Caught in the act!

Caught in the act! 


The cop caught us putting our hands in the cookie jar – thankfully no citations were issued. We signed his log book, and the kids picked up a few swag items.


By Allan Olson
It was bound to happen. We were out geocaching over the weekend and got busted – by a cop! After the boys and I went geocaching on New Year’s Day, the owner of a geocache that we had found contacted me and suggested I take the kids to his two stage multi-cache named: Flies, Maybe…..Cookies, No! I was waiting for some warmer weather to venture out, so Sunday was perfect, and I convinced (forced?) everyone we should head outdoors. The whole crew climbed into the vehicle, including Bob the dog, and we headed off to find a couple geocaches. I had two in mind, and if they went fast, I was hoping we could find another one or two.
We arrived at the first stage of the two-part cache at just before noon, about 80 feet off the driveway we found a frog sitting on a tree stump, ready to give us the coordinates to stage two. All we had to do was figure out how to get them. Thankfully, I arrived at the location shortly after Nikolai, because he was trying to figure out how move the stump that had been cut and look for the clue. I figured all we had to do was pull the tongue out of the frog and, sure enough, the coordinates were right there, waiting for us. I entered those coordinates in, and off we went toward the second stage, which was not too far from where we were standing.
I directed Marcus to where I figured the cache was hidden. There was a wooden box sitting on a post. He opened the door and lifted the lid and jumped back, startled. Inside the cache was a “talking cop” cookie jar! It told him to “step away” or something like that – it was really quite entertaining, and a very unexpected find. I can truthfully say that we were caught, by a cop, with our hands in the cookie jar.
If our adventure ended there, everything would’ve been great, but it didn’t. When we got to that location I went against my instinct of just parking the van on the road to begin, or pulling all the way into the property owners driveway and then turning around. Instead, I started backing up, and I felt like I was going too far to the wrong side and so I stopped and pulled ahead. My wife said she would do it, so I let her try – that didn’t work either, and we were stuck. Know that nine out of 10 times she would succeed, but I have to report the facts: this is the second time in three months that she has gotten the van stuck (the first time was in mud). I started pushing the van and kicking the snow away from the wheels, trying to get down to some gravel. Eventually we made some progress, but I was running out of steam. My wife stepped out to help me push, and commandeered Nikolai to get in the front seat to run the accelerator; I admit I had visions of us breaking it free and him accelerating the van right into the ditch across the road. Not to worry; she helped push from the driver’s door so she could get to the brake if necessary. With both of them helping, we made it the last few feet and finally got it back on the road.
Even though I was kind of sore and tired from pushing, there was one more geocache that I was determined to find. This one was called “Girls, Girls, Girls” – I was not sure why – maybe it takes a girl to find it? We searched and searched and dug through snow in many different areas and were ready to give up for the tenth time when finally Alivia found it, slightly uncovered in the snow. Whew! Now to walk the 400 feet across a snowy field back to the van.
The rest of our weekend was largely uneventful. I went for a walk on Saturday, and took a few pictures of the frost-covered trees. The kids played around home and with the neighbors. The plans for this weekend have not even been discussed. Whatever we end up doing, I hope it does not involve getting stuck!
I am proud to announce that I am officially a Great Uncle – while I maintain that I have always been great, I can now add that official title to my name, as a beautiful little girl was born to my niece on January 6!
Please be safe while ice fishing this season, and remember to take a picture to preserve a lifetime of memories. Also please watch out for the buses that are transporting our children. And remember to drive safely and slowly this winter season. Thanks for reading, and have a great week and a happy 2014! For more of my columns visit: http://allan-crazykids.blogspot.com.


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