Early Birthday/Anniversary Weekend: Walla Walla Cache Machine and a Solar Eclipse

It was definitely not a typical cache machine.  This was the first time we started this late and kinda did our own route, mostly because we had to.  The alarm went off around 7:30 a.m. but we didn't get out of bed until about 8 a.m.  It was really hard getting up after staying up so late, especially when you are on vacation.

We got ready, ate some of our breakfast items we bought the night before from Walmart and made sure we had all of our geocaching stuff including the extra containers. It was going to be a warm, dry day and I was excited to wear shorts! I peeked outside the window and saw that the partial eclipse was starting.  I grabbed my glasses and watched it while Ben finished getting ready.  Once he was done, we grabbed our stuff and went downstairs to the Edge.  I made sure Ben remembered to bring his eclipse glasses.

We got down to the parking lot and we took a few minutes to watch the eclipse.  I still want to experience a total eclipse someday.  There is one in the eastern part of the US next spring but with all that is going to happen next year we probably won't be able to travel to it.  We will have to wait until the next opportunity.   I did manage to get a few pictures of it with my phone.   

We had to get gas, so I directed Ben to the nearest Safeway, which was southwest of our hotel on the main drag in town.  While he was out pumping gas, I spent some time looking at the eclipse through my glasses.  Then it got cloudy, and I wasn't able to watch it anymore.  He finished up at the pump and wanted a coffee from Starbucks.  So, we drove across the street so he could have his coffee fix.

Since we were near some of the caches on the cache machine route, we started with My First Hide (GCA7N32) and Muffler Art (GCR9RM). Both were somewhat easy to find once you got to the correct spot.  We spent a little too much time at the first one, but we found it without it being too awkward because it was in someone's front yard.  

We were heading to the next grouping of caches along the route, when all of a sudden, Ben HAD to find a bathroom.  I didn't know Walla Walla that great and where the public bathrooms were.  We were in the most inaccessible part of Walla Walla at that point.  I told him to hold on and we can make our way to Pioneer Park, since we knew where it was and that the bathrooms were open.  I have never seen Ben break so many laws and excessively speed through town before.  He had a really concerned and urgent expression on his face too. 

Let's just say we didn't make it to the restrooms in time and he was in there for a while. Instead of sitting in the Edge waiting, I went to go find the cache that was part of the cache machine, Near Waters Flow (GC9YN4F).  I was there, which seemed like forever, looking for this bison tube.  I checked all of the trees more than once.  I talked to Mom on the phone while I looked for this cache.  I really thought more cachers would show up while I looked to help me look for it, no...no one showed up.  I texted Ben to see if he was almost done and checked literally one more place and there it was.  I could not believe it took me that long to find!  I checked some of the other logs from the day and some people on the cache machine found it while others did not.  I got our names on it, a quick picture and walked back to the Edge.

Ben came out a few minutes later and he said he had to throw away his underwear.  We had to go back to the hotel so he could get cleaned up and put on a fresh pair of underwear.  I told him that I am going to hold this over his head for the rest of our lives.  He just looked at me and said, thanks. 

We went back out to the Escape and saw what part of the cache machine we were closest to.  It was the Lower Waitsburg series (GC6C8W4) and there were 12 of them to grab.  Mom called to chat with me for a little bit about Doug and his problems.  We just can't go on vacation without something happening at home.  Every. Single. Time.  Due to the spotty cell service, I told her I would have to call her back later and hung up.

We did the Nelson Road series (GC4NV7Z) and then the MRW series (GC5PP9V) with a cache called Need for Speed (GC3BF2Y) to finish off that area of town. We made our way back to town and drove out towards College Place to do that part of the route.  

Before we got too far into it, Ben said he had to go again, and we found the mall area and a Hobby Lobby.  We parked, he went inside, and I looked to see if any of the caches that were on the route were in this lot.  There was one.  I decided to walk over there to find it to give him time to get whatever out of his system, so we didn't have to stop anymore.  I meandered over to Urban Wilderness (GC7N5VQ).  Of course, it was a lamp skirt cache, so it was found quickly.  I texted Ben to see how he was doing, and he said he was just about done.  I got back to the Hobby Lobby and went inside to use the restroom and then I wandered down the aisles waiting for him. 

