A First for Fritz

Our short weekend trip to Yakima was Fritz's first experience traveling with our trailer. He dearly loves a car ride, so that part he understood well. Trailer life was a little confusing for a short time, but as long as he's with his boys all is right in the world.

We parked the trailer in Sportsman State Park which is on the eastern banks of the Yakima River. It's a very nice park with lots of trails for hiking and a great campground with level sites for quick trailer set up.

Saturday morning, DH and the twins rose way too early (5:45 a.m.) to meet with the other geocachers and begin the machine. There were over 100 cachers from Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Montana, most breaking up into groups of three or four cars to hunt together. But Kirsten and I stayed all snug in the trailer until it was a more decent hour, eating some breakfast and getting a little stitching done.

Late morning it finally warmed up enough for a walk on the dike. We didn't see a lot of birds or wildlife, but did see plenty of evidence that they're around! :) It was quite a job keeping Fritz out of the stuff.

The water levels are low right now, but when that snowpack in the mountains starts to thaw, this picture will look much different.

Soon after we finished our walk, the clouds started to encroach. Gary and the boys came back to the trailer for some lunch and Kirsten and I joined them for the rest of the day geocaching. We soon caught up with some of DH's favorite people to caravan with, so all I had to do at times was follow the car ahead of me. The clouds continued to pile up and by mid-afternoon we were in the middle of a hailstorm. Luckily the hail fell before reaching the clear ice stage, so it was pretty soft and didn't do any damage to our people searching for caches.

By 7:30 p.m. it was beginning to get dark, so we headed over to the coordinates given to the restaurant where all the cachers would have dinner together. Unfortunately, there were so many of us that the back room was soon filled, the restaurant was full of the general public, and we were too hungry to wait in line. Luckily right next door was the famous Miners Drive In. A couple of school buses of sports teams had just left, leaving plenty of room for the overflow of cachers. As the food came, the stories of the day began to flow. We sat next to a family group from the Olympia area who had met with the cachers for dinner on Friday night, then headed east to the Tri-Cities area to begin their 24-hour cache frenzy. They cached all night, working their way back to Yakima, where they met with everyone for the machine at 6 a.m. and continued caching all day. And they didn't even look tired after all that!!

Sunday morning was more laid back for our boys and I made the requested huge pancackes, where one pancake fills the pan and is as big as a plate. After breakfast, they went out for a few more caches, while Kirsten and I puttered around the trailer, getting it ready to go once again, and do more stitching of course. Another walk would have been nice, but the weather was not the cooperating with us, and I really did need to get as much stitching in as I could. :)

While it would have been nice if the temperatures had been a little warmer, we did have a great weekend. For me, just taking the trailer out is a very happy time.