Great Copper Rush July 30, 2010

So up the next morning, a quick, very hot shower, meet up with the group and head out to our first cache. We grabbed our root beer float ticket and then headed off to A&W for breakfast. We then took our traveling gang on the road. We started off with a few easy ones and then headed over to the connector road. This was a fun little cache. The road had I am sure the only standing water anywhere in the Princeton area, and of course it was full of mud. BajaBetty being the mature individual that she is and having so much respect for her vehicle decided that she would daintily drive through the mud puddle, thus keeping her vehicle clean, NOT!!!!! Note the only vehicle which is dirty.

We then headed to August Lake. Tycoon (Auto)Otto was the first to find on this one. We had a great dayof caching with our group. It did get a little warm out there; everyone started to take their clothes off. Luckily it ended before we saw too much. We tried our own version of naked cacher.

Now to get back from August Lake we had to come back on the same connector road and I being the bravesoul (nuts) that I am decided that pictures had to be taken going through the mud. BajaBetty was off again. Now of course everybody had to get in on the act. TycoonOtto(Auto), ClintsTaurus, and Groundhog and Shadow( a little timid). Everyone has a little bit of inner child in them. Oh and TycoonOtto(Auto), I still have the other pictures to show the car rental company. Thanks OilCanMan for one of

the best caches of the day.

We then headed further up Copper Mountain for more caches. We were caching machines this day. There were five vehicles and we followed each other over hill, over dale, over roads with varying degrees of wash boarding and dust clouds. It was a great day had by all. We all survived with only two flat tires and a long scar down my arm that I acquired while tripping over my own feet. It really isn’t a good caching weekend if you don’t go home with any battle scars. We left the group as we headed back to town with BajaBetty and her Mom and I staying out a little later caching until it was dark and then tried to find a place in Princeton that stayed open past 9:00pm. We managed to convince the local Booster Juice to stay open for 10 more minutes so we could get a smoothie and a sandwich. We liked them so much we went back the next day for another energy smoothie. Then it was back to the fairgrounds to check in and mark down our first to finds for the day.

Great Copper Rush June 29, 2010

I missed the Great Coal Rush last year in Tulameen, BC, and it didn’t work out going to Seattle for Geowoodstock, so I decided that I had to go to the Great Copper Rush in Princeton on the August long weekend. My friend Kathleen aka BajaBetty and her mom Val aka BajaBetty’s mom were going so I asked if I could bunk in with them. Len wasn’t too keen on going for a whole weekend and he had some friend from Kelowna stopping in and he also had to get the motor home ready for Aaron and Chelsea to take on their vacation.

So I left Thursday afternoon to meet BajaBetty and her mom at the Nancy Green Junction. Well three hours later, no BajaBetty I decided to go into Rossland and see if I could find them at BajaBetty’s moms place. I did get a message from Kathleen saying that they had left from Trail and were on their way. I drove back to the Junction waited a little longer, they weren’t there so I headed to Christina Lake. As I was coming into Christina Lake my cell phone rang with a message from BajaBetty that they were in Grand Forks and were headed to the city campground to see if I was there. I phone them and got their answering machine. Headed towards Grand Forks, got into town and the cell phone rang again with a message that they couldn’t find me so they were head towards Osoyoos. I tried them again and had to leave another message. I got to Midway with another message, saying that they were in Rock Creek. Tried again, left a message that I would meet them at the Best Western Motel, coming into Osoyoos. Finally caught up with them. Lesson learned from all of this is that if you plan a meeting spot in the Kootenay’s make sure it is in a spot that has cell service and not out in the middle of nowhere.

Now that we had found each other we decided to continue on into Princeton because according to the GPs we were only 1 ½ hours from Princeton and it was only 7 pm, so back on the road we went, stopping for a quick cache between Osoyoos and Keremeous . We then stopped at a late night fruit stand in Keremeous for some breakfast snacks and then onto the campsite in Princeton. We made it into Princeton with lots of time to spare, found a place to park, set our stuff up inside and out and then headed into the fairground to find out who was all there. We met up with Pappy90 and Dyelo from Salmo and Groundhog and Shadow from Vernon. A couple of new cachers that I had never met, ManyMutts and Chet and Jane from Cranbrook and Mach2003 and TycoonOtto(Auto) from Kelowna. We all made plans to register the next morning and then all head out as a big group. So back to the trailer we headed for a good nights sleep.