Wandering the Northwest

After a good night's sleep at a boondock north of Brookings, I continued to pick off my missing Oregon counties with a drive up Highway 101. I had most of the counties, but that wasn't going to stop me from enjoying the view.

There's a little arch in the rock down at water level that I never would have noticed except for the virtual cache that mentioned it.

I took advantage of some state forestry land east of Eddyville for another good night's sleep. As all good boondock spots, it was far enough from the highway to mask the noise and had good connectivity so that I could get my caches logged. 

The next morning I started with a visit to the University in Corvallis so I could get my picture taken - twice. There are two surviving webcam caches here!

I snagged a whole batch of well maintained challenge caches near Talent, Oregon and spent a couple hours with a very good friend in Newberg before heading to Scappose. The plan was to work a challenge trail there, but after getting "enough" to claim the county I left since they appeared to be very poorly maintained. Home for the night was another boondock near Cathlamet, Washington.

With my typical early start, I headed up the Columbia, first on the Washington side, and then switching to the Oregon side.

That afternoon found me working a challenge trail in the high hills west of Milton-Freewater, Oregon. I took advantage of one of the several snow parks along Highway 204 for my home for the night. Once again, I picked a spot with no one around, no noise, and decent connectivity.

The next morning I finished up the last of my Oregon counties and started on the ones that I'd ignored in SE Washington. The caches weren't memorable, but I loved my time in Pomeroy. There was a large collection of classic signs and antique vehicles that deserved more time than I gave it!

The Subie started sqawking at me a bit, so I changed up plans and headed to Spokane, making sure to pick off my last two SE Washington counties along the way.

After a couple layover days with my brother and sister-in-law in Spokane, and a quick, easy fix that was much easier in their garage than at my planned boondock, it was time to head north and west. For some reason, in spite of visiting both several times, we'd never logged caches in Ferry or Okanagan counties, so I fixed that oversight.

As I was wandering across the northern expanse of the state, I realized that I was approaching a milestone. Facing a series of challenge caches, I shuffled the sequence because I thought the name of this one pretty well summed it up!

With the milestone out of the way, and rain coming down, I had my pick of campsites at South Grandy Lake along the road to Baker Lake. At least I know how they keep things green and mossy!

I had one more county to complete my Washington counties, and it involved ferries. Parking at the ferry terminal cost nearly double what my walk-on ticket to Friday Harbor cost. I found all of the caches I looked for within reasonable walking distance, and then wandered around town, amazed at the changes since I'd last visited.

After a morning meet & greet with several folks from Geocaching HQ, another reviewer, and some other cachers, I chased around visiting some of the high favorite caches in the greater Seattle area and ended that day with a very nice boondock overlooking a full (seems like the stumps are showing usually) Lake Keechelus in preparation for a priority.

I started through the tunnel at 5:30 a.m. and had the whole hike (both ways) all to myself. The goal was a very rare geocache. BJ and I had visited several years ago but the cache was missing at that time, so it was nice to come back and log one of the two remaining Project APE caches. After the APE cache, I visited the challenge caches in the area and then headed back to Spokane.

Clean Up on Aisle 5

About 18 months ago, I stated playing with a trip plan, hoping to intentionally visit some counties that I'd never visited with my GPS in hand, and even more important, attend a couple major events in Seattle and Abbotsford, BC. Of course, we all know how that went. 

For the past couple years, I've picked away at California counties, including a bunch in Eastern California from my quick trip last summer and a small handful more just last month. Most of what is left is up the central corridor, the area that's typically our third choice for travel. That white area is enough to bug me into trying to clean them up.

In normal years, Oregon gets visited, but you can see the spots that have been ignored, primarily in the corners. There would have been another blank in the SE if it hadn't been for last year's quick trip.

As a Washington native with family ties to the state, I was a bit surprised to see how many counties I was still missing. I'm especially looking forward to getting some caches in San Juan county since I haven't been to the islands for years. Thanks to some other very interesting caches, I'm going to end up with a very circuitous route.

By the time I get finished cleaning up these three states, I should head directly home, but I have two more states where I've found caches in more than half the counties. There's certainly no straight route to getting the remaining 24 counties in Idaho, but I'll get to see lots of backroads and beautiful country in the process.

On last summer's trip I visited all the counties on the west side in Colorado. This summer, I'm hoping to finish up with the east side counties that I'm missing. With BJ's blessing, I'll take a couple extra days to visit the Colby, Kansas area as well, to drop some ink on the world's oldest existing geocache.

Eighteen months of planning and dreaming. There are nearly 1400 caches loaded in the GPS. The route totals about 8500 miles and I expect it to take 36 days. It will certainly be a great test of the Silver Subie's boondocking capabilities. I won't find all the caches I've loaded, but I expect to clean up the white spots in all five states.

