GeoWoodstock

A whole day surrounded by geocaching enthusiasts.  My vision of the event is it's going to be like a small scale fair combined with a trip to WalMart - a festive atmosphere with tents and booths where you can hardly move without bumping into someone.  I'm *SO* glad Sheri is biting the bullet to come with me.  She doesn't cache at all, and I'm not an enthusiast like Greg.  Oh, I'm so not looking forward to the crowds...

After some mighty fine bacon with a tasty breakfast, we made it to Remlington Farms in Carnation, Washington - the location of this year's GeoWoodstock.  After being there for about a half hour, I could feel the walls closing in.  Complete strangers were coming up to see where I was from and how I liked caching there.  It seemed like I couldn't turn around without either bumping into someone or being accosted.  But here comes Sheri to the rescue!  In addition to hanging with me for the day, she came up with some alternative entertainment: Sheri, Chachee and I spent the rest of the day scoping out and taking pictures of the wildest outfits we could find.  =)

Turns out our first specimen (the fellow in the orange shirt with the bowling pin - he goes by Gomer) is a friend of Greg's from Florida.  He and his cohorts drove cross-country to attend the festivities.  Now that's dedication! After a while, Sheri and I parked it on the lawn while the rest of our buddies took off for a "team" caching event - they came in 4th out of 8 teams.  Not so bad...  Chachee even won a raffle prize - yay!!

Aaron and Team Purple Heading Out

Chachee Returns with Her Prize

 

 All in all, it wasn't a bad day.  I definitely don't need to attend another GeoWoodstock (Honey, if you want to go, you're on your own!), but it was fun to spend time with friends and I especially enjoyed the time with Sheri.  So glad she could get the time off for the weekend, and consented to hanging around with crazy cachers.  =)

For dinner, we stopped in at Triple XXX Rootbeer Drive-in (recommended by Gomer) for burgers.  Definitely worth the stop!!  Great rootbeer, great shakes, great burgers.  Greg had one almost as big as his head - the Cutlass 442 with a beef patty, hot dog, slab of ham, bacon, and topped with grilled onions.  We all hurt watching him finish.  (Read the fine print on the warning sign below - advice worth following!)  I'll definitely keep this spot in mind for future trips down South.

On tap for tomorrow: Split the group.  Greg, Aaron, and Chachee are going to do more geocaching events while Sheri, Phil, and I head out to visit my friend Holly and her family.  Time for some shopping!!  =)

Lighthouse Coastal Tour

Greg originally wanted to get started at 6:30am today.  Lucky for me, we couldn't check out of the room until 8am.  An extra hour or so of sleep, yay!  To make up for not being able to leave as early as planned, Greg went out to see some sights and get some pictures.  In the guise of being helpful, he thoughtfully set the alarm on his blackberry.  This is all good and fine, except the damn thing was locked and I had no way to disarm it - the best I could do was snooze for 5 minutes.  When he got back to the room 45 minutes later, it was in pieces.  Fortunately for him, those pieces were the case, the battery, and the device, rather than smashed little bits.  Not the most auspicious way to start the morning for someone who is definitely NOT a morning person.  But the cinnamon roll almost as large as my head and some coffee from a little cafe in Oceanside seemed to help immensely.  =)

The plan for today was to do some sightseeing as we made our way back up to Washington for the geocachers luau, a pre-GeoWoodstock event.  First stop along the way, the Tillamook cheese factory for a tour and lunch.

It was fascinating to see the factory and learn about one of my favorite brands of cheese.  We got to taste several flavors that aren't available back home, and had a most delicious cheese sandwich for lunch.  I have to admit that I was disappointed in the quality and cooking of the bacon (it was thin and floppy, rather than thick and crispy), but the combination of cheeses - extra sharp white, medium, and sharp - was delicious!  Being full from lunch, we didn't get more ice cream.  I'm wishing that I could have that ice cream I skipped on then, right now...

From there, we headed north along the coastal route to see some lighthouses.  Of course, in many of our stops there were caches to be had.  Some were Earth Caches - where we have to find information about a formation or phenomenon - like Haystack Rock.  Greg went to find the cache while Sheri and I visited and wondered why this area has deer that jump through hoops.  I suppose it's good exercise and will keep them on their toes?

We stopped at North Head Lighthouse for a short walk and some nice views.  Then headed to Desperation Point.  Greg did the hike out to the lighthouse while Sheri and I entertained ourselves by chatting and taking pictures of the local flora.

We didn't make it back to Washington in time for the luau.  In fact, we arrived back at Sheri's apartment at 9pm - in time to hook up with Aaron and Chachee again and relax for an evening before more fun tomorrow.  It's GeoWoodstock all day tomorrow.  How fun is that?!?

