Geogirl. Kelly Rysten

got a good rating. We need all the good ratings we can get.”

      “You mean difficult ratings. Would you allow me to define difficult?”

      “We found the Pink Panther Cache, didn’t we? And that one was supposed to be harder.”

      “It was harder. We got trapped by a bear and spent a freezing night on the mountain. I’d say we earned that one.”

      “Well, maybe I’m crazy, but I want to find Insane Asylum.”

      “Okay, you’re the boss.”

      “And after that I want a real shower.”

       Chapter 7

      I wanted to find Insane Asylum because I had seen the pictures. It was at the ruins of an old asylum and the walls looked spooky, like they could tell stories people didn’t want to hear. It looked like the wind didn’t whisper through the empty widows, it screamed like a banshee, and when it was still you could hear ghost stories on the breezes as they stirred the ashes of some long forgotten time.

      Bumping along in the van I was beginning to think the van had once belonged to a resident at the asylum. The zebra striped walls and the purple shag floor looked like someone had decorated it after a bad dream.

      “Turn left in about half a mile,” I said to Twiggy.

      “Who puts an insane asylum way out here in the sticks?” he asked.

      “Somebody who doesn’t want the residents bothering the neighbors.”

      “There haven’t been insane asylums in use for years.”

      “That’s why there’s only ruins left.”

      “I think you’re crazy to want to go here.”

      “Okay. So leave me at the asylum,” I said. “I’ll find my way home.”

      “Aw Gabby, I was just kidding. I wouldn’t leave you behind and I don’t think you’re crazy. So far you’ve done an amazing job of choosing good caches. You know they are not all this interesting. There are some that I won’t even stop at.”

      “Like the lamp post ones?”

      “And guardrail caches. Who wants to look for a geocache with cars zipping past at fifty miles an hour? Guardrails are there to keep drivers on the road. They are nice and unobtrusive. You add a geocacher to the scene and they just become a distraction.”

      “I’ve never found a guardrail cache. Are they hard?”

      “They are either very easy or very tricky. Frustrating either way.”

      The road ran along a farmer’s field and then wandered away and over another creek. I had no idea the area I had spent four semesters in had so much running water. This bridge was sturdier than the last one we had seen. After it crossed the bridge, the road ascended the side of a hill and came out on top. A tall structure made the hill look bigger than it was. Twiggy checked his GPS.

      “Still a tenth of a mile.”

      However, a tenth of a mile brought us up behind the building. It looked like it was made of river rock and parts of the walls had fallen down over time. Cracks spider-webbed between the rocks looking like an accident waiting to happen.

      “Caches are usually not placed inside ruins,” Twiggy said. “Too many muggles explore places like this and they could find it by accident.”

      “Can we explore it just like the muggles do?” I asked.

      “Sure. Let’s find the cache first.”

      He parked the van next to the building and we carefully stepped around the debris that seems to be around any abandoned building.

      “It sure is a pretty place to send crazy people,” I said.

      “I doubt if most of them were crazy. Back then people were considered crazy if they were different. Some had physical problems, some mental, some were just hard to get along with. It was a place to send people to get rid of them.”

      “That’s sad.”

      “I know a few people I wouldn’t mind sending to an institution,” he said jokingly.

      “So, where’s the cache?”

      “I’ve had a few people overhear me talk geocaching and they think I’m crazy.”

      “Only because it has its own vocabulary and they don’t understand what you’re talking about. Do you remember me asking you what you were talking about? That’s what prompted you to show me what geocaching was.”