We finally made it back into the Edge and we went to Fort Walla Walla for an Adventure Lab and four caches. We decided to do the waypoints to the Adventure Lab first and then we parked near the small parking area for the Fort Walla Walla Natural Area.  We got out and started walking down the trail.  We came across ihavecats, rocketglider, NepoKama and FenchurchE and chatted with them for a few minutes.  Ihavecats asked if we were the people replacing and logging her power trails and I told her yes, we were.  She thanked us and told me that she would bring me some more containers at the event dinner to replace some of the ones of mine I had used.  I thanked her.  We continued walking with NepoKama and FenchurchE to the three caches, Savvy's Cache (GC2QHN7), Nadia's Cache (GC2QHN0) and Where Wildlife Roams (GC2V9Z7).

We found all three of them with ease and it was fun talking to the caching couple.  I have known of them for many years and got to know them better as we cached with them for about 45 minutes. We got back to the parking lot, told them to have a great rest of their day and Ben and I grabbed the last cache, Fort Walla Walla (GC388J9) before heading to the next grouping of caches along the route. 

We went into College Place and grabbed five caches. EZ$ 6 (GC2N1ZW), I Like Lame Micros and I Cannot Lie (GC6P4G4), Stash & Dash (GCNCND), The Sea is Calling (GC43ZH2) and Ace of Diamonds (GC1HFBG).  They were all quick grabs. 

We got onto the state line road that teetered the border of Washington and Oregon to get two more caches before going north back into Walla Walla.  The road turned into a dirt road and yes, we had a truck drive by and dust us while we were out there.  It was not a busy road but there is always one person that will drive by when you don't want them to.  We picked up Please Stop (GC39KHR) and Pluviometer (GC43MT2).  Both were quick finds.

We drove back into Walla Walla and picked up a few more including 31 Days of Geocaching: Table Rock (GC4HEMR).  That one took us a little bit to find because it was a fake rock within a ton of rocks.  Once you can find that fake rock it makes it easier but then you wonder why you didn't spot it right away.   

We drove to the Mountain View Cemetery to meander our way down the small, tiny roads, dodging other vehicles for Remembrance - Mtn View (GC9NTMH), to a parking lot at a church where we found an ammo can hidden in a water valve box next to a tiny library, Trinity Book Trader Cache and TB Motel (GC283JX) and finally drove past the back side of Walla Walla High School so Ben could use his height to grab us Abbott's Post (GC87WW7). 

We drove over to a wildlife area to find Reser Creek Wildlife Park (GC2WJQR) for one that I almost looked over but found it and then Ben and I drove over to the east side of town to do part of the Russell Creek series (GC5HJQG).  We did about 11 of those and had to replace a few of them along the way.  There were more along the road, but we were running out of time and needed to get about four more near the airport before making out way over to the cache machine dinner. 

We drove up towards the airport, crossed Hwy 12 and our first stop was at Easy Street 01 (GC5M7B7) but we had to go a roundabout way since they were having some sort of a wine tasting event and they had closed the road to through traffic.  It was a quick park and grab.  We got onto G Street and stopped for Rugby's Cache (GC56MZQ).  That one was hidden in a tree, and I was tall enough to reach it!

We made our way to the end of the road to where it meets up with the gated off airport property to find Easy Street 04 (GC5M7BP).  That one was also a quick park and grab. We drove away from the airport, back across Hwy 12 and into a neighborhood for the Little Free Geocache (GC92ERD).  It was one of those little free libraries up against a wooden fence and the cache was hidden nearby.  I checked out the books inside (because they are usually a mishmash interesting titles).  I saw one I wanted and so I took it.  It was a children's alphabet book and each letter had something to do with Washington State.  I saved it so I could give it to Erika for Christmas for when my nephew is old enough to read.

From there, it was approaching 6:00 and I wanted to get to the dinner early.  It's better to get there early before everyone comes and makes getting food take forever.  Ben and I rolled in to the El Sombrero parking lot around 5:50 for the Walla Walla Cache Machine II (GCACYG9).  This is my 11th cache machine since cache machines started back in December 2002.

We went into the restaurant and Ben, and I found a place to sit.  Our waiter got our drink orders, which I got a water and Ben got a Blue Hawaiian.  While we waited for our drinks, Brad and his group of people showed up and sat next to us.  We ordered our food.  I got the three small chimichangas, rice, beans and Ben got the Colorado burrito.  We had chips and salsa while we waited for our food.  We chatted with Brad about geocaching, the Cougars and random things. 

