O
nce upon a time there was a geocacher named Pam who
loved to fly kites. She lived for when the weather would be good
enough to bring out these aerodynamic masterpieces out of storage
to let them soar through the air again at her favorite
park.
Well one day,
Pam arrived at her favorite flying grounds and parked her car
and began walking West on the trail and then South towards Lucy's
Rock which she had set in her GPS to N42 17.356 W88 05.481.
Once Pam reached Lucy's Rock, she decided to set up her most
favorite kite and began flying it when she saw something out of the
corner of her eye. Something four-legged and bushy tailed. It was a
squirrel, the funniest squirrel that Pam has ever seen! This
squirrel caught Pam by surprise just long enough that she dropped
the line to her most prized kite. This caused the kite to fly off
towards the heavens, and just out of reach once Pam noticed what
had just occurred. The squirrel felt bad about being so distracting
that he vowed to help Pam get her favorite kite back. Even though
this was turning out to be a very depressing afternoon, Pam
didn’t know that this squirrel had many connections with the
other animals in the area that probably saw where the kite
went.
And so the
journey to find the kite began, and they stepped off in the
direction they last saw the kite flying. Pam and the squirrel
decided they wanted to be safe so they continued South on the
trail that eventually curves Southeast around a bend. They
stopped at a bench where they encountered the first animal that had
seen the kite fly overhead. It was Mr. Owl; he actually had to make
an emergency landing on the bench, because the kite almost hit him
in the air while he was flying. He informed Pam and the squirrel
that the kite was going south. Mr. Owl wished the two of them good
luck on their journey to find the missing kite.
Pam and the
squirrel, said their goodbyes to Mr. Owl and they continued on
their journey to find the kite. As they continued down the
trail, they quickly encountered Mrs. Fox, which was about 50
feet away from Mr. Owl. They stopped and asked her if
she had seen a kite go by a few minutes ago. Mrs. Fox remembered
seeing something strange in the sky but she was too involved
exercising to know the true direction that the kite was going. The
squirrel was upset by this news, but Pam cheered the squirrel up by
telling him that they were still on track, that maybe the next
person down the trail they encountered would have some good
news.
Pam and the
squirrel wasted no time and ran over towards the next couple that
they saw which was about 100 feet down the trail from the last
stop they made. It was the Frog family having lunch, and they
had good news. They were both sitting near a pipe on the West side
of the trail, which was about 150 big steps from the bench where
they encountered Mr. Owl. The Frog Family was out catching bugs
for a late snack, close to the artesian spring where the water
flows onto some grey and white rocks. (Lucky it was warm out
because in the winter these rocks could be covered in snow) and
they saw the kite fly by. They said that it was headed to the
Southwest, but it appeared that it was loosing altitude. This was
some of the best news Pam and the squirrel hear all day, but this
excitement would soon die down. It was getting late in the evening
and they wanted to get the kite before it got dark and the park
would close. The only highlight to it getting dark was that the
wind was also dying down, which meant that the kite wasn't far from
where they were located.
The team was
about to leave when they saw that the directions that they got from
the Frog family took them right in the thick woods, so they paused
for a second. Thinking about the kite going into the woods gave Pam
a bad feeling in her gut because she knew that trees could damage
the kite to a point beyond repair. Even though they received this
now bad news from the Frogs, Pam was hopeful that maybe the kite
found a clearing in the woods and landed on the ground and not
somewhere high up in a tree, completely damaged.
Pam and the
squirrel discussed what they should do. Just as Pam and the
squirrel were about to leave the Frog Family into the taller
grasses towards the woods, they heard a small squeak. They almost
passed it up but then the noise became more frantic. The squirrel
finally noticed that the noise was coming from Ms. Mouse. She over
heard the conversation that Pam and the squirrel were having and
she said she had very important news. Ms. Mouse (who was also a
geocacher,) knew exactly where the kite was! She informed Pam and
the squirrel that while she was out caching she noticed something
come crashing down not to far from where she was working. Since it
is a rare event for something like this to happen, Ms. Mouse took
the kite back to her home which was near where they were standing.
Ms. Mouse pointed toward a large gnarly oak tree 75 big steps to
the Southwest and the kite was just past there about 25 more big
steps in a large broken tree. That is where Ms. Mouse placed it
in her cache for safe keeping. Ms. Mouse told Pam and the squirrel
to be careful after getting the kite out of storage, that when
replacing the container, it needed to go exactly where they got it
from because her storage container held items that were very
important to her and she didn’t want the container or her
collection to be taken.
Pam and the
squirrel were so excited that they found the kite, and it also
appeared to be in great shape too! And with this excitement they
wanted to share their story of their journey to the find, which
also happened to be Pam’s 1000th cache
found!