OREGON TRIP 3 – DAYS 4 & 5

My cousin, Den, is and has always been a motorhead. He is currently building a dragster from a `98 Dodge Dakota. Each year there are big drag races at Woodburn, just north of Salem, where competitors come from all over the Northwest. This was the weekend for those races and Den had reservations to stay at the track all weekend in a trailer with friends. So early Saturday morning Den was off to the races and I was off to Mollala to pick up some caches for Clackamas County.

The first cache was called “Big vs Big” and was located between McDonalds and Burger King in some shrubbery around a sign. Another interesting one there was called “REALLY Close to Home”. It was located right in a front yard next to the house. [This cache will surface in the tale again]

Mollala isn’t too far from Woodburn so after finding 3 or 4 caches I headed for the drag strip. I got there about noon and it was hot and crowded. With some help I finally found Den’s friend’s trailer. These trailer spaces are right adjacent to the track so you can watch the races from your trailer spot which will have an awning to shade you from the sun plus most all the conveniences of home. Mike was there too along with 3 others. We saw some really fast and loud vehicles. Some of the faster machines would do the quarter mile under 6 seconds. There were also motorcycles which I especially enjoyed. However, by about 3:30 I had had my fill of watching cars go down the track.

I said goodbye to Den who would be spending the night there and headed back down to Albany to pick up a backup cache for Linn County. You will recall I didn’t get the backup Friday due to the GPSr accident. It was about a 30 mile trip on the Interstate so it didn’t take long. The cache was in a vacant parking lot just off the Interstate so it didn’t take long to find either. Salem is about half way between Woodbury and Albany so I reversed directions and went back to Salem.

That evening Jan, Aunt Alice, Mike and Teresa and I went out to eat at a gourmet hamburger place on the east side of Salem. It was so crowded we had to wait outside a while before we could get in. The burgers were good but they had a special do on hash browns that was really super.

I said goodbye to Jan and Aunt Alice that evening and the next morning after breakfast at Mike and Teresa’s I hit the road. I had always wanted to go through Boring, OR, and I finally did and it wasn’t really all that boring. However, before I got to Boring I wanted to get a cache located on Warnock Road in a rural area south of Oregon City. A fellow geocacher in Portland named Don Warnock who I had previously contacted because I had seen his handle (Warnock3d) on a log had told me about it and said I had to get it because of where it was located. It was at the end of a short road out in the country and the second house said Warnock on the mailbox. I noticed on the cache log that the first to find the cache were “Mr. & Mrs. Warnock”. I assumed it was the folks on that road so I stopped on the way out and knocked on their door but no one was home. Later I emailed the cachers who had placed that first to find log and told them I had knocked on their door Sunday morning. It turns out I hadn’t but I had been in their yard. They live in Mollala and owned the “REALLY Close to Home” cache I had logged the previous day. They are Chuck (Don’s brother) and Kathy and, like Don, are very active geocachers.

As I had logged only one cache in Multnomah County I wanted to get a backup. At Den’s I had entered a cache at Bridal Veil Falls in my GPSr in case I still couldn’t find the other cache located at some other falls. Without the benefit of a GPSr that would give me road directions like my old one I was more than a little handicapped.

I exited the Interstate on the Old Historic Columbia Highway about where I thought the falls might be and stopped to check my GPSr. To my surprise I found that I was just a short distance from the Bridal Veil Falls cache. I took a road in that direction but the road quickly played out and left me down in a creek bottom although less than .2 of a mile from the cache. I walked to the end of the densely wooded road (it was too rough for the motorcycle) which was no more than 200 yards and found it terminated at a fence that had the established trail to the falls on the other side. The fence was perpendicular to the creek so I climbed around it and joined the Bridal Veil Falls tourists. I didn’t realize it at the time but the falls were less than 100’ away. However, the cache was up the trail at the Columbia viewpoint.

I hiked up the trail to the viewpoint and must have looked for half an hour before I found the cache which was hidden under some moss that was all over the ground. I was pretty determined to find it. Retracing my steps back down the trail I did locate the falls which were spectacular. I recrossed the fence and went back to my motorcycle. The day had become very warm so I stripped off some clothes and had lunch in the shady little grove where I had parked. Just as I was finishing lunch a couple of sheriff deputies showed up in their vehicle wanting to know what I was doing down there. I explained and they cautioned me to be careful (do these guys know me?) and left.

I felt pretty good because this was my last needed cache as I had found at least two caches in all but 1 or 2 of the 36 counties. Rather than fight the Interstate back I crossed the Columbia into Washington at White Salmon and rode Highway 14 back to the Tri Cities area where I crossed back into Oregon briefly and then on to Walla Walla and home. It was windy, of course, but nothing compared to my last trip back earlier. I stopped and logged a couple of caches on the way just to give me a break. It was by far the hottest leg of my journey.

To fulfill the “Counting the Counties in Oregon” cache I had to submit all my caches in a list to the owner, get them approved and then I would be given the coordinates to the final cache located in Bend. I submitted my list and the owner said two of my caches which were close to the county lines were in a different county from what I had figured. Fortunately my backup caches passed muster and I got approved to log the final cache. I don’t know when I’ll make the trek back over to Bend but the pressure is off and I can do that whenever I want. I had traveled 4,000 miles on my motorcycle and like the Idaho trip the previous year it was a great adventure. I saw some fantastically diverse country and feel like I know Oregon about as well as any non-native. M/W