Waypoint Alaska Read online

  Copyright © 2011 Shauna R. Schober

  Edited by Stephanie Curry & Laura Estes

  Cover design or artwork by Josh Jones

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1-4637-1672-9

  ISBN-13: 9781463716721

  eBook ISBN: 978-1-61914-654-9

  Dedication

  For Faith Ann Fulmer, aka: the Warrior Princess,

  You’ve inspired me in ways you will never know, you are amazing and strong, brilliant and hilarious. You make me laugh, smile and pray, every day, and I am so grateful that I have the opportunity of knowing you.

  Special thanks to Mrs. Anderson’s third grade class at Oak Grove Elementary School, in Medford, OR. After reading Waypoint in class, these students chose the location for the third book in the Waypoint Book Series. Dennise B, Asher B, Paighton B, Janessa C, Addison C, Isabella C, Jesus C, Gustavo D, Ethan F, Kai F, Naomi H, Joel I, Juliet L, Caitlyn M, Lucero M, Jasmine N, Monica P, Angela P, Chayce P, Andre R, Jaccob R, Lanie R, Felipe R, Sophia S, Emily T, Christopher T, Johnny T, Yanet V, Sandra V, and Tanner W., I greatly appreciate your help and enthusiasm!

  A big thank you to Karen and Steve for collecting maps and research material for this book, all my friends, family and fans, you are all amazing! Stephanie, Laura, and Josh, thank you so much for your hard work, I really couldn’t do this without you guys. A special thank you, to Paul, for sharing Waypoint with so many of your friends and family, you rock! And as always thank you so much to my wonderful husband, David, for supporting me through this journey.

  While the characters in this book are based on actual people, and the locations in this book do exist, this is purely a work of fiction.

  The waypoints used do not lead to actual geocaches.

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  1

  Thump, thump, thump…Ben’s heart pounded in his ears…thump, thump, thump…it was getting faster. He thought it might explode, suddenly his arms took over and a loud crack filled the air. The impact of the ball hitting his bat shook his body, as he twisted and followed through he lost site of the flying orb…always a good sign he thought.

  He ran, as fast as he could; screams, clapping, whoops and hollers following him around the bases, his foot hit first. He shot off of the base in no time; he was closing in on second. Again he launched himself past, approaching third now. A loud noise rang out in the distance. What was that? He ignored it as he flew past third; finally he was closing in on home, just a few more steps. He could see the pitcher’s arm moving through the air, the ball was coming toward the catcher, he dove to the ground, dust in his face, filling his mouth, sliding as if on butter, finally his fingers barely hit the edge of home plate. The crowd went wild as the ump yelled, “SAFE!”

  Again a noise echoed through the ball park, it was louder now, everyone in the stands was looking around, curiosity taking over, was it a song? No, no it had to be…an obnoxious vehicle horn. Ben twisted his head and then he saw it. In the parking lot was the biggest, ugliest, most dilapidated RV he had ever seen. It was painted camouflage, with what he guessed was spray paint. One headlight was actually hanging off the front of the beast, the horn sounded again, and then suddenly Ben’s worst nightmare came true.

  The door popped open, and suddenly he heard his name being called over the stands. Was she really doing this? Really? Ben flushed with embarrassment and ran, faster than he had circled the bases. Again his name was yelled. He hopped the cyclone fence, making “shut up” hand gestures the entire way.

  “Hey buddy! So you like it? Huh, do ya?” Aunt Lacey hung out of the side door. She was so proud, not just of the fact that she had just humiliated her nephew, but also because she was actually proud of this monster. “Yep, I got her on sale, only paid fifteen hundred dollars for her.” She patted the side of the RV gently as if loving on a small dog. As she did flakes of paint drifted to the ground.

  “Why?” Ben asked. “Why do you have this? Why are you here?” he asked through clenched teeth.

