derekl_1963

Saturday

Spent pretty much the whole day working on the RV. Took it out and dumped the tanks after flushing the fresh water system, replaced the house battery, topped off all the fluids, etc... Since the day was sunny and reasonably warm, we washed it too. (It didn't actually look all that dirty, but when you saw a washed section next to an unwashed... *wow*.)

Sunday

Long day caching down in Shelton and back to Belfair. (Found 10 of 11 we tried!) Lunch was Jack-in-the-Box because the A&W has closed - big time sad face - that leaves only the one in Port Orchard locally. I also scored the last set of scouting photos I'm taking for they gentleman who is making a tour of the country photographing the few surviving drive-in theaters. (Fewer than 400 survive nationwide.)

Monday

Pretty much a quiet day - worn out from the last two and Brenda had to work. Grilled up some burgers for dinner because it's Memorial Day weekend, and you have to grill *something*! Even though we're not actually having summer weather yet, and are barely having spring.

Fourth of July weekend... summed up;

• Sat: Up early and off to the Peninsula for a day of exploration and geocaching in and around Port Townsend.
  
  Hit up Edensaw (a lumber dealer/woodworking store) but they we closed for the weekend. Right next door there was a place dealing in salvage lumber, and while the gate was open nobody seemed to be about so I called the number on their sign on a whim - and one of the workers was there and gave us a tour of the yard. (Note to self: Call them back every now and again to see what they have in stock.) Hit up Akami (art store) and gave Brenda an early birthday present (cash) which she promptly spent a good chunk of on paints and brushes.
  
  In amongst all this, we found five of the seven caches we attempted, which is a pretty good run. One took us to the town's historical cemetery, all the clues were the birth and death dates of various historical personages buried there, and the cache owner took the time to write a nice brief bio of each of them. My favorite of the day lead to an overlook up on the hill with a *wonderful* view of the water - and was two blocks from the Farmer's Market, which we wandered for a bit.
  
  Lunch was at Dos Okies - a BBQ place near the marina (highly recommended!), their sides need work but their Q is excellent. The real score however was dinner... We wanted pizza, and the first search result had five stars and when I looked further had a steady run of 4.5/5 star reviews. (I love smart phones!) So off we went to Lanza's for one of the better Italian dinners we've ever had.
  
  I got some excellent photographs from the overlook, and also of some deer we spotted having a bit of lunch in someone's garden. (At least I hope they come out, it's always a crapshoot.)
  
  
• Sun: Sunday was medium quiet... Chuck came over and we hung out and then grilled up dinner. Steak, potatoes, and corn - your basic grilled dinner. The steak was *excellent* if a hair overdone, but we're still mastering the Egg.
  
  
• Mon: Brenda had to work a half day, so I was stuck at home. Feeling a bit down, I headed out to Waterfront Park and wandered around. I got one decent photograph in about two hours. When she got home, we headed up to Klayton & Heather's BBQ... We've been invited for years, but it always conflicts. Had a blast and also indulged in photo geekery, beer geekery, and Scotch (whiskey) geekery along with excellent food and massive quantities of fireworks. Sadly, we had to bail early because Brenda had to work early today and because I'd promised Eric that I'd give him and their dogs a lift home before the main event fireworks.
  
  After dropping off Brenda, I headed back out to a spot I'd scouted out earlier that looks across the Narrows and down at Lion's Field and shot the fireworks people were shooting off there. If I get even *one* that is half as good as they looked on the camera's screen I'll be ecstatic.

All and all an excellent weekend. I missed going to the ball game like we usually do, but for one reason or another Brenda and I were the only ones that could go and we decided it wouldn't be the same with just us and bagged it as well.

Off to start laundry, and then to import and process the photographs. I'm months behind on posting and have resolved to post current work in a timely fashion and to hack away at the backlog.

Saturday was another geocaching run, this time in South Kitsap. The day started out well and ended up being a bit of a roller coaster...

I'd picked out a set of caches Fri night, but right before we set out I checked my email and saw that a new cache had just been published right at the head of our route. I added it to our list, and when we got there was pleasantly surprised to find we were FTF - the first to find. We then quickly found the next two on our list. The second of those was particularly fun, the GPS lead us to a spot with no obvious hide locations, and then I noticed one about thirty-forty feet back. (GPS is only accurate to sixty odd feet remember.) I decided to trust the Force, went and checked that location, and came right up with the cache. (Yay me!)

Then... the roller coaster. We couldn't find the next one even after an extensive search. (Though the signs indicated it may have vanished, and over the course of the day, two others also logged that they didn't find it and thought the same.) We couldn't find the next one either, and were further chagrined when within an hour of us giving up it was logged as someone's first find! After giving up, we headed into Gig Harbor for lunch intending to eat somewhere on the waterfront but were frustrated by the car and foot traffic for an Arts Festival and ended up having to settle for Burger King.