I was so glad we got there when we did because it filled up fast and we were already eating our food.  Andrew (AndrewRJ) thanked everyone for coming, we signed the logbook, and he explained where the next one was going to be.  It was going to be on the west side and in Centralia/Chehalis.  Ben and I got excited because it was near home.  We just had to hope that the weather was decent in January.  We finished up our food, paid, told Brad we would see him later and we left to go back to the hotel.

We got back around 7:30ish, got cleaned up, relaxed, logged caches on my laptop while we ate popcorn and watched Ant Man.  We ended up going to bed around midnight.  

Notes on the Day:

We found 69 traditional caches.

We went to an event. 

We did an Adventure Lab with five waypoints.

For a total of 75 caches on the day and saw a partial eclipse.

A three-day total 231 caches.

Next Adventure: Early Birthday/Anniversary Weekend:  More Power Trails, Milton-Freewater and Hop Thief

Early Birthday/Anniversary Weekend: Power Trails, Prescott, Pre-Cache Machine Event

It was hard to get up when our alarm went off at 8, but we needed as much day as possible to get some of the power trails done.  We got dressed and went downstairs for the free breakfast. I had a croissant, meat, cheese and strawberry yogurt.  We went back to the room to finish getting ready and grabbing the things we would need for the rest of the day. 

We hopped into the Edge and drove west on Hwy 12.  I found our first set of caches just north of a little blip on the map, Lowden. I told Ben I would be the first jumper and then we would trade later on. Erika called and I talked to her for a while as we geocached. I made sure someone else besides Doug was keeping track of the house and cats while we were gone.  We started with the LDCR series. (GC5J6K7). There were probably twenty of them at one point, but only 11 of them remained.  It was a bit foggy when we started, but that soon burned off into a very nice autumn day.

As we got further and further into the farmlands, I told Erika our service was getting spotty.  She said she would talk to me later and I hung up.  I continued hammering out the caches on the LDCR series.  We did stop short of some of them and drove past others.  We know the approximate coordinates are never perfect, especially when driving.  

The next section of caches a tad bit north of the LDCR series were the Sudberry series (GC5QJ5T) and there were 14 caches to grab along that trail. It was Ben's turn to get out and jump for this section of caches.  We ended that series with two extra ones called Sudberry Reroute (GC468T9) and Lark Song (GC3NP3B).  We were making pretty good time, even though we were having to replace a bunch of them as we went.

We hit another section of the trail, this time it was my turn to get out and jump.  We started off with Tormented Hawk (GC3NP3E) and then the 38 letterboxes I have been eyeballing for many years. This was the main reason for coming out this way because I needed to finish getting 100 letterboxes to be eligible to find some of the challenge caches that I have been waiting to do.  There aren't many letterbox power trails in Western Washington.  The letterbox series started off with Ice Cream Cone (GC66HD1) and ended with Wishing You Well (GC66RF2).  We had to replace a lot of these ones.  We were literally the only ones out there in the middle of nowhere.

At the end of this power trail, we hit the small area of Harsha along SR 124.  We pulled off to grab Road to Clyde - 1 (GCA62W0) which was, of course, a guard rail cache.  I got out, found it immediately, got our names on it and put it back. We pulled back onto SR 124 and drove east towards Prescott.  We stopped one more time along the highway to pick up Yota Crash Site (GC6F3X6), hidden at a stop sign.

The next power trail was the PettiJohn series (GC762NF) and this time it was Ben's turn to get out and jump.  There were 30 of them. PettiJohn followed the road south back towards Walla Walla until it met up with SR 125.  There were a bunch of caches we had to replace along that stretch of road as well.  I knew to bring extra containers out here so we could replace the ones that were missing.  I did not come out this way for a bunch of DNF's. 

We found a place to pullover to pee and to make some peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.  It was just after lunchtime, and we needed some food.  We each took turns peeing on the side of the road, obviously watching out for that random vehicle that just happened to drive by in the middle of nowhere.  Trust me, it happens. We got out our food, made two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, grabbed drinks out of the cooler and munched on our giant bag of Doritos.  We pondered which power trail we were going to end the day with.

We decided to hit up the 22 caches on Brown Road, the Brown series (GC75J2C).  That dirt road led us north into Prescott.  We drove past several hundred acres of what used to be wheat that was harvested earlier that fall.  One of the caches I jumped out for was near a section of wheat that wasn't cut down.  I picked it and held it like a bouquet of flowers, except it was a bouquet of wheat.  Ben said I was precious.  We stopped for the last cache of the Brown series, Brown 22 (GC75JJ7) and enjoyed the scenery and the Touchet River down below. 

