127. Riverside Adventure Park, New Westminster

Although today was daddy and Charlotte day, I had Charlotte in the evening as Pete was going out.  He dropped her off to me at work, but it took us a very long time to get back to New Westminster due to the traffic.  It really seemed that Charlotte deserved a chance to stretch her legs, so we stopped off at the awesomely-named Riverside Adventure Park, not too far from Blackford Island.  I found one of my very first geocaches here way back in 2006; it was called "Delusions of Grandeur", named by a CO who was as amused by the name as I am.  I don't know where the "adventure" part of the name comes from and as for the "riverside" part, well, the river is in sight, way down the hill, with a highway and a busy rail yard to cross before you get to it.  The park is a lot different now than it was in early 2006 when I found my seventh geocache.  The dodgy playground equipment has long since been removed and replaced with a sanitized version that offers little challenge to anyone.  But Charlotte did have fun giving Owlie a ride on the loop.  "Delusions of Grandeur" is long gone too, but "Illusions of Grandeur" has been in its place for some years now; Charlotte and I have both logged a find on this cache!  The playground is located at N 49.12.300 W 122.56.022 and is point no. 127 on the map at the bottom of home page.

126. Tomekichi Homma Elementary School, Richmond

Today we were out and about in Richmond, looking for some more of the Richmond GeoQuest series.  After finding the one at the Britannia Shipyards, we went across to the playground that Charlotte's eagle eyes had spotted when we arrived.  Charlotte managed to make friends with a little girl named Anna, despite the fact that she was never allowed to be more than two feet away from one of her parents at any time.  After Anna left, Charlotte got off to a bad start with an older boy named Paul, who told her that she couldn't climb up on the same structure as him.  Charlotte was really upset and came to me for a snuggle.  I told her that she could go wherever she wanted on the playground and before very long, things were patched up with Paul and they were playing again.  When Paul left, Charlotte joined me on the bench and took over reading my book.  The playground is located at N 49.07.367 W 123.10.157 and is point no. 126 on the map at the bottom of home page.

125. Rasar State Park, Washington

After our trip to the playground in Concrete, we headed back to our campsite.  We headed down to the day use area of the park to explore the trails and get a stamp for our Washington State Parks passport from the "WaStatePks100: Rasar" geocache.  This was our first passport stamp and we have an awful lot more to go!  We went for a nice walk through the woods and found the cache in a birdhouse.  Afterwards, we stopped to play at the nearby playground, which we hadn't even realized at first was there.  It was a nice surprise - a nice little playground in the woods.  I can see us camping here when Charlotte's a little older, riding her bike down to the playground to play with her campsite friends!  The playground is located at N48.30.907 W 121.54.227 and is point no. 125 on the map at the bottom of home page.

124. Concrete Playground, Concrete, Washington

This morning, we had met up with Mr. ClueFinders for a day of caching around and about in the area.  He had left his car in Concrete and hopped in with us, so at the end of the day, we dropped him back off in Concrete and then checked out the local playground.  There was lots to climb on and Charlotte also enjoyed riding on the space shuttle - though she wouldn't let me take her picture while riding it!  There is a fairly major road nearby called Challenger Road, so combined with this play structure, I wondered if one of the Challenger astronauts had been local and I looked up the crew of the ill-fated shuttle.  Turns out that one of them, Dick Scobee, was from Cle Elum, Washington and there is an elementary school named after him in Auburn.  I don't think that he is the reason behind the playground and Challenger Road, but it was interesting anyway.  I had not yet moved to Vancouver at the time of the Challenger disaster and wouldn't have heard of Cle Elum at that point.  There were no caches at the playground, but we were near the end of a 129-cache power trail that I hope to do some day!  The playground is located at N 48.32.283 W 121.45.496 and is point no. 124 on the map at the bottom of home page.

123. Howard Miller Steelhead Park, Rockport, Washington

After our misadventure in Sedro-Woolley, we picked up our groceries and headed out to Rasar State Park to find a campsite.  We had a walk-in site, and though it was hardly any distance from the parking lot to the site, it was a bit inconvenient given that I was on my own with a three-year-old and every single trip to the car was a bit of a production.  So I decided to head east on Highway 20 in search of a picnic site - I knew there were many places along the way that would be nice to stop at and explore.  We ended up at a little county park in Rockport on the banks of the Skagit River - the same river I had pictured Charlotte in earlier today!  I pulled out the kitchen box - only to find my camping stove in pieces.  So much for the delicious pasta dinner I had planned - and so much for hot water for dishes too.  We made do with a lunch picnic.  While I was getting things ready, Theo and Charlotte were racing around on the grass near the picnic table when she spotted this playground around the other side of the nearby building.