Then the roller coaster reversed... We checked and found there was a cache in a little garden area near the BK which turned out not only to be full of Robins singing away but also a fairly quick find even though it was cleverly hidden. The next one took us to a lovely little park at the head of the inlet.

Done with our list we decided to 'follow our noses' (and the maps in the car navigator) and headed out onto the point overlooking the Sound. We found a spot with a spectacular overlook and I got some wonderful shots of the water and of Mt Rainer. We checked and found there was a park and a cache nearby so we headed over and walked the beach to find the cache and also spectacular views of Commencement Bay. (Luckily it was low tide, as it turned out the cache would have been inaccessible otherwise.)

It getting on towards dinner time, we headed back into Gig Harbor and found that while the traffic had abated the parking lot at the spot we'd kinda hoped to have dinner and a beer to be full to overflowing, so we headed up into Silverdale and decided to try the new Hale's.

Hale's has only been open two weeks or so, so while the beer and food were pretty dang good, they've still got a lot of rough spots. The service was uneven and the waitress not too knowledgeable about their beers. We both ordered our hamburgers medium and they were delivered medium well to well, but they were still pretty darned good. Their beers were also good, so Silver City is going to be into a real run for it's money. Next time we visit, we'll avoid sitting on the patio though. There was a nice breeze, but also quite a bit of glare from cars in the parking lot and reflected glare from the windows.

We will be going back, as they have several beers we want to try and their food looks interesting. With Silver City's over fascination with garlic (and we both like garlic) we may have found a new favorite pub.

Tummies full and feet tired, we headed home and flaked out on the couch.

Sunday was far quieter, spent mostly doing errands and housework. Really not much to say about Sunday.

<Photographs from last weekend's Geocaching expedition.>



Geocaching has taken us many places, but few as unexpected as this.

What you can't see in the photo, is the year they were married, 1985. But you can see from Mary's date of death that just six years later, she was gone. The newspaper merely lists that she died at home. A daughters name is on the gravestone, and I presume she has grown into adulthood and is a mother herself today as tucked behind the flowers is a printout of photograph of a young baby... with the caption "Happy Birthday Grandma from K_____".

But the detail that caught our eye was the ashtray... I wonder if Charles comes up here, has a few cigarettes, talks with Mary, and then goes home.

I know I would.

I'm glad I don't have to.

All-in-all not a bad weekend, got to geocache all three days as is now Tradition. Found a couple of really nice ones over in Seattle, the rest in and about Kitsap County. (Including one just a few dozen feet from Brenda's boss's driveway!) Sunday ran a few June Faire errands and had some friends over for steaks. Monday was mostly lazy, snagged a couple of caches in the afternoon, and when the sun came out gave the RV a bath.

However, Saturday was marked by photographic frustration:

• We were caching in and around the Georgetown area of Seattle, all those wonderful older commercial building, but the low cloud cover made for the crappiest light.
  
  
• Speaking of cloud cover, it was just high (or low, depending on how you want to put it) enough that aircraft landing at Sea-Tac were breaking out of the clouds right over our heads....  Except when I stopped and set up the camera to try and get a shot they'd stop coming over...
  
  
• Speaking of aircraft, there was a B-17 flying around all day, except when I actually had the camera out...  (Wait, there's more!)  I finally got a chance at a shot with the phone, lined it up perfectly, timed it just perfectly - and hit the wrong button, closing the camera.  (Arrrg!)  After that I just gave the heck up.
  
  

Took off for the weekend for the first longish trip in the RV, and had a blast.

Brenda and I are really liking this RV thing. Setup and teardown is so much simpler than with a tent camp along with being much more comfortable! Fifteen minutes after turning off the ignition I was sitting at the table with a cool one in hand. On the other hand, unlike a motel when there are problems - we get to deal with them instead of handing them off to the staff and leaving them behind us when we leave. (In this case, electrical problems, we've lost the lights at the dining table...) Still need to add a few things to the RV, but I suspect that will go on for a while until we get some more experience built up. When we got home, unpacking was a snap as if it came out of the RV at all it went straight into the house to either the kitchen or the bedroom. None of that "this goes in the garage, this goes in this closet this goes in that closet and this gets dumped in a corner because I've never actually found a spot for it".

