dogs during the Christmas weekend while she was gone.  She handed me $100 in cash stuffed inside a bank envelope.  We chatted for a few minutes and then some thank you's were exchanged.  I left and did our weekly shopping trip.  I made sure we had enough rice and such for tonight but I mostly went for our normal every day things.  I got back after Ben got home.  We cleaned up the house a bit and vacuumed.  I made sure the extra bedroom had clean pillow cases, sheets and blankets.

Trish and Ed arrived early followed by Josh and Heather.  Lilly decided to go hang out with friends.  The rice was done so we got out plates and silverware, heated up the mac and cheese in the microwave and noticed that Josh and Heather had brought a ton of food and drinks.  Since Heather works at Costco, she had with her at least three bottles of champagne, two bottles of pop and about 8 jars of individual crème brulee's.  We set it all out on the table and we dished up.  I was hungry and looking forward to the food.  We dished up and the food was mighty impressive since I've only had Josh's short ribs once.  The chicken dish was very tasty as well.  He said both were staples on Guam and he hoped that when he finally has his food truck, some form of them will be served on the menu. 

We ate food, chatted about what was going on in each other's lives which was not that much since we were now into month 10 of dealing with Covid.  We've all been basically working, going to school and getting stuff done that we've been putting off.  In the background on low, the television was streaming various programs and NYE celebrations of other time zones who have successfully made it into 2021.

We tried to play games.  Josh and Heather had brought some new games to try but Josh and Ben weren't that into it and Heather was getting tired since she had to start work at 5 a.m. this morning.  We decided not to play those and to play some of our usual games for a bit while we waited for midnight.

As it got closer to midnight, we got all of our stuff ready, watched the ball drop on television, kisses and hugs were given out and then we all went outside to light sparklers, set last year's hats, noise makers and paper glasses donning 2020 on fire in the yard... at least that's what Trish did.

We did confetti string poppers, took a few pictures and Ben and Josh had cigars.  We were outside for about 20 minutes or so hanging out and listening to fireworks go off in the neighborhood.  I would be blowing up fireworks but I used the good ones up in July.

Everyone was getting tired, since most of us worked that day and all got up around 5 or 6 that morning, so we decided to call it a night.  Heather was barely awake, Josh and Ben were a little tipsy, Trish, Ed and I were doing alright but could start getting ready for bed.  We thanked Josh and Heather for coming over and spending some time with us and they headed home.  The rest of us got ready for bed.  It was a long day and I was so going to sleep in.

Happy 2021 everyone!  I hope it is much better than 2020!

Next Adventure:  A Mini Winter Adventure:  Lacey to Leavenworth