First find on Keno Mountain

Bill was making his peanut butter and raspberry jelly sandwiches this morning when I came to the kitchen. He'd gone to Yoke's Pac n Save last night to stock up on some munchies, including his favorite devils food cookies. I'm guessing he may even stop off at the Boundary Trading Co. for a couple of chunks of hot deep-fried chicken as he heads off for today's adventure.

My husband has taken a day off and is pursuing his second "first-find" this week. And, yes, you guessed it, that first find is a geocache, high in the mountains northeast of Bonners Ferry. To get to Keno Mountain, one has to drive north of Bonners, turn east on HWY 2, then turn left on Meadow Creek Road. There's another turn up the road to Deer Ridge. That route takes you over Canuck Pass and onward toward Keno Mountain, which is in Montana.

I learned this morning why he hadn't invited me to join him on this trek. It's a 15-mile round-trip hike. Bill knows better than to bring up such opportunities to Marianne who survived a 12-miler with Annie in New Zealand and still talks about it as the most grueling ever. Besides the length and obvious uphill route, today's gonna be the hottest day of the year. Bill wants to enjoy this adventure; he doesn't want to listen to a whiner complaining about the bugs, the heat or aching knees.

And, I'm not complaining that he didn't invite me. I'll be happy to hear from him as he hits the summit and calls from his cell phone to let me know he's made it. If nobody else has shown up by that time, he'll be the first to find a cache stashed up there by "Geo Jane" a couple of weeks ago. Apparently, Geo Jane is a geocacher who went up there with her fellow hikers Nicki Pleass and Jan Griffiths.

As mentioned earlier, this will be his second first find this week. He did allow me to accompany him on the first "first find." It was a tough job. After driving to Laura Holbert's house at Kootenai to pick up a chair for the Presbyterian Church, we drove to the church to deposit the chair. Then, we bought an ice cream cone at Arbie's, after which we drove to the new bridge on HWY 95 north of Cocolalla.

We parked the pick-up and got out. Bill went down over the embankment on the southwest side of the bridge and found the "hole in the wall" cache, recently stashed by "Grandpapa." Bill figures Grandpapa who worked on the bridge construction purposely left a hole for further geocache storage. Anyway, by being the first finder, Bill came away with a geocache coin designated as a "travel bug." That means he has to see that the coin moves along its journey to be found by more and more geocachers across the country.

As I write, my "Be Prepared" husband is gathering up his essentials. Soon, he'll be on his way to a great day of hiking in the Cabinet Mountains. And, when day is done and he's safely back at this computer stop, he'll be happily recording his first find at Keno Mountain on the geocaching website. And, I'm sure Geo Jane will be thrilled to read that someone has found the treasure she stored up on that mountain.

As for me, I'm content to hear about it. I think I'll drive up to Baldy and pick huckleberries in that same spot I "first found" yesterday. My hike to the bushes stretched to nearly 30 feet from the car on a 1 percent grade. Perfect for me!