Key to Every Mystery

Yesterday we were out geocaching yesterday... I know.. big suprise :) We found a couple of fun caches.. and a nice place to leave a travel bug ( key to every mystery) that has been traveling around with us for a few weeks now.

The Key to every mystery was released to travel on Sunday, August 24th 2008 .. from... Limburg, Belguim. It has traveled around to many different places going a total of 7,791 miles. The goal of this travel bug is to travel around and have it's photo taken while traveling. We love road trips and going fun places and have had fun taking this with us... it went to many of the same places as the skunk'd coin that I wrote about last week.

Here is our adventure with the Key :)

We picked this key up locally while geocaching with my parents who were visiting for a week. It was in a cache in a little park type place by a gas station/deli/wine tasting room. Which we had never been to before but now have been to several times... great snacks and a nice clean restroom :) The cache had a mother hen and her babies standing guard :)
The next weekend we visited Sequim, which is a favorite place of ours to visit... there is a bed and breakfast there where you get to sleep in your own caboose and then in the morning have a fancy breakfast in the dining car :) We did some caching at the John Wayne Marina and spent some time just relaxing and watching the ships coming and going :)

Lots of hiking and bike riding trails in Sequim too... and a lot of railroad history. Olympic Discovery Trail has great trails and a LOT of caches on it.
The next weekend we went up Mountain loop highway.. and did some hiking with the kids... headed up to Bear Lake for a picnic lunch and had hoped to be a FTF (first to find) a cache that is up there... but we were no luckier than the people before us had been.

We took the key to our local beach when the tide was way out.. we spent some time tide pooling and exploring that day... then off to find a good cache to place the key in to be found by it next traveling friends.

We look forward to watching the keys journey with other people as it travels around.

~Michelle

Chicken or the Egg.... Solved

Or so my daughter says.... I am not sure how this came up but while in the jeep tonight my daughter says she pretty much has it all figured out what came first. She says it has to be the egg. Her theory is that a duck and a bird got it on and that made an egg and when it hatched no one knew what it was so they called it a chicken. I am not really sure how she came up with all this... but she sounded pretty serious. The part that got me is that.. if she was four this would have been really cute.. but since she is almost 17.. I just started laughing.

~Michelle

Colorful Treasures

Colorful Treasures
Originally uploaded by Chelle_Ballard

Today things just were not going my way...no big deal.. just minor things were just not right... and then I had a conversation with someone that just set me off... I started getting all worked up and then took a breath and decided that was not going to work.. so I headed to the beach. The beach is different every single time I am there.. and every time it amazes me.. I can't wait to see which rocks have moved and which logs are new... and to look for beautiful colorful treasures. When I arrived at the beach today the tide was going out.. and it was so calm and peaceful and bright and sunny. I walked down the beach... listening to the calm and letting my eyes search the shore for treasures. It has a way of wrapping me up in the calm.. and soothing my heart and my soul... I feel like I have been stood back up and given back my strength. Even though it turned dark and the wind started picking up (weather man says a big storm is a coming) I am still feeling calm and controlled and like I can handle what life throws at me. The biggest "treasure" I get from walking on the beach is the calmness... it is just not as colorful as the glass :)

Portland

Just a quick blog post.. mostly for a friend of mine who will be visiting there soon... was thinking of emailing her but this way other people can add places they love too :)

We love to visit Portland... love to visit the open air market... huge market.. lots of crafts and music and a little bit of everything.. even has lots of fair type food. It has grown a lot in the last few years.. which is wonderful.

Portland Saturday Market ( but it is open on Sundays too )

Another favorite for us is OMSI Oregon Museum of Science and Industry. It is like the Seattle Science Center.. but bigger I think... and hey have a submarine that sits in the water.. and you can tour it... I was not sure how I felt about that but am so glad I went.. it was awesome really.