The Oregon coast is absolutely beautiful.  I really enjoyed our little sightseeing tour, and only regret that we didn't have more time.  I would have liked to see my cousins who live in Beaverton - I just looked it up and am really sad, since we passed so close to them on this trip - and our schedule just didn't work to hook up with Greg's cousin Larry.  Next time we make a coastal trip (that's not all about geocaching), I'm going to make sure that we get more family visits in.

Family, Caching, and Hiking. Oh my!

Up early again today and it's Old Home Week (day) for Greg - all his comments were about how things have changed in the Portland area since he lived there years and years ago.  We met Greg's cousin Mike for breakfast.  It's always a pleasure to meet and spend time with family.

After spending an enjoyable morning (re)connecting with Mike, we headed to The Original Stash and to hook up with Aaron and Chachee.  The Original Stash is the first geocache that was ever hidden.  Since this is a weekend of cache-laden events, it's natural to find the first ever hide... and anything else that's in the surrounding area.  A short hike, searching a pile of cement rubble, opening hundreds of film canisters to find the one that has the log...  it's all fun, right?  =)

In addition to the caching, we hit Multnomah Falls (there are a couple caches there, too).  An absolutely beautiful waterfall, and an exhilarating hike.  Of course, I was the slowest in our group - I appreciate the patience of my companions.  My being out of shape was part of the problem, compounded by my sense of vertigo.  It's kinda crazy when you know logically that you're not going to spontaneously lose control, roll down the mountain and die just because you're close to the edge of the trail, but you still get the panic - shallow breathing, intense fear, paralysis, sweating like crazy, crying like a baby, etc.  I walked on the inside of the trail (changing sides with every switchback), leaning my head and upper body up the slope the entire way to the top.  But I made it to the top, and only cried like a baby once.

The path was level and well-traveled, and the views (from nowhere close to the edge) were spectacular.  We actually have a piece of artwork - that will someday be back on the walls, when we're done with the remodel project - that depicts Multnomah Falls.  A lovely day, an energizing hike, and some great company.  Who could ask for anything more?

What you don't see in the picture above is that I'm gripping the railing (as if that's going to stop the whole platform from toppling down the side of the mountain).  I'm surprised there weren't imprints of my hands when we finished, and I have no idea what the view is like from there, except back towards stable land, and the big tree that I used to focus when the panic and tears would start.  =)  We ended the day by stopping in Tillamook, Oregon for super-fresh ice cream and then heading out to our hotel room.  We stayed in Netarts, a quaint little seaside village.  The room wasn't much aside from the view, which was spectacular.

On tap for tomorrow: lighthouse excursion and the geocaching luau.  Good night!

GeoWoodstock, Sheri, and all that Jazz...

The onset of this trip was fraught with stress.  Somehow I misread the departure/arrival times for our flight and thought we were leaving for Seattle at 5pm and arriving at 9pm on Wednesday (06/30) - instead we left at 1:30pm and arrived at 5:50pm, a WORLD of difference for us and for Sheri (who picked us up).  I took Greg to work (at 4am!), went back to sleep intending to get up at 8:30am, and woke in a panic at 10am - when I was supposed to be picking Greg up from work (so we could get food before going to the airport).  An hour late, we were on the way directly to the airport instead - sans breakfast.  It worked out okay - made it through security, met Aaron for lunch at Chili's, got to the gate a few minutes before they started boarding...  and we're on our way!!

I got pictures of two new vending machines I'd never seen before: Best Buy, where you can get iPods and games; and a lottery vending machine.  The trip to Seattle is going to be a whirlwind - is there any other kind of trip when Greg's around?  I call it the trip to Seattle, but we're actually not going to spend much time there (if we go at all).  We arrived at SeaTac last night, had dinner in the Renton area (Olive Garden, YUM!), then headed down to Portland to spend the night there.  Got some tasty beverages for the road.  Of course I had to have my Rock Star, but we found a new one we just had to try.  It's actually pretty tasty - although you might never guess by the name: Kickapoo Joy Juice, the Original Dogpatch Recipe.

Early this morning, we left our comfortable beds at the O_EL to get breakfast with one of Greg's cousins, then meet friends to do some geocaching.  The main purpose of this trip is to attend GeoWoodstock - a major geocaching event, where loads of people are descending on the area to... get together and cache?  Something like that.  I'm a day behind in my post - haven't covered anything from today, but it's midnight here and we're going to be starting early again tomorrow.  So I'll leave you tonight with some teasers...

Flower Power

We're enjoying some really nice weather this weekend.  Which means it's time to start thinking about planting flowers... which in turn means a trip out to Forget Me Not Nursery in Indian.  What a lovely trip!!

