I’ve been meaning to do this for awhile. My wife has been burned out on caching since shortly after completing our triple crown of 1000 finds and the Nebraska 93 County Challenge and Nebraska DeLorme challenge. Since she is my favorite caching partner and I’m not burned out, I’ve been trying to gently, yet persistently, rekindle the spark for her. My short article,”I’m a Geocache Kid”, while heartfelt, was also an attempt at that. One she saw right through. “Awww, I wanna retire to the geo-playground with you too! ...Good try, but I still feel burned out.” I had mentioned in that article that we don’t re-trade swag but keep it in a chest as tangible memories of our caching adventures. Even as I was writing that paragraph, plan B began to form.

“Dear! We should go through the swag chest and write a story about the treasures we’ve kept in there. Let’s try to make some time to do that.” “Yeah, we can do that; it might make a good story for you. I can’t promise I’ll be gung ho again after that though.” Can’t put anything past her! It did open a dialogue though and we’re making progress towards her return to being the driving force in our cache adventures, and once again, we’ll treasure the pleasure in equal measure.

Yes, we play as pirates, 2 hundred years too late, Cannons don’t thunder, though we’ve plenty of plunder, We are over-forty cachers who’ll state, “This caching is great, yeah, caching is great!” Jimmy Buffet-ish (Apologies, Sioneva, for the style rip-off)

Aaarrr! We be seeking traysure (not buried!!)

Most of us grew up with a healthy imagination, and enjoyed playing as cowboys and Indians, soldiers, ballerinas or princesses but there seems to be a universal appeal to the free-spirited, flamboyant rascals who sailed the seas seeking plunder. Pirates, privateers or buccaneers hoisting the Jolly Rodger as they overtake their prize and anticipate the excitement of boarding and the revelry of success. What a life that must have been! Now, we can seek hidden treasures, mapped by satellites, but still testing our wits and senses against those who would keep us from the loot. The excitement of the hunt, the thrill of the find, followed by pawing through swag! Har! Har! A pirate’s life for me! ... Jist one question, be it truly plundered if’n ye trade fer it?

We found this buccaneer bendy left behind to guard the loot in a series about Tom Flint, the river pirate, who along with Corvus, his carrion eating companion, terrorized the shipping lanes of the Missouri river. As the end came near for him, he left a string of caches with sections of map to the final treasure hoard for those bold enough to seek it. While we didn’t cross the path of Corvus during our attempts, we did run afoul of Capt. Flint’s Irish bosun, Snarly O’Possum.

Another item in the theme is a pirate die game. No, not walking the plank or here, sharky sharky, we’ve a morsel for ye, or even a quick round of catch the cannonball, but a game where ye roll the bones, dice ya know. Made from the blackened bones of players past, tumble the dice and shout “Avast!” First to put both ship and crew, at tombstone marked thirteen, safe from bein' blackened too, har! we be playing mean.

This here’s the rubber duck, … come on … mercy sakes alive, looks like we got us a convoy. C.W. McCall

Rubber ducky, you’re the one! You make cache swag lots of fun!

We’ve picked up these fellows along the road, never knowing when we would hear the crackle of static followed by “breaker, breaker, cache-finder … room for another duck? come on.” The answer is almost always “you got the back door, good buddy” and the little fellow slips into the cache bag. The standard yellow duck is cute, but there is such a wide variety of adorable character ducks. Police ducks, fire ducks, soldier ducks even geo-ducks (not the bivalve) and, yes ... a whole crew’s worth of different swashbuckling, eye-patched, bandanna wrapped, ready to float the seven seas, pirate ducks. Peace sign hippy ducks and glow in the dark microducks and I believe I may have seen once, a gap-toothed hockey duck. Yes, the mighty duck is a supreme swag find and one that always makes me smile.

Parts made in China, licensed toys, if you please, tickles finders on a regular cache run. McToys Corp. jingle

Hold the pickle, hold the lettuce, this king of swag does not upset us. Finding a cache with a cute McToy in it is like digging into the paper sack, past the fries, past the nuggets, to find the happy mealtime prize. “I wanna see what I got!” Nothing brings out the kid in me like having a chattering Ice Age squirrel chomp fries or a Happy Feet penguin doing his steps on my cheeseburger or a Toy Story slinky dog chasing his tail round my drink cup. And some of my best Guardian Series guards have been interviewed and hired right out of a Smiley Meal sack!

This is also a type swag we often exchange for whatever we want out of a cache. We inherited several bushels worth of new, in the bag, toys from my parents, who walked to the nearby B.K., or if they felt more adventurous, the McD’s just .1 mile further. They would order 2 Smiley Meals almost every day and staunchly resist the impulse to tear in and play with Buzz Lightyear and Woody or Brother Bear or Frodo or whatever the toy du jour happened to be. Their restraint was our gain.

All I have is a piece of brown sandstone, but it’s not for throwing… it’s for looking through. Chief Dan George-ish

If you’ve followed along in my column, you’ll know that my wife and I really enjoy EarthCaches. When possible, we try to collect a representative rock for the sites we visit and a few non EC places too. We have red Sioux Quartzite that we found near Sioux Falls, a few colorful chunks of chert we picked up near Joplin Mo., small fossils and crystals from an Iowa roadcut EarthCache, where it was expressly permissible to take samples, and a piece of sandstone riddled with holes from Kansas. Tailings from a coal mine and even broken marble tile from a construction site refuse pile near a traditional cache. We have chalk from a chalk mine and slate to write on and limestone from a quarry. While visiting Pipestone Minnesota, we bought Native American carved catlinite, even though small pieces were lying around everywhere. It is considered a sacred place and at other sacred site EC’s we have visited, we’ve only taken pictures or if we couldn’t take pictures, a kitten. These various pieces of rock bring back great memories for us. We’ve also found finely polished agate stones and sig items with painted rocks and even granite from a state capitol building awaiting our discovery in caches.

We’re looking forward to adding to our mineral swag collection as well and would relish a visit to a dig a diamond or sift a sapphire, or even excavate an emerald, type EarthCache. And of course, we would be just as eager to do a placer gold EC. Maybe someday that will pan out for us.

Tee Hee Hee, got your nose, Papa Joe! Emmaleigh

One of my favorite swag items we’ve ever found hasn’t made it into the chest and probably never will, I get way too much fun out of it. A red vinyl clown nose with “The Greatest Show on Earth” printed on it. I like to think of it as my EarthCaching nose because “The Greatest Show on is Earth.” Also, my granddaughter likes to either “honk” it or grab it off my nose and run away giggling. You could consider a happy, playful, grandchild the second greatest show on earth. I do.

By catsnfish

A couple of empty-nesters who caught the caching bug not realizing it was incurable. So if we’re found in the woods waltzing with Garmins, lifting lampskirts while tying our shoe or looking for “gum” underneath benches, be sure to stay away... it’s contagious and the only temporary relief can be found in finding bison’s, ammo’s, nano’s, or passing coins and spreading travel bugs!

Publisher's Note: Catsnfish write the periodic column The Adventures of Catsnfish. Subscribe (free) to The Online Geocacher to get an email alert when a new article is published.