One thing we keep seeing that we want to do.. and have not yet.. is the aerial tram... it is not really a tourist thing... so we have been told.. but it looks like a lot of fun. ** note on that link is also a link to downloadable maps for Portland... like for the street cars and what not. Portland has a lot of the trains and what not that run all over town... so far we have not explored them but someday we hope to.

I would love if other people would add comments here.. and links.. I will copy them and paste them to the body of the post so that they are clickable :)

Thanks

~Michelle

Did a post here a while ago about one of our trips to Portland

Just read on a friends blog about her experience in Portland and some wonderful things she foud there ( click here to visit her blog and read her post ) and one of the things I want to be sure not to miss next time I am in Portland would be Slappy Cakes sounds like a fun place for breakfast :)

Travel Bugs

Geocaching has sort of taken over our lives right now.... we are having so much fun with it... I love that my parents and my sister and my kids are all involved... We are meeting some good people who geocache and having so much fun. I love that it takes us out into the woods to explore and that with lots of the caches come history lessons that help us to learn about the areas around us and brings up questions and discussions with the kids. I am amazed at how many new and cool places we are finding because of geocaching. This week we wanted a short hike and some quick caches so we headed out for on one the island here... found a 400 acre preserve full of hiking trails and caches. We had known the preserve was there.. just had not thought there would be hiking trails that were open to the public. They would be great for mountain biking on too... hmm can you guess what we are thinking of getting :)

So on to the travel bug part of this post.... travel bugs are things with tags that have track able numbers on them...that people put in caches... the first one we came across was the Joe Funk one...and it was a coin that had started in California and wanted to go to New Mexico in time for a child's first birthday... well it did not make it.. in fact if you go read the logs for it.. somehow it ended up traveling to Canada and hanging out with someone for like 7 months before heading back this way... we found it... moved it south and then someone picked it up that happened to be going to New Mexico... so it is a lot closer.. and only a couple of years late :(

We then picked up a travel bug (in the form of a huge key with a tag) named "The key to every mystery" that is from Belgium and wants to travel the world and have it's photo taken in cool places.. so we have been spending a few weeks taking it everywhere with us... and will put it in a new home this weekend. There will then be a blog post for it :) It is fun to see all the places it has been and we will keep a watch on it so we can see where else it goes. At the same time we picked up a geo coin... which is ( as far as I can tell) sort of the same thing... this one was the skunk'd coin.. that wants to travel around to different parks and pretty places and have its picture taken.. so it has been on a journey with the key. We just left it in cache in the beautiful preserve here on the island and took a different geo coin.. this one is a Fallen Hero Coin in honor of Staff Sgt. Todd E. Nunes.. it wants to travel from cache to cache to honor all those that have fallen.

This post is to share some of the photos of the Skunk'd coin that we have now left in the other cache and to share where it has been. We found it in a cache hidden on Mountain Loop Highway, which was visit often for hiking and caching. It was in a cache called "oh Shoot! I forgot my camera at home" Well we did remember out camera... but it was a very wet overcast day so the view was not what it can be.

We then took it to Sequim on a geocaching/hiking adventure with us.

We stayed at our favorite bed and breakfast where you sleep in your own private caboose.
We also went to the John Wayne Marina and watched the boats coming and going.. found a couple of fun caches there.

Great Hiking in Sequim on the Olympic Discovery Trail and lots of train stuff... saw a couple of really awesome train trestles turned hiking trails.

It needed to visit our beach ( Camano Island ) while it was here.. so we took it down for super low tide and it had it's photo taken here :)
Next we headed up Mountain Loop Highway ... if you follow my blog you will see many posts about this place... as we tend to visit there often... rivers and lakes and woods and trails and mines and caves and views and camping... you can not go wrong.. it is a beautiful place full of interesting caches. This last weekend we headed for a trail to Bear Lake.. Pretty easy hike.. about 3 miles total... and a beautiful mountain lake is the reward :)
Now the coin is hiding in a cache off a trail in here. We look forward to watching it's travels from here on out :)

~ Michelle