Wheels should be rolling June 1st.

It's A Castle, or Perhaps A Pirate Ship

On our way from Ellensburg to Spokane, we went out of our way to visit Leavenworth, all because of a webcam cache. We were early enough that we got away with hogging the stalls long enough to collect our photo from the webcam and be on our way.

Like Glory Farm, we've been here before. We're back in our favorite moochdocking spot on South Hill in Spokane. As always, I asked if there were any projects. This time the project was for the grandnephew and grandniece. As usual, I didn't start taking pictures until the project was well underway.

With two and sometime three of us working, and with the posts already set, the project moved quickly,

until it didn't! I suppose it would help if I'd measure the correct end of the side wall.

Turns out I maybe should have measured yet again, but it's a fort, or a castle, or a pirate ship. Nothing an extra top plate won't fix, and who's looking.

This inspector never mentioned it.

The wall facing the tree was left open. With the header in place, we fitted the rafters,

and started installing the cedar wall boards. The boards might think they're a fence, but they're really a castle, or a ship, or ...

Bits and pieces left to do including roofing, but I've had my fun so it's time to wash up, hook up, and head north.

Windows on the World

From Redmond we headed north, stopping for lunch (and a couple caches) just across the river into Washington at Maryhill, picking up another essential county in the process.

Our destination was Glory Farm. We've been here several times before, always enjoying the friendship of the hosts and donating a bit of time for house restoration projects. In fact, my first project (six years ago) at Glory Farm was window related.

This farm house has always intrigued me. Local lore said it was built from multiple buildings. Now, they removed a section in preparation for a new kitchen. While they patiently (?) wait for the contractor to set footings, I couldn't resist a photo to document at least three of those buildings. (As always, you can click on any photo for a larger version - check out the foundation to clearly see each of the three sections.)

I always ask if they have a project I can work on, and they always laugh because the list is always long. This time, we worked together to get four of the upstairs windows changed out. Unlike the downstairs project years ago, these windows got the replacement treatment.

No telling where the old windows will end up - likely in another project somewhere.

The new windows will look appropriate, but they feature dual pane construction. Now the windows may be more energy efficient than the walls.

Obviously, some of the trim had to come off to remove the old windows,

But with the trim back in place and the labels removed, the improvement in function isn't immediately noticeable to passers by.

And to top off our fun at Glory Farm, we had a beautiful sunset on our last evening of a way too short visit. We'll be back at least once more this year. Who knows, maybe I'll get to come back and help with the kitchen project.

A huge thanks to Ellen and Pat for sharing their farm with us. It feels like home.

Geocaching Northwet

All week (and for weeks previous) the forecast was calling for rain. The Spokane River was running high and fast. The Earth Cache at this point was observable, but ground zero was about 60 feet out from shore.

I'd never visited Post Falls before - just driven through. The Spokane river temporarily splits here, rushing through some narrow slots that have been leveraged for power production for decades.

This time I wanted to spend a bit of time since there were some quality caches in the area. There was an excellent earth cache at the falls,

A challenge cache, some letterbox caches, and more earth caches rounded out the few hours I had available on my last day in Spokane.

First thing the next morning, I jumped on a flight to Seattle where there was no question about the weather. With rental car in hand, I headed to Tacoma where I would work a few chosen caches and then start my way north.

I haven't visited downtown Tacoma for forty years. They've done a great job of redevelopment. With the paper mills gone, the obnoxious smell is gone as well. Now the University of Washington has a notable presence.

One of the newer additions to the area is the Glass Bridge which features three different collections of Chihuly glass.

As is typical of Chihuly, the glass includes wonderful colors, swirls, and shapes. Unfortunately, in my quest to concentrate on some virtuals, earth caches, and key challenges, I totally missed that there was a nearby webcam cache that I should have visited.

The near constant rain let up a bit as I approached a couple of caches in Point Defiance Park, where the trees sport thick coats of moss.

A visit to a peat bog was appropriately accompanied by rain.

As I worked to the north, I made a decision to not pay $20 for game day parking near Safeco field (or Pike Street market.)

The nice thing about stopping under I-5's Ship Canal Bridge was easy parking. The not so nice thing was that moss grows on picnic table benches, too.

The thing I like about geocaching is that it takes me to places I wouldn't have visited otherwise. Kerry Park is such an example. It's a little pocket park up on the side of Queen Anne hill that sports a very interesting view of Seattle. It would be really special on a clear day!

I just touched the surface, not even scratching it. I need to spend more time wandering around the area!