  “Oh you mean besides to see your face turn three shades of red?” she waved to the crowd of people who were turned around in their seats in the stands, “Nothing to see here people, go about your business” she yelled in a joking authoritative voice. Ben rubbed his forehead. He couldn’t help but laugh.

  He and Aunt Lacey had a friendship like no other, the previous summer the two had been involved in one of the craziest, scariest adventures of both their lives. Searching for a supposed prize of ten thousand dollars, going from one insane location to the next, it was the most bizarre and best experience of Ben’s life. They must have driven over a thousand miles in the few days they were on that scavenger hunt, Ben thought.

  “The reason, young lad, that I bring this marvelous vehicle to you is that we’re not flying to Alaska.” She interrupted his thought.

  “What? Why not?”

  Lacey tugged on some small beaded braids in her hair and pulled them into a pony tail to keep them out of her face. “Ben, it has been brought to my attention, that the only real way to explore Alaska is to travel the highway, the Alaskan Highway.” She said this with a strange expression on her face, as if she knew of a secret or the punch line to a joke that Ben wasn’t privy to yet.

  “Okay, what’s the big deal with that?” Ben asked.

  “Oh young Ben,” She stepped off the wobbly stairs of the RV. “The big deal is this!” she pulled a long bumper sticker out of her back pocket and handed it to him.

  “I TRAVELED THE ALASKAN HIGHWAY AND SURVIVED,” Ben looked confused. “I take it there is something special about this highway?”

  A throaty laugh echoed out of her mouth, “I guess we’ll find out,” She smirked. “Hey guys!” she called over to Ben’s little sister, Megan, and Ben’s Mom and Dad, as they approached. “So what do you think?” she asked proudly.

  They all stood in shock, Ben’s parents knew better than to show Lacey the slightest bit of embarrassment, she thrived on being a colossal pain in the rear end.

  “It’s a beauty.” Ben’s dad said with a straight face.

  “Wow, where did you get this castle?” Ben’s mom asked mockingly to her sister.

  “Shut up!” Lacey said in a defensive tone. “This castle is taking your son and daughter to Alaska with me.”

  Ben’s mom laughed…she knew Ben and his aunt had been planning this trip for a year now, ever since they had won the million dollars through their last adventure, but she was nervous, especially knowing that this year Megan would be going with them.

  “I got it for fifteen hundred dollars! I know! I know, super deal, and it even came fully decorated,” she opened the door wider, inviting them into the RV.

  As they entered each gasped as they looked at their surroundings. On one wall hung an old taxidermy deer head, it was covered in dust and cob webs, the old bright orange Formica counter tops were chipped and stained, holes in the sofa released foam and fuz
z onto the floor, the seats in the cabin of the RV were cracked and faded from years of sitting in the sun. All of this was overwhelming, and frankly a little scary, but the worst part was the smell. A combination of rotten eggs, and perhaps, was it skunk? Yes skunk, filled the air.

  “It reeks in here, Aunt Lacey,” Megan announced.

  “Yeah, that’s the only thing about this that sucks,” Lacey responded.

  “The only thing?” Ben’s mom and dad laughed as they eyed each other.

  “But old Betsy here will take us to Alaska in style,” Lacey gently patted a stuffed squirrel which was mounted to the counter behind the sink. “She’s authentic, I mean look we have our own squirrel here! Yep, I think Betsy is the perfect vehicle for this adventure. You can’t go to Alaska in something beautiful, certainly not on the Alaskan Highway, I’ve heard stories, we need something rustic, something that has already been proven to last the test of time. Something that can handle a few dings.”

  Ben looked at his parents wide eyed, “well it is official, Aunt Lacey has gone totally insane.”

  “What? How have I gone insane?” Lacey interjected.

  “Aunt Lacey, Garmin and United Cellular are paying for this trip, it’s part of my advertising contract, we should be flying, high-class in style!” Ben argued.

