Carly the Kidd



Like the infamous 'Captain Kidd,' Carly turned from companion privateer to pirate

  yesterday and swiped our first geocache out from under my nose before I could find it.

We weren't able to locate our first cache.  We had just left the Onalaska Library and I dialed up on the Iphone the nearest hidden treasure on Geocaches Worldwide.

This one was stowed somewhere deep in the limbs of the big blue pine tree right outside the museum portion of the building.  In and out of two openings under the tree, we had no luck seeing it on the ground, on the trunk itself, or tied up into the insides of the dark overhanging limbs.  Second cache, across the street on the way to Two Brothers Honda, same thing – we landed right on top of the sight, right down to 'zero feet away,' even took the offered hint about a bookworm and a cup of joe – looked at the logged photos from previous finds – but no luck under the twin pines.  At that point, Carly was leery of the idea that a vast network of small treasures lay hidden out of sight all around the city.  We dialed up the next closest cache called 'Row, Row Your Boat,' located somewhere around .1 mile away, at N 043 52.489', W 091 13.583, left our Adventure Galley 

(sparkling booty spilling over the top of the rear bike bag) parked at the library and walked toward the skateboarding park next to Ona High School. We went off of the description, "This is a small, blue cache hidden in a special hiding place that is accessible to everyone."  Easy enough.  We reached the parking area of Rowe Park and found dead-on the supposed treasure sight, but all that was standing there was a giant parking light on a short patch of boulevard grass.  Nothing on the ground or hanging from the light pole.  Either this one was buried somehow or it didn't exist, so I started to walk in the other direction to test the compass.  "Found it."  Where in the world did that come from?  "Well, I tried to twist this square thing on the light and it lifted up."  Now the pirate had a taste for treasure.  At Panerra, after some chicken noodle and a cookie, we dialed up 'Bike and Hike a Little Further,' .1 miles away.  "Found it."

Well we might as well finish off with one more before we get home.  'Sawmills to sunfish tribute to the Ona fire dept. at Oakwood Park, .5 miles away.'  "Found it"  This time we got one in the pine tree.

"This is really fun dad, but they should put actual jewels in those little capsule thingies."