Maple's Pirate Treasure Hunt! Part Four

After we found the hint in the Fort Black drainpipe we went home to rest for a couple days before we went back into the "wilderness."

The hint (which I admit) Maple found that day read:

Start from the first

Turn away from the second

And you will find the third

Inside a cube

There is a cylinder

Inside the cylinder there is a key

Outside the cylinder

There is a heart

Go from bottom to top

And you will find what you seek

So now you know why we took a couple days off from hunting. Neither of us had a clue as to what that hint was trying to tell us. But luckily Mr. Weethers helped us a little bit with this one. I think he was tired of seeing us hanging around the house.

"Start from the place where you found the first hint. Then instead of going toward Fort Black, the second place you found a hint, go in the opposite direction until you find something that is a cube," he explained yesterday afternoon while he champed on carrots.

"Well, there was that road that we found..." I added.

"Yeah, go to that road and don't go in the direction of Fort Black. Go the other way," he said. He spoke very slowly... I'm pretty sure he thought we were idiots. Man, he made it all seem so easy. Who knew bunnies were so smart?

"But what about the cube and cylinder thing?" Maple asked, "What does that mean?"

"You'll just have to find them and figure it out when you get there," Mr. Weethers answered.

So we got ready today and headed out. Maple decided to wear Lira's Wellington boots again and her owl tee shirt, as well as Kanani's Beach Outfit hair accessory. Her skirt is from 123 Mulberry Street -- it is a top that can double as a skirt. :-)

We hiked over the Craggy Hill to the Entrance to Blackbeard's Wood, walked a hundred paces and found Stone Rock Road once again. Then we went right instead of left. After a long walk, we came to a high fenced-in compound.

"Maybe this is the cube?" Maple said.

"Well we haven't found anything else to be a cube...," I replied.

We peeked through the slats of the fence to see if there was a cylinder inside the compound.

"Oo, oo! I see a tower inside!," Maple yelled.

"Oh, man. This must be the Spanish Tower from the map. Why can't these hints just say 'Go to the Spanish Tower.'"

"Well if they did, would you know where the Spanish Tower was?"

"I guess not...," I said, frustrated.

We walked around the compound until we found a gap in the fence that we could squeeze through. Then we walked over to the Tower.

"The hint said we have to go inside the cylinder to find a key," I said. So we pushed open the door to the tower and 'broke in' so-to-speak. After a bit of searching we found a key in the back corner of the main room, sitting on a bookshelf.

Then we went back outside and looked around for a heart. I didn't see anything that looked like a heart.

"What do we do now?" Maple sighed. "I am so tired. It took us like seventeen-hundred hours to find that key."

"It was like two hours. Stop whining, and look for a heart."

"What is the next line to the clue?"

"Go from bottom to top."

"Well look, if you want to go to the top of the Tower you have to use the wooden stairs that go around the outside of it. Where do they start?"

Who knew? So we trekked around the base of the Tower until we found where the stairs started. There was a gate there that was locked. The lock was in the shape of a heart. Duh. We used the key and opened the gate.

"You go," Maple said softly like she had lost all her will to live. "I'll stay behind." She stopped walking and leaned back into the corner of the stairs.

"You mean you are making me walk all the way to the top of the Tower by myself?!?"

"I can't go any further.... I just can't go on...." Such a drama queen.

"Oh for.... fine, fine... I'll do it just to get this thing over with." I gave her my camera to hold and started up the stairs. It was exhausting. And I am pretty sure the Tower was like 6,000 feet tall. But I eventually got to the top and found the hint sticking out of the wooden boards there.

After I came back down, more sweaty and more dirty than before.... Maple insisted...

"Now I get to pose with the hint as if I were finding it down at the bottom of the stairs!"

"This is false information...," I explained, "The hint wasn't down here. It was up there."

"Do you want to go home at some point today or do you want to sleep here?"... was her response.

"The sun is going to set soon... let's get this over with.... But next time you are climbing the stairs," I answered.

And the posing commenced.... 

Maple "discovers the hint"....

Her starry-eyed look when daydreaming of pirate treasure...

Dramatic staircase shots....

To accentuate the fact that she didn't really climb the stairs...

As we left the compound to go home, Maple brightened up and said, "I'm so glad you are coming along on these trips. That way we have someone to do the hard jobs like going up all those stairs and I can still look pretty for the camera!"

Then she promptly tripped, fell and broke her magnifying glass. I tried not to laugh as I helped her up.

She pouted for awhile until I told her that Penny would get another one for her.

"Yeah but not in time for the rest of the photos..." she grumbled.

"Nope, not in time for those. But we can still find hints without a magnifying glass."

"That's true...."

And here is an homage to the now-broken magnifying glass.... sigh....

Will we be able to find hints without the magnifying glass?

Where will we head to next?

Will we ever find this blasted treasure???

Did Mr. Weethers just set this all up to get us out of the house and out of his hair????

Stay tuned for Part Five to find out!!!