Geogirl - Kelly Rysten

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      “Always bring water.”

      “Do you have any?” I asked.

      “Uh, no. We were going to look for a cache at a bridge over a river, so I didn’t bother.”

      “Okay,” I huffed. “Next time we bring water. For now we must press on.”

      Ten minutes later, “Now I see why you wear hiking boots.”

      And half an hour later we stumbled out onto the road glad it didn’t have a lot of traffic on it.

      “That water looks so good,” I said as I limped and jogged my way to the river bank. I stripped off my tennis shoes and stuck my aching feet into the water. “Ahhh, that’s better.”

      “I thought you said you were thirsty,” Twiggy said.

      “I guess my feet were thirstier than my throat.”

      “I wouldn’t drink from this creek anyway, unless I really had to. Too many mysterious microbes.”

      “I’ll feel better when my feet get a rest. The water’s nice and cool. You should try it.”

      “You have ankles,” he said.

      “Of course I have ankles!”

      “You always wear pants. You’re always covered up. I just knew you had ankles under there somewhere but I’d never seen them.”

      “I have elbows, too!” I joked.

      “Ah, but do you have shoulders? What about knees? Do you have knees?”

      I splashed a little water in his direction and pulled my feet out of the river to dry them.

      “The bridge is…”

      “I can see the bridge. It’s not far. We’d already be there if we had walked the road, or driven.”

      “Sorry, guess I could have chosen better,” I said.

      “It’s okay. I liked climbing a hill with you.”

      I think I blushed a little. “So, are you ready to go find the geocache?” I asked as I began pulling on my socks and shoes.

      “Ready when you are,” he said.

      I tied my shoe laces and pushed myself up, then brushed off my pants.

      “To the road?”

      “Yes, the road seems a good choice, now that we have climbed the hill.”

      “But we saw hidey holes and gnome homes and toadstools.”

      “Oh my!”

      The old bridge was rickety, patched, and reinforced providing hundreds of gaps and ledges that could hold a geocache.

      “What does the GPS say?” Twiggy asked.

      “Here,” I said as I handed it over. “You said when we get close we should rely on geosenses.”

      “That’s right, but the GPS can still be helpful. It will at least pin it down to the right part of the bridge.”

      “How can the cache be where the sun doesn’t shine if the river flows bank to bank?”

      “That doesn’t mean the water level was that high when they hid the cache. What’s the terrain rating?”

      He handed the GPS unit back to me so I could see for myself.

      “Three,” I read.

      “So that means it takes some effort.”

      “We already did that climbing the hill,” I point out.

      “But they thought we would drive to the bridge, so you can’t count the hill. We have to assume that even if we parked at the bridge there’s still some effort involved in finding it.”

      “But how do we look for it if it’s under the bridge?” I asked.

      “I don’t know about you, but I’m goin’ swimming!” he said as he took off his hiking boots. I began looking in the weeds beside the river when he started taking off his pants. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed he was wearing boxers as he waded out into the river.

      I called it a river and he called it a creek. I didn’t see many rivers but to me a creek was a little trickle. This was a wide, flowing expanse of water and Twiggy was up to his hips in the cold water as he neared the bridge.

      “I do declare this to be a three terrain,” he said as he slipped and slid over the algae coated rocks under the water. He craned his neck trying to see the underside of the bridge and remain upright. I decided, since he had the underside covered and there were a lot of spots you could see right through it, that I would stay drier if I searched from above.

      “The sun shines up there,” Twiggy shouted.

      “I’m using geosenses,” I called back.

      When I stuck my arm through a hole in the bridge he said, “Whoa, do you think that bridge is safe?”

      Just then a pickup truck came bumping down the road. The driver pulled to a stop when he saw me kneeling on the bridge with my arm through the hole.

      He opened his door and got out. He stood there scratching his head.

      “Miss? Are you okay?” he asked.

      “Yeah, just lost something. That’s all,” I replied.

      “Maybe you oughta stay offa the bridge. It isn’t entirely safe.”

      “Okay,” I said and backed off the bridge.

      The man got back in his truck and drove across. When he reached my side of the river he asked, “What did you lose?”

      “Uhh…” I had to think. I just used the lost item excuse because I wasn’t supposed to talk about geocaching. “Twig! What are you looking for?” I shouted down to Twiggy.

      “My wallet!” He called back. “I was trying to get something out of my pocket and it slid over the side.”

      “You might check around the bend,” the man said. “There’s a log jam and it probably got caught there. Might have to take a dive though.”

      “Thanks!” Twiggy replied. “I was hoping it fell in the rocks.”

      “Y’all have a good day.”

      “We’re trying,” I said. “You have a good day, too.”

      After the truck left I ventured out onto the bridge again.

      “If a half ton farm truck can drive over the bridge, I think I can walk on it,” I said.

      “Can you go get the flashlight?” Twiggy said.

      “A flashlight? Why?”

      “The description said we might have to bring our own light where the sun don’t shine.”

      “Why didn’t you bring it along then?” I asked.

      “I did. It’s in my pocket. Just pull it out and drop it to me off the bridge,” he said.

      I felt terribly awkward and embarrassed to be going through a man’s pants. A flashlight? How would a flashlight even fit into a pocket? His wallet was safe and sound. I did find that. When I found the flashlight I wasn’t sure I had found it. I expected something long and heavy but the thing I found was only a few inches square and had straps on it. It obviously was a flashlight, though, because it had little light bulbs and a switch. I jogged back to the bridge.

      “Is this it?” I asked as I dangled the thing over the side.

      “Yeah. Hold on. Let me wade closer.” Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh went the water as Twiggy found a stable position beneath the flashlight. “Okay, drop it!”

      I

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