The child and I headed to Olympia to visit Orca Books. I purchased Toby Barlow's Sharp Teeth after a recommendation from The Written Nerd. I also picked up a copy of Jess Walter's The Zero. Walter is the featured novelist at the next live show of A River & Sound Review. I am currently reading his book Every Knee Shall Bow: The Truth and Tragedy of Ruby Ridge and the Randy Weaver Family, which is very well written and highly recommended. The Zero was a recent fiction finalist for the National Book Award, so I figure that it should be a good read, especially since Every Knee Shall Bow is so engrossing. I am trying to get a couple of his books read before he does a live reading, especially since I am now volunteering for A River & Sound Review.
Then it was off to McMenamin's Spar Cafe for pub food and ale. The child and I split a bacon cheeseburger and fries. I had a pint of Hammerhead, an American Pale Ale by McMenamin's Pubs and Breweries. It arrived with a copper body and thin white head that maintained its presence throughout the meal. The aroma was of honey, caramel malts, and grassy hops. The flavors were sweet grass, light bitterness, and an undercurrent of freshly split wet logs. It was a good solid ale, but nothing spectacular.
Geocaching came next, which meant wandering around downtown Olympia. Our first cache find was near Olympia's famous artesian well. The child and I didn't drink any of the free-flowing water, but we watched plenty of people walk up and take a drink, let their dog take a drink, or drive up and fill container after container.
Our second cache find was near the original Capitol building. The child played with rocks and pine cones.
Our third cache find was in a wonderful city park, Yashiro Japanese Garden. It contained running water, plenty of large rocks, bamboo, various flowers, and half-naked sunbathers. There was also a shrine, although I was unable to determine whether it was Buddhist or Shinto. I believe the latter.
Our fourth and final cache find in Olympia was in the shadow of the Capitol building in Heritage Park. The child and I got a little dirty on this hunt, as we waded through ivy. The child played a wonderful lookout. After the find, the child went and threw rocks into Capitol Lake while I watched cormorants swim, play, and feed.
The wife didn't want to miss out on any geocaching action, so we picked up dinner and took it to a Puyallup park to eat. The child played on toys and we found one of three caches for which we were searching. We simply could not find another. And our final find went awry...
Troy's Work Table didn't read the part about boots being recommended for the terrain. While the wife and child stayed on terra firma, TWT headed off into the midst of fallen logs, ferns, stinging nettle, and skunk cabbage. There were two problems. First, the ground kept threatening to swallow me up, which I avoided rather well. Second, dusk was quickly stealing available light. I decided to give up. As I was heading back to the wife and child, who were calling to me to give a voice location for the trail, I got a "hit" on my GPS unit that was very close to the cache coordinates. I decided to give it one more try. I leaped over a small stream, or so I thought. I landed on the "bank," which turned into eighteen inches of mud. My left foot came back without a shoe. I grabbed an overhead tree branch and plunged my hand into the muck before it completely claimed my shoe, which it almost did. I walked back to the car with my shoe in hand while the wife and child tried "really hard" to stifle laughter. I will return to find the cache another day when I am better equipped—in other words, wearing boots!
The reward for a day of fun!
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