  “Let me tell you something young man,” Lacey slammed the exterior door to the RV so no one outside could hear them, as soon as it slammed, the door fell off its hinges and crashed to the ground. She jumped in fear, “Anyways.” she shook her head ignoring her embarrassment. “Just because we have the money and someone else is footing the bill for this trip doesn’t mean we waste it! And like I said before, we are going to Alaska for an adventure, sheesh Ben, we aren’t just tourists!”

  Megan raised her hand as if she were sitting in class, “Um, yeah…we kinda are,” she argued.

  “I refuse to be a tourist, from now on we are all ‘travelers’!”

  Megan rolled her eyes and sighed, “uh huh, whatever Aunt Lacey, just don’t make me wear a fanny pack.”

  “Are we there yet?” Megan asked from the small dinette table in the living area of the RV.

  Lacey threw the GPS unit to her.

  “Not even close! Geeze, we’ve been on the road for like over two days!” she whined.

  “Yes…it’s been quality time for me too, Megz.” Lacey said sarcastically. “I’ll wake you up when we get close, we still have over two hundred miles,” she reassured her.

  Megan stood up, and disassembled the kitchen dinette table she was sitting at, it folded into a small bed, she plopped down, put her ear buds in and dosed off to sleep.

  The RV sputtered and swayed up the highway. If it weren’t for the constant road noise, curves, gravel, and broken asphalt, Lacey would have fallen asleep ages ago, but the Alaskan Highway was acting as great stimuli. It was hard enough steering the huge RV on normal roads, but this was definitely more of a challenge. She embraced this though. This trip would prove to her family that she was able to take care of the kids, have a normal vacation, and no potential police phone calls home, unlike her and Ben’s adventure the previous summer. She shivered as she thought of all the harm they were in, suddenly Ben interrupted her thoughts,

  “So this geocache were stopping at…listen to the clue again, what do you think it means? ‘One in a million.’”

  “My guess is it’s on a tree or something, ya know a million trees, we’ll figure it out. Do you have those coordinates handy? Double check them on the areal map on your phone,” Lacey instructed.

  Ben pulled out his phone from United Cellular, it was part of the overall prize package he had won on his last adventure, the phone went with him everywhere, and he knew for this trip his parents were tracking it online, ‘just in case’ they had said, whatever that meant. He quickly read the coordinates aloud, “60 degrees 03’46.48”North, and 128 degrees 42’39.88”West, right?”

  Lacey glanced at the sticky note that was attached to her visor, “yep, looks right.” After a short second the phone vibrated with results.

  “Huh?” Ben sighed.

  “What? What’s up?” She asked.

  “Well they’re not trees, I’m not sure what it is, some sort of strange dots or buildings or something next to the road, seems to go on for a long ways. Anyhow, the town’s name is Watson Lake. Who placed this geocache?”

  “Someone named Cache Master. Actually the only reason I chose this one was because of the guy’s name…‘Cache Master’…cool huh?” she replied.

  “Uh, sure. So you picked this geocache solely on this guy’s name?”

  “Yep, I couldn’t resist, anyone who could come up with that name, well I had to see what they would put into their geocache, they are the ‘Cache Master’ after all.” she laughed to herself. Ben rolled his eyes and settled into his seat, they still had 170 miles before they would arrive in Watson Lake. Something told him he was going to need his rest.

  Lacey brought the RV slowly to a stop alongside the road in Watson Lake, Canada. Her eyes couldn’t quite understand what she was seeing. Along the side of the road there were hundreds, no maybe thousands of posts with street signs all over them, covering them from top to bottom. There had to be thousands of them, from what appeared to be every place in the world. She turned the key and listened as the RV sputtered and then died. Then she kicked Ben in the calf to wake him up. “Found out what ‘one in a million’ means,” she gestured in front of them. Ben’s eyes grew wide with amazement and anticipation.

  “How will we find the right one?” He rubbed the sleep from his eyes trying to get a better focus on the masses and masses of sign ahead of them.