We went into the small town of Prescott, a very small town of about 320 people, and named after C.H. Prescott, a railroad official.  We came to Prescott because I needed it for my Towns and Cities Challenge, which was slowly dwindling down every time I came to Eastern Washington.  We plugged in our first cache, The Gathering Spot (GC70W3H), into Ben's phone and he led me right to it. It would be hard to get lost in this tiny, Columbia County, town.  We parked, got out and the coord bounced all over the place.  It took us a few minutes to pull it out of its hiding spot.  We got our names on it, got a picture and put it back.

We drove up the road to Field View Park.  We parked, saw it wasn't super busy and went to go find the cache The Pool and Park (GC7G34P).  This one also took us a few minutes to find.  It was shoved into a hole in the road dividers that separated the park from someone's property.  A dog barked at us the entire time. We got our names on it, a quick photo and put it back.  I headed right to the swings.  We swung for a while as we enjoyed the nice day away from home and work.

We hopped back into the Edge and drove a block away, parked and got out to find Welcome to Prescott (GC44T0F).  Mom called so I talked to her while we looked for the cache. I told her what we've done so far, and she told me how exciting her day had been so far. I know, a super invigorating conversation.  I saw that the grass had been recently cut and some of the logs had said to look low...I told Ben this one may have gotten mowed.  As soon as I said that we found the bits of container and paper underneath one of the branches to the bush we were looking through. We counted it as a find and let the cache owner know that their cache had been destroyed and needed some maintenance. We got back in the Edge and told Mom I would call her later since I had no idea how the cell service was around there. 

We drove to the north of town to find Whetstone Creek Stop (GC44T0J).  It was shoved into the guardrail. It was a quick park and grab.  We drove back into town, got back on the SR 124 and headed east.  We stopped to grab one more on our way to Waitsburg, the other Welcome to Prescott (GC5EMB5) at the other end of town.  I got out and signed it.

We drove into Waitsburg, mostly so Ben could see the small town, to drive back into Walla Walla a different way and to grab an earthcache,7SOA: Nature Lover (GC5A977).  It was a quick one that talked about the layers of loess. Loess is layers of fine, mineral-rich materials mostly created by wind, but can also be formed by glaciers.  The Palouse is covered in these hills, and they are great for farming.

We made our way back into Walla Walla, entering on Hwy 12 from the east.  We found ourselves near the airport and some of the industrial buildings.  Ben stopped for "E"asy Street 02 (GC5M7BD), which was a battered film cannister.  The area wasn't too terribly busy, so we didn't have to worry about muggles seeing what we were doing.  The next one took us by the regional airport.  I had Ben park the Edge in one of the shoulders out of traffic while I ran across the street to find a Costco sized mayo jar someone turned into a cache.  Sadly, there were no travel bugs inside of the Travel Bug Airport Motel (GC4QA8F).

We drove into town and headed to Pioneer Park.  We had to waste a little bit of time before the event started in downtown. Pioneer Park was huge!  We used the restroom, took pictures of the fountain that reminded us of the one on Friends, played ping pong for a while and then did the five waypoint Pioneer Park Adventure Lab.  Then we looked at all the ducks, birds and pheasants in the bird enclosure.  We found Park of the Pioneers (GC7WH9F) as we walked back towards the Edge.  It was an ammo can hidden under the bushes by the large cannon.  We took some pictures of the trees because the fall foliage was pretty.  We got back to the Edge and decided it was time to go downtown for the event, Friday the 13th Gathering (Pre CM & Solar Eclipse) (GCAER5M). We were at the park for about an hour.   

We got into downtown, found a place to park near the Red Monkey, went in and found the reserved seating for the geocachers. I wasn't sure who all was coming to this cache machine or who was all there yet. I saw a couple I knew who lived north of Seattle, so we sat in the table next to them and chatted for a bit.  Our server came up to us and I ordered a strawberry milkshake and Ben got a peanut butter shake.  When our shakes arrived, we ordered our food.  I got the Mac n cheese and Ben ordered the nachos.   

More people joined us at the table Ben and I were sitting at.  We got to talk to Lucy, a lady we spoke to at Ray and Brenda's going away event, she is part of the Inland Empire region.  We chatted with everyone for almost two hours.  I paid for our food and drinks, thanked Lori for putting together the event and left.  I asked Ben if we could go to College Place so we could get a few things at the Walmart. He said sure.  We got some yogurt, chocolate milk, cream cheese, bagels and a bag of ice. 