The drive itself was interesting as this was the first time I'd actually driven the RV on back roads where the speed limit was higher than 35... Some of the curves got a little frightening because where a car can go neatly around the curve, the back of an RV is much further back and forces involved are much higher. I'm much more comfortable with it now, but a long way from completely comfortable. OTOH, when stuck in traffic waiting for our turn to move (they were paving and thus down to a single lane for quite a stretch the other side of Allyn) I was able to pop back to the refrigerator and grab a coke. I even pondered hitting the bathroom, but decided that would be pushing my luck. Half an hour later when we finally moved, I quite regretted that decision! :) Still, when a chance arose, taking a bathroom break was simplicity itself - I pulled over at a wide spot in the road and just headed back to the bathroom.

I'd picked up a pair of FRS radios and they proved a godsend because Brenda and I could keep each other updated as to the need for bathroom breaks, variations from the planned route, etc. etc.

Hanging around the campground was interesting - I never thought I'd spend an evening assembling a jigsaw puzzle while conversing with complete strangers. Yet there I was.

Both Brenda and I took a stack of books with us, but we spent a lot of time either in the camp hall or conversing with our neighbors and never cracked open any of them.

We got out on Saturday and did some geocaching - attempted 11, found 4, didn't find 4, and waved off on 3. A bit lower than average, but I'd picked some of the more challenging ones available. The most interesting one of the day was based on the life of John Tornow, The Wild Man of the Wynoochee. One of the reasons I enjoy caching is the chance to find odd little bits of local history that I might not otherwise encounter.

All in all very nice.

A very busy weekend! We went caching (Brenda and I) on Saturday and had so much fun we abandoned our plans for Sunday (furniture shopping boring!) and headed back out and cached some more with Chuck tagging along. All that walking and all those miles under our butts were quite tiring, so even though the pool was still a little green we warmed it up and got in anyhow. Monday Brenda had to work, so Chuck and I headed out and grabbed a couple more just to make it three days out of three and then back home to grill up some burgers. (Can't not grill on Memorial Day weekend!)

In the course of our travels we stopped at McDonald's and Brenda tried their new Mocha and pronounced it 'gross and disgusting, tasting like cheap hot chocolate with a little coffee flavor'.

We searched out part of a series of caches that take you to various historical cemeteries in Kitsap County, some abandoned or mostly so, and some still in use.



Ashes to ashes - a headstone in a cemetery near Manchester. Though none were so decorated in this particular cemetery (possibly because we were there so early), it was quite moving to see many graves decorated with veterans flags for the Memorial Day weekend.

These two were taken near a cache based on the Veterans memorial in Manchester - they do a poor job of showing just how glorious the day was:





Brenda's favorite picture of the weekend, two deer peacefully grazing on the roadside near Olalla.



The final tally was sixteen finds, several Did Not Find, one that we didn't find that turned out to be missing, and a handful or so that we waved off for one reason or another. (No safe parking, too many onlookers, etc...)

Challenge updates:

Kitsap County Challenge:



We cleared seven map squares (highlighted in red) this weekend. We tried three of the four in the Southwest corner but ended up with a solid string of Did Not Finds. (Hey, if it were easy what would be the point?) Map 680, in the bottom Southwest corner, will require a two mile hike to get to the nearest cache - and we are so badly out of shape we aren't ready to try that. Brenda and I are working on fixing that. (Being out of shape.)

Alphabet Soup Challenge:

_B_DEFGHIJ_M_OPQR__UVWXYZ

We cleared a total of nine letters (highlighted in red) over the course the weekend... Ten more to go.

A nice, almost summer like weekend. Even if the weather guesser on NWCN is bloody insane - Lady, we don't want a break from the heat... We want a break from the #$%^$# winter!

Of course, with the prolonged cool spell we've had for a spring, I've kept talking myself out of getting the pool cleaned and ready for summer... which meant it was warm, but no pool. I've gotten that started now so in a week or so it should be ready, possibly in time for the Memorial Day weekend.

Saturday, Brenda and I got up and headed out fairly early to get some geocaching in as part of our commitment to getting out of the house more. I'd chosen some fairly easy ones but we were still quite surprised to find all five we attempted, normally our success rate is closer to 60 or 70%. All five found this weekend were picked to count towards the Kitsap County Challenge Cache with the goal of finishing it by Labor Day. After find the last cache of the day, in Silverdale, we headed over to the Silver City Brewery for beer and a snack. It's been years since I've been in there, their beers are still good and the food has much improved.

In the evening we went over to Rich (alenthor ) and Wendy's (gwen_the_potter ) for Rich's welcome home BBQ - it's very good that he is back from the sandbox and in one piece. The most amusing part was while recounting his adventures at one point, he started ragging on the Air Farce - a point of view enthusiastically shared by myself (Navy, like Rich) as well as the two Army folks, and the Marine.

Sunday Chuck came over and we our first grilling of the season - we did three racks of ribs with all the summer sides. Yum!