I wanted to get my flowers a little earlier this year than last, when I waited until after Memorial Day weekend (and our first camping trip of the season) - by then, it was slim pickin's everywhere I went for flowers.  For this year, going earlier meant this weekend (since next weekend we're camping - yay!!), and it was perfect for a road trip.

Forget Me Not Nursery is about 30 minutes south of Anchorage.  The drive is along the Turnagain Arm (in Cook Inlet), where at various times you can either see whales, dahl sheep, cliff climbers, and mini waterfalls.  It's a gorgeous area.  The nursery has a new flower display every year.  Last year, the flowers made a clock (see my post here), this year it's a sailboat.

 

The people are really friendly and the flowers are always well-tended.  I found a fairly good selection, and I'm pleased with my purchases.  If I'd come even earlier, there would've been some other items that I was interested in (like the purple - or "blue" that looks deep purple - supertunias).  As it was, I got a good selection and I'm getting excited to plant my flowers...

The rest of the evening was also very enjoyable.  We met friends for dinner to celebrate Anita's birthday - hope it was a good one, my friend! - then did a little geocaching.  We introduced two n00bs to the game... Apparently there's a geocaching app for the iPhone ("there's an app for that").  Not sure how accurate it is compared to a standard GPS, but it sure is handy.  =)

My favorite part of caching is the sights I realize I would've missed, had I stayed home.  Last night was no exception.  It was a beautiful night, and Sleeping Lady was out in all her grandeur.  I couldn't ask for a better way to end an exceptional day!

Valdez Weekend

Since we have several friends that like to take advantage of the siblings that work at Peter Pan to get fish, we planned a road trip to pick up the orders (saves on shipping), with the additional benefit that I get to see Sara one more time before she leaves Valdez. Yay! Unfortunately, I remembered (when we were 4 hours from home) that I left my camera on the table. All the pictures in this post are courtesy of Greg (and his fancy-pants camera). =)

Greg & I drove down (over?) after work on Friday, which means we didn't hit town until 1am Saturday morning. Sara was able to get us a nice "room" (really an apartment-style place, with it's own bathroom and a kitchen to boot!) at the cannery. It had a lovely view of the marina (above), and was a very nice place to hang our hats - for the little bit of time that we were actually in it.

Sara had to work for a bit Saturday morning, so while we were waiting we went to breakfast. Then picked her up to wander around town and spend some time together. Before the trip, Greg downloaded some cache coordinates, so we headed out to find some new things to see. It was a grey, drizzly day - but still relatively nice. Not so much rain that we got drenched, and warm enough that I wore sandals and a jacket. We saw a glacial lake with floating chunks of ice (above), and another cache was at a small waterfall (below).

Sara had to go back to work for a couple hours, so Greg & I wandered around some more while she was gone. We saw two black bears, and took some turns down roads we'd never traveled before. We took advantage of the 4-wheel drive on Sully (thanks to Sheri for helping to name my car!) to get to some of the areas. Valdez is a lovely spot - even in the overcast and rain - although I can't imagine the winter, where I've heard they get snow that can pile up to the rooftops. I'll stick to the summer excursions! =)

For the evening entertainment, we took a ride on one of the cruise ships. It happened to be a fund-raising event for the visitor's center - a murder-mystery set in the 1920's. We didn't have costumes, but it was fun to see the locals all decked out, and of course the scenery from the boat was amazing.

Sunday morning we were able to spend a bit more time with Sara for breakfast, then it was time to load up the fish and head back home (I still had laundry to do before the workweek began). We stopped at the crest of Thompson Pass and did a little more off-roading. The pass is always a good spot for spectacular scenery. When it's clear, it's like you can see the world below you. When it's cloudy, it's like you're shrouded in mystery. And it's always as if you're at the top of the world. (I have pictures at the pass here where it's sunnier with Sheri.)

We made a short stop at Harding Glacier too (mostly so I could use the restrooms), and got updated pictures. In the post here, I have pictures from 2007 - and if you click on one of them you can just make out three people climbing the ice. It's still awe-inspiring to be so close to such a magnificent view.

We stopped a couple more times on the road home (for some of Greg's caches), and got to enjoy the beautiful fall colors. Alaska is a beautiful place, and I'm extremely glad we've had such a wonderful summer! (Hopefully that doesn't mean we're in for a terrible winter...)

It was a lovely, if quick, weekend. Very nice to spend more time with Sara - and a fun road trip, to boot! She'll be at the house to visit in less than a week, but she doesn't get to spend as much time with me as she used to, so I'm really glad that we were able to get together a couple times over the summer. =)