We got back to the hotel, decided to go down to the pool and hot tub.  We changed into our swimming suits and headed down.  We relaxed in the hot tub for a while as we talked to Brad and his friends, they also, were in the same hotel.  Ben jumped in the pool for a few minutes, told everyone we would see them tomorrow and went back upstairs.  

We got some showers in, and I spent some time working on the cache machine route on my computer while Avitar played on the TV in the background.  We got ready for bed and went to bed sometime around 1 a.m. 

Notes on the day:

We crossed off Prescott and now I have 10 more towns and cities left to go.

We found 129 caches.

An Adventure Lab with 5 waypoints. 

For a total of 134 caches for the day.

A two-day total of 156 caches. 

Next Adventure:  Early Birthday/Anniversary Weekend:  Walla Walla Cache Machine and a Solar Eclipse

Early Birthday/Anniversary Weekend: Lacey to Walla Walla

I wanted to do something exciting for my 40th birthday.  I was hoping to go to Hawaii or something like that, but we were not in a place to do stuff like that, at least not quite yet.  November is historically known for rain and terrible weather so I asked Ben if we could possibly do it in August or September and go to Utah.  He said sure but it, unfortunately, didn't work out with his work schedule.  We had to put Utah on the back burner for a while.  Instead, I decided to go to Walla Walla for a few days and it corresponded with the cache machine and a partial eclipse.  

We were going to take Ben's Edge, he booked us a hotel for four days, I went grocery shopping for light breakfasts, lunches, snacks and drinks, I planned the activities and routes for each day, we got our laundry washed and dried and packed up most everything the night before so we could leave at a decent time the next day. 

We got up at 7, we got ready, packed up the rest of the stuff into Ben's Edge, I ate a half a bagel just to get me by and Ben brought one of his overnight oatmeal to eat later.  We didn't leave the house until 8:30. We noticed that the gutter was falling off of the front of the house, so Ben put in a work order to Hometown. Ben wanted to stop at Cutter's Point Coffee so we went through the drive thru and he was able to suffice his coffee fix.  

Doug caused some problems (which always happened when we went on vacation) and I had to chat with Erika while we drove through Yelm and McKenna.  We got it worked out and she was going to come over to check on the cats while we were gone.  Ben ate his yogurt mixture as we headed to Eatonville. The traffic was minimal, which was nice.  Ben was able to find some service as we were driving near Eatonville and found out that Lester came over to fix the gutter and they closed out the ticket.  We also let Willmarth know we were on our way over if he had some time to hang out. 

From Elbe to Packwood, we had to follow several slow semi-trucks, cars and trucks.  We were able to get around some of them, so we didn't have to follow them for miles and miles.  I saw there was a new cache in Packwood, so I directed Ben to Cola Truck (GCADQMN).  It was near the gas station, so we parked at the gas station, did some stretching and found the cache.  It was an easy find. 

We got back onto Hwy 12 and had to follow a semi-truck up the pass, he did eventually pull over and let us pass but then we were slowed down by other slow cars and trucks. I thought that if we went over Hwy 12 during the early morning, we would not get stuck behind slow vehicles, apparently, we were wrong.  

We finally got to the junction where Hwy 410 meets up with Hwy 12 and we let Willmarth know we were in town.  He did get back to us and told us he was currently in a doctor's appointment, and he didn't know how much time we had to wait around.  We let him know we would check in again the next time we came through.

I asked Ben if he was hungry, and he said yes.  I asked what sounded good and we came up with sandwiches.  We traveled to Union Gap to grab a cache, Pioneer Cemetery Old Bones (GC78TEN) and while I looked for it, Ben found a place to pee. There were several signs that talked about the history of this old cemetery.  

I found the closest sandwich place and it was a Bruchi's.  We pulled in and went inside. I haven't been to a Bruchi's in a very long time since it is an Eastern Washington franchise. We perused the menu, and I got a turkey and cheese, and Ben got a Philly cheesesteak.  We both had chips and a drink.  We sat in a booth and ate our sandwiches.  

Once we were done, we made our way to the freeway and headed towards Prosser.  We talked about missing this drive every June because the TriCities Geocoin Challenge was no more.  What were we going to do with our June's now?  

We stopped in Prosser at the Love's to get gas and ice.  I used the restroom really quickly and I asked Ben if we wanted to actually go into Prosser and do some caching and he said yes.  We found a place to park near the old train station.  We walked over to do Prosser's Slide Whistle (GCAC4J1) first.  It took us a few minutes to figure out where to look since the coords took us all over the place.  We did eventually zero in on it.  

