I stayed at the Blue Anchor RV Park in Osburn once again. The owner is very nice and friendly. The price is right. My site was great with full utilities, cable TV, and wifi. I really enjoy staying at this park when in the area and will continue to come back.
I made it home in time for Pig out in the Park in Spokane, WA. My friend, Bernie, took me over there with her for the yearly food fest in Riverfront Park. There’s lots of food to choose from and really make a pig of yourself. There were some booths selling other things but not nearly enough. We didn’t make it on to the gondola over the falls in time before the weather turned bad. It was nice to finally get to go to this festival but not something I would want to do every year I think.
I got my best friends together and got them out geocaching right away. Bernie and her husband took to it like ducks to water. They really love spending the weekends out chasing caches in the mountains and I hear they even took a picnic lunch on one outing. I did more geocaching in the area while I was there than I have done anywhere in my travels. I guess having a friend along makes a difference. There were several locals we seemed to be competing with and following like the Pirates of the St. Joe. We kept finding their caches or caches they had been to. I got Bernie out one day to drive the outback and go after our first First To Finds (FTF). I found mine so fast it made her head spin. I spotted it as I was getting out of the car. I know my odd rocks. She found hers fairly fast too thanks to another cache we had been to with a similar hiding spot. Woohoo! My friend Cindy and I went after several near Mullan, ID. Saw my first bison tube and we nailed one up on the pass.
I discovered while I was in town that the local Rails to Trails – Route of the Hiawatha bicycle trail was nearly all downhill. 15 miles of downhill through 10 very dark train tunnels and over 7 high trestles. After some serious reflection on whether I might be crazy to even consider it, I called my youngest son and enlisted him as both a babysitter for me and a companion in craziness. We rented bikes, helmets, and lights at Lookout Pass, bought bus passes, and paid the trail fee there. They also let us borrow a bike carrier to drive the bikes to the trail. We opted to bypass the trailhead at Taft Tunnel due to the late start we got and because I could not ride uphill 2 miles on the way back through it to our car. Instead, we drove over the steep dirt mountain road to Roland where the bus would be bringing us back to from the trail end at Pearson. We loaded up our backpacks with water, lunches, my GPS, a map, and coats (tunnels are very cold) and off we went. It really was much easier than I ever thought it could be. I just had to sit on the bike as it rolled downhill and enjoy the gorgeous back country scenery. The tunnels were fun. Some we could ride through but longer ones we got off and walked due to the darkness. We found that riding side by side gave us better light through them. We had to hustle a little at the end to make the last bus back but even that was fun. Mark another item accomplished on my bucket list.
Now you would think that would be enough adventure for us but of course not. We took along the 10 clues to stops along the trail at local history signs which contained numbers we needed to get the coordinates of the final geocache. That really added to the fun and made us get some education along the way. Unfortunately, we missed the first number so I had to take what we had home, play with some possible numbers in GoogleEarth until I got the most likely spot, and then go back to the East Portal trailhead parking lot to find the cache nearby. I did find it and it was a nice fat ammo can, my favorite.
I noticed a lot of changes in Wallace. A lot of the stores have changed in 2 years. One big change is that Wallace has declared itself to be the Center of the Universe and has erected signs to that supposed fact and has a plaque in the middle of the main street to mark the exact spot now. They did this to protest the EPA and government in general figuring since they are allowed to make up facts and flawed so-called studies, why shouldn’t Wallace be able to do the same thing. ROTFL. Gotta love a town with spunk and grit.
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