  “Well, I’m guessing the GPS will bring us within a few feet, right? We’ll find it.” Lacey squeezed in the back section of the RV and gently woke Megan up. “We’re here.” Megan jumped, clearly not remembering where she was, then let out a little scream as the vision of her aunt standing underneath the massive taxidermy deer head came into focus. “Oh sorry babe, did I scare you?” Lacey asked.

  “No the deer head, it just creeps me out.”

  “Yeah, this thing has a lot of character, doesn’t it?” Lacey took her sunglasses off the top of her head and slid them on the deer’s face. “There, problem solved, hard to be scared of him now, huh?” She patted the deer’s fur, what seemed to be a century’s worth of dust and deer hair wafted through the air. She quickly rubbed her hand on her pants as she made a disgusted face. “Eww…anyways, get up, let’s go!”

  Megan smiled as she slipped her shoes on, it was so exciting to be on this trip, last year she hadn’t gotten to come, she was “too young” her mother had said, but this year she couldn’t use that excuse. While everyone else hoped that the trip would be a simple vacation, she secretly hoped something amazing would happen, something crazy, outrageous, and maybe even a bit scary.

  Ben slid through the space in the seats to the living area of the RV, “okay, I have my phone with the waypoint, we’re only about fifty feet away. I was looking online, this place is called the ‘Sign Post Forrest’ people leave a sign with their home town, or state or country on one of the sign posts. There are tens of thousands here!” He was excited for the challenge, but almost felt disappointed, nothing exciting could happen in such a safe place, he thought. He quickly brushed off his disappointment and carefully opened the door. His dad had replaced the hinges, but he was still nervous of the dilapidated beast.

  As they stepped out into the sunshine, there was a chill in the air. Even for June it was only 65 degrees here. They welcomed the breeze though, anything was better than the smell and stuffiness of the RV, which sadly they had almost gotten used to after being in it for almost three days. Towering above them and around them were hundreds of poles, all covered in signs of different colors. It was pretty impressive.

  “I wanna put up a sign,” Megan said.

  “We don’t have one, maybe next time,” Lacey tried to appease her niece.

  “Nex
t time? Yeah right.” Megan started walking around looking and touching the signs, it was pretty impressive after all. Each of these represented a person, or family who had traveled this same road, they had seen the same mountains, maybe the same wildlife, they had felt the bumps in the road, they had been here in this exact spot and decided that their journey was so special they should leave a sign, a memento stating that at some time they were here in this exact spot. Megan felt a bit emotional about this revelation when all the sudden a shout echoed in her ears.

  “Found it!” Ben’s voice boomed. He was standing in front of a tall post, phone in hand, “Look right above that sign from Melbourne.” Lacey and Megan headed toward him and looked up to where he was pointing, sure enough six signs up was a sign that read “Cache Master.”

  “Well that wasn’t tough,” Lacey said, elbowing Ben.

  “Yeah that was super easy, but uh…where’s the cache?” Ben asked.

  “Well let’s look around here, it’s gotta be close, the waypoint leads here.” Lacey began looking at the back of the post, on the ground, suddenly Megan said,

  “Hey something’s written on the back of the sign.”

  Ben looked closely, “okay it says two left, three down, four up,” he sighed. “What does that mean?”

  “Well let’s think about this, ‘two left.’” Lacey looked at the front of the sign, then she looked to the left. She moved two posts to the left, “okay now three down.” She looked at the top of the post and counted three signs down. “Okay, now four up. Wait, I can’t go four up?”

  “I can,” Megan said. Lacey turned around, Megan was standing about five feet behind her, she pointed eagerly to something behind the post Lacey was standing in front of. “Check it out,” Megan grinned.

  Lacey moved to where Megan was standing and Ben followed, both focusing in on what Megan was pointing to. Behind the original post was another post, further back. It too was stacked with signs, but the very top one, the only one that showed from where they were standing read, “Wanna Play?”