We opened up the two Adventure Labs, Horse-ing Around and Paint the Town and did them both at the same time so we didn't have to back track. We learned a lot about this small town, and it was fun seeing all of the different types of horse statues sprinkled about.  We even saw a Hitler frog, that was painted on the side of a building.  

Just before we left, we walked over to an ice cream place to find Kakashi's Favorite Malt (GCABJX4).  It was a tricky find but we got it!  We signed our names, carefully put it back and made our way back to the Edge, looking at the rest of the colorful horse statues around town. 

We drove back towards the freeway, decided to stop at the park and ride/rest area to use the restroom before we continued on our journey.  As we drove towards the TriCities, Ben called the person on shift to let them know that he was not going to be at training that evening.  That person told us that Jed's mother-in-law passed away that morning.  We wrapped up our conversation with him and immediately called Jed to let him know we were thinking of him and his family.  He said there would be a celebration of life soon and would let us know when it was.

We continued down I-82 and crossed into Oregon at Umatilla.  I have never gone this way before, so we decided to try a new route.  We got off of the freeway and onto Hwy 730.  We stopped along the way to grab a cache, Wanaket Wildlife Area (GC4T43Y).  It was a big fake rock hidden in the corner of the parking lot.  I found it quickly, got our names on it and got back on the highway.  We followed the highway along the south side of the Columbia River heading towards the Wallula Gap.

We drove back into Washington and hit the Hwy 12 junction.  We continued east on Hwy 12 towards Walla Walla. We got into town, and I directed Ben towards the middle of town.  I wanted to walk around and do a couple of caches and Adventure Labs.  We started off with the virtual cache in town, Windows of the Past (GC7B6CG).  That one was difficult figuring out what we were supposed to do because they had the park closed off due to construction.  We did eventually find a way to get close enough to it to get a photo. 

We did the Adventure Lab, Art of Main Street, while we walked into a couple shops.  I bought a magnet and some stickers from one shop.  Some protesters were peacefully protesting the free Palestine movement. Their chant was catchy. We tried staying out of their way as we finished up the Adventure Lab.  We walked back to the Edge and noticed all the hoity-toity people all dressed up going to the wine bars.  We laughed at them.

We left downtown so we could check into our hotel.  But first, I wanted to stop one more time to grab one more cache, since we were driving past it anyway. We pulled into JoAnne's and went to the back of the store.  Crafty Hide (GC41H7F) was a crafty hide.  We were there longer than I thought we would be.  The only reason why I saw it was because I could see the edge of the handmade pouch. Ben was like, how did you find that?  I told him, I've seen a bunch of these over the years and it's the only possibility besides a nano and a magnetic hide-a-key. We got our names on it while the dog behind the fence barked at us. 

We drove down the road to our hotel, the Super 8, Ben checked us in, and we parked to get the stuff out of the Edge.  I managed to step on a random hook in the parking lot, pried it out of my shoe, stacked all of our stuff onto the hotel cart and went up to our room on the third floor.  We unloaded the cart and decided on what we wanted to do for dinner.  We checked our options on our phones.  We decided on a place called BH Brewhouse Pub on Main/Palouse Street.

We drove down, found a parking spot right in front of the place, went in and was seated right away.  It wasn't that busy for a Thursday night.  We were handed menus and picked out what we wanted to drink.  Both Ben and I wanted to try the award-winning Walla Walla Wheat.  We ordered a pitcher. When the waitress came back with our beer, we ordered our food.  I got the chicken strips and fries, and Ben had the pulled pork and tots.  We watched the Chiefs beat the Broncos on Thursday Night Football.  We ate our food and enjoyed not being at home.

We went back to the hotel, showered, got comfortable, had Family Feud playing in the background while we played 10,000 and Rummy.  Ben beat me in the dice game, and I beat him at Rummy - he was a sore loser!  We got ready for bed and went to sleep around midnight.     

Notes on the Day:

We were able to get Walla Walla checked off the list for the Towns and Cities Challenge. Eleven more towns and cities to go!   

We grabbed seven geocaches, did three Adventure Labs, which totals to 15 waypoints.  A grand total of 22 geocaches altogether. 

Next Adventure:  Early Birthday/Anniversary Weekend:  Power Trails, Prescott, Pre-Cache Machine Event