"Maybe we can play at the playground!" she said.

"What playground?" I asked - I couldn't see any playground!

But eagle-eye Charlotte had spotted one.  It was pretty strange as a public playground goes - just a collection of Little Tikes equipment - only more of it than you would normally see in a private yard.  Charlotte wasn't picky though - especially as it was something that her friend Theo could join her on!  I was without a loaded GPS at this point, Paddy having recently died in a freak accident.  It was killing me to know that there was probably a cache hidden in the park and I didn't know where to look!  I actually took a peek in some likely-looking spots, but to no avail!  In the end, we found the closest cache, "Here's to Slough" the next day when we were caching with our friend Mr. ClueFinders.  The playground is located at N 48.29.119 W 121.35.636 and is point no. 123 on the map at the bottom of home page.

122. Riverfront Park, Sedro-Woolley, Washington

This weekend, Charlotte and I undertook our first mama-daughter camping trip!  We've been on lots of overnight trips before, but have always stayed with family or friends - this was our first time camping.  It was the May long weekend, so the border was pretty hectic; we headed inland to hit the border at one of the "quieter" crossings.  So much for that bright idea.  We eventually made it to Sedro-Woolley, the last big town we would encounter on our trip.  The plan here was to hit the playground and then stock up on groceries for the weekend.  The playground was chock-full of kids, which was great in one respect and not so great in another.  I was horrified at one point to realize that I'd lost sight of Charlotte after tending to Theo.  For a few moments, I just couldn't see her at all, even though I thought I was carefully looking at every single possible spot on the playground.  The fact that we were not far from the banks of a very fast river crossed my mind - but I needn't have worried, because little Miss Boston Strong was playing on the roundabout with the boys.  She sure knows how to hold her own with the big kids - she just lets them know how things are going to be.  So the whole mystery of her disappearance had nothing to do with her and everything to do with me, so I tried not to let on how worried I'd been - but she did get a bigger hug than usual next time she came to check in.  The playground is located at N 48.29.425 W 122.13.431 and is point no. 122 on the map at the bottom of home page.

121. Graham Park, Burnaby

The days are getting to be so nice and long again!  On this Tuesday evening, we headed out after dinner to find my closest unfound cache to home - which just happens to be next to a playground!  "For Grace" is there for a sad reason; Grace was an exchange student from Korea who used to have a cache in this park, one which I found back in July 2011.  She died of leukemia in April 2013.  Her cache is no longer there as the old equipment was recently removed and the new playground installed - and now her homestay family have a tribute cache here for her instead.  We didn't get to look for the cache today; there was a family playing badminton right at ground zero.  The cache is also a four-star difficulty, so will probably require a good, uninterrupted hunt!  But Charlotte had a great time here even without a cache hunt; she especially liked driving the race car.  The playground is located at N 49.13.446 W 122.55.809 and is point no. 121 on the map at the bottom of home page.

120. Ellwood Park, Abbotsford

Today was a pretty exciting day for us - we finished our 122 Degree Challenge!  Afterwards, we went in search of Charlotte Park - I had discovered that there was such a place while doing a little pre-trip research.  But although we found Charlotte Avenue, Charlotte Park remained elusive.  However, at the end of Charlotte Avenue, we found a playground that would suit us just fine and we went in to play.  We never did find out the name of the park while we were there - we just got it off the map afterwards.  There were lots of kids playing, but unfortunately, most of them were from a birthday party that was being held there, so they all knew each other already and weren't interested in getting to know anyone else.  Charlotte still had fun while Theo and I soaked up some sun on the grass.  After the playground, Charlotte and I zipped around from tree to tree, looking for the one that held a geocache, "Getting to Know My Way Around - K".  Great, now there's another series that we need to complete since we've got one of them!  The playground is located at N 49.03.457 W 122.20.924 and is point no. 120 on the map at the bottom of home page.