No, this is not a remake of a bad Wham! song. Captain Midnight and I are off to enjoy the wonder of nature that is a cache machine -- a massive convoy of geocachers following a pre-planned route, finding as many caches as possible along said route. This one's going to be in North Kitsap, and it will be my very first cache machine, so I'm pretty excited.
CM and I got up at Oh Dark Hundred (aka Oh You Gotta Be Kidding Me) and drove, only occasionally losing our way, to a Park & Ride where we met up with Fen and Mitch to carpool on the ferry over to Kitsap.
The
Puyallup was our gallant ship for the day, complete with many groggy passengers...
...and a rather too-optimistically named Sun Deck.
My honey was pleased to be underway.
Soon enough the town of Kingston hove in sight, and we were ready to do some caching in earnest. Or at least in Kingston.
After hitting a few caches around the waterfront...
...and a few more in the 'burbs...
...we headed into the woods.
As you probably already know, "geocaching" comes from an old Latin phrase meaning "how geeks hike."
We wandered through the woods for some time and found a few caches (and DNFed a few as well).
What else was there to find?
Flora and fauna to photograph, that's what!
There was fungus among us.
Also a number of fluffy lichens...
...dew-speckled evergreens...
...and the occasional attractive mammal.
Ah, the trail back to civilization.
We stopped in Kingston to pick up lunch at the Main Street Ale House, which turned out to be delicious (so much so that I forgot to take any pictures). If you happen to be in the area, hungry, and not in a big hurry to be served, I can highly recommend it.
Then it was back into the fray!
We found a cache under this tree (never you mind where; go find it yourself) and then headed further along the trail in search of another.
You guessed it, more fungus. And bonus slugs.
D'aww, invertebrate love.
Anyway, after some tramping through the woods we found this big ol' burned out stump.
No, really, it was huge. The camera does not give a decent idea of its scale.
Had I taken a picture of myself nestled inside this thing, I would have looked teeny-tiny.
Anyway, eventually we found the cache we were seeking and started looking for caches in more populous areas.
...but wait, what's this in the distance?
We drove past for a closer look.
Huh. Must be a Walmart.
We stopped at the shore for a look at the (faraway) Point No Point Lighthouse.
The Puget Sound has some amusing place names. Deception Pass, Cape Disappointment, Point No Point, Useless Bay... I'm sort of surprised Lewis & Clark didn't just name something Mount Screw It, Let's Beat Feet Back To Civilization.
Moving on. In this case "moving on" means "back into the woods for another hike." Your gracious hostess, who is out of shape, did a lot of huffing and puffing around this point (but no blowing down pigs' houses; that's just rude).
Beautiful area, though.
Around about dinner time, we decided to visit the festive location where the other geocachers were gathered.
And there were quite a few of them, making merry and eating chips and salsa.
The ancient Aztec whatsits on the wall said, "TIME TO GO HOME, GEOCACHERS."
So we did.
Thanks for taking us with you today, Fen and Mitch! It was fun.
2 comments:
And don't forget Dismal Nitch! Sort of get the impression that Lewis and Clark were REALLY ready to be done by the time they reached Washington.
Troo. Dat.
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