If you’ve been living under a rock … OK, strike that. Regardless of your terrestrial status, you know about Pokémon Go. That’s because so many people are playing the two-week-old game on their smart phones that no stone has gone unturned in the search for a Legendary Pokémon (none of which have been found yet, apparently).

The new get-up-and-get-outside game has sparked all the predictable reactions, from wild, quit-my-job enthusiasm for Pokémon master status to eye-rolling disdain toward those leaving the house for the first time in 15 years so they can hunt cartoon characters on your street.

Maybe the New York Times couldn’t be bothered about seriously covering the Bernie Sanders campaign, but the paper makes up for that by giving us at least a half-dozen stories that I know of regarding the new game.

The hype is so prevalent that I hesitated about a column introduction employing the old under-a-rock lead. I figured other writers applied it dozens of times, if not hundreds (they did; love ya, Google).

My feelings are mixed and relatively mild. I see the game’s value as a promoter of the outdoors, but I can – and will – live without it.

It’s great to see more folks wandering around enjoying the sunshine and moonlight, although I hope they stay away from wherever I am, especially when I’m trying to enjoy a little outdoor peace and quiet.

I’m comfortable saying I won’t become addicted to this form of “augmented reality,” as the game’s developers characterize it. Any day outside in Wisconsin doesn’t need a gimmick to be great.

Give me a boat, not a Bulbasaur

Call me boring, but I prefer more timeless entertainment, like sitting around on a boat shooting the breeze.

That’s what I was doing before my brief fling with the game last weekend, out on the Wisconsin River with Gazette managing editor Nate Enwald. We were solving the problems of the world while Nate simultaneously tried his hand at stunning fish by dropping plastic lures on their heads; Nate is a true multitasker.

As you might imagine, a guy trying to pop perch that way and anyone he’d deign to allow on his boat aren’t going to solve many problems, but we did eventually get around to talking about Pokémon Go.

We were a few miles north of downtown Point, where we had slipped past some tall trees to a backwater somewhat isolated from the main river, as it extended to a railroad bridge on a large, pond-like inlet.

I remembered that I had my smartphone with me – that one I set relationship ground rules for when I got it last fall – so I quickly found and downloaded the game. After choosing from among two genders and three colors of spiky hair for my uniquely one-of-a-kind original individualistic avatar, I found that there were three different Pokémon right there on the river with us.

One was a weird-looking turtle thingy. Another was a weirder-looking turtle-y looking thingy with a minaret or something on its back. I can’t remember what the other thing was.

I found out later that these were Bulbasaur, Charmander and Squirtle, because each uniquely different personal Pokémon Go experience you can have starts with these three singularly special individuals.

The game is Google-map based, so it showed me that I was in the middle of water surrounded by greenery. It was just electric-haired me, the three creatures, and all that wilderness.

This apparently scared or disgusted Nate, because he immediately started the motor and we began moving out of the inlet. We ran directly over one of the Pokémon and it either popped or died or submerged; I’m not sure which, as I immediately turned off the game and then deleted it.

I had been trying to take a screen shot of the game and couldn’t figure that out, and because I was already violating one of my primary rules about technology use in the outdoors – as well as the fact that I hated my virtual hair – I killed the game.

As it turns out, we probably didn’t kill the Pokémon, because you defeat them by flicking Poké balls at them using your touch-screen. One finds characters by wandering around, phone on, in any area of Google Maps coverage, although the game’s makers have tried to limit the locations of its creatures to public areas.

These are the kinds of things I’ve found out in my later, very important research on this unique and critical human activity. For me, however, it was more fun to spy on an otter residing on the inlet as the little swimmer rustled through the reeds and dawdled under some tree roots that provided a nice watery cave.

When we left the inlet, it was actually getting a little late; dusk was coming, and we’d had a fine evening on the river. It had been one of those cool, sunny, puffy-cloud days that are so characteristic of Wisconsin – summertime perfected.

We motored into town as another boat headed home in the opposite direction, blasting the Hollies’ “Hey, Carrie Anne” to complete the nostalgic reminder of those seasons we all knew when growing up.

Enjoying a multi-hued sunset just as beautiful as those my family recently saw in Costa Rica, we arrived back at the dock as darkness fell. I realized Nate just had a better sense of timing than I and probably didn’t hold the Pokémon against me.

It seems like a fine enough pastime, but in my book, our Wisconsin outdoor reality needs no such augmentation.