Friday, April 27, 2012

Emerald City Search 2012, Part 1 (or, I won!)

Woohoo!  Early on Thursday, April 26 (before 7am), I found the Emerald City Search Medallion for April 2012 at the Green Lake Fallout Shelter, shortly after the 6th clue was released.
Medallion with bonus key and super bonus rubber gasket
In addition to a prize package worth around $9000 (which our 8-person team will share), the key is one of two that will open a special mystery/art/prize box after the second ECS in October 2012 (the other key will be hidden with the October medallion).  That box will be put on display shortly somewhere on the Seattle Center grounds, I was told.  I'm not sure, though, if OneReel, the folks putting on the contest, even know what it will contain.  It's all part of generating suspense for hunt number 2.  Are you suspenseful yet?  Good.

[The rubber gasket was an additional extra-special-grand-prize.]

But how, I hear you ask, did you find this medallion?  Well, let me tell you in roughly chronological order.  (Cue  flashback music).

Preparation

First of all, I did win the ECS once before, in 2007.  So that helped, particularly with knowing how the hunt and clues were structured.  I even wrote up an insightful, cogent summary of tips I thought might help, and published it on one of the premier PuzzleHuntContest blogs on the Internet.

I followed EmeraldSearch and ClueMeister on Twitter, and Liked their Facebook pages.

I read an excellent book, The Future Remembered: The 1962 Seattle World's Fair and Its Legacy, then put it and a few other books about Century 21 on hold from the Seattle Public Library.  (In hindsight, only The Future Remembered proved useful, and I probably could have gotten the same information from the Internet).

I asked a number of friends to team up to try to win the contest, and ended up with 8 people on my team.  We communicated via Facebook group and Google group.

Then I went on vacation, since these things are never going to be solved on the first day, anyway.

Day 1:  Saturday, April 21

I hung out at Olvera Street in L.A., and later helped make lemonade from my dad's lemon tree.  Then I flew back to Seattle.  Meanwhile, there was a clue:


Wenner-Gren’s futuristic dream ride
Constructed a new mode of transit.
Others rushed to connect and bisect,
Leaving a mess to meet the Fair’s opening.

 It's clear this is talking about transportation.  In case you didn't know, during 1962 both I-5 and the 520 bridge were under construction, and together they helped create the 'Mercer Mess' we all know and loathe, so it's a safe bet that the 'answer' to this clue is 'freeway'.

Later in the hunt, we broadened this to 'highway', and briefly flirted with the idea of 'drawbridge' (due to 'connect' and 'opening').  All along, I was somewhat apprehensive that this was too easy; as I wrote in my earlier blog post, the clue authors have never before given positive information about the medallion's location in clue #1 (usually, they talk about what the medallion is made of).  But it turns out 'freeway' was the right answer.  As it turns out, the clue writers also 'broke the rules' in a few other ways in this contest.

Note:  All clues and explanations, including the ones that were never released, are available on the ECS website.

Day 2:  Sunday April 22

This is totally the answer to clue #2.  Except it isn't
Kids spun silly at the Gayway “Space Whirl.”
The Belgian Waffle House became a family favorite,
But on Gracie’s Show Street, the gates were closed,
Unless you were old enough to step up to the bar.
This wins the prize for the most mysterious clue.  At first, we guessed the answer was '21', due to the last two lines (which suggest the drinking age of 21).  Later, when Georgetown looked like a good bet, I suggested 'airport' was the answer (because it has both gates and a bar).  Near the end of the hunt, we decided it was really just a description of the famous Century 21 'man in space' logo (see above), which we deduced would show up on the medallion.  There's a circle, like the Space Whirl, and the globe kinda looks like a waffle, plus '21'.  

This allowed us to file this clue as a medallion description clue, and thus ignore it.  Which isn't a bad strategy for early clues in this hunt, by the way; because later clues give more information than earlier clues, it's better to ignore an early clue you can't explain than to try to assign it an importance that it doesn't have, (which can lead you in the wrong direction).

Day 3:  Monday, April 23

Boeing’s Spacearium “Journeyed To The Stars,”
And Cinerama created a benchmark in film,
Orienting 4½ million of us to the ends of the universe
Where materials like ZAMAK fashioned the future.
 Whenever you see an early clue describing, out of nowhere, a material that could be used to construct a medallion, you should probably suspect it is a medallion description clue.  Zamak is a zinc alloy, so we immediately decided this clue described the medallion, and we were right.  In addition, the words 'benchmark' and 'orient' made us think that, similar to 2009 when the medallion was disguised as a metal disc on the sidewalk, the medallion could be disguised as a benchmark (as in, a metal thingy embedded in the earth to mark a reference point):
The Platonic ideal of 'benchmark'
This turned out to be true, for the most part.  I was slightly worried because I thought all benchmarks were copper-colored, and Zamak looked more silver/gray to me, but shortly thereafter we found a silver/gray benchmark when searching near the Montlake Bridge (as well as a couple of copper-colored ones).  The main problem with our interpretation is that we spent the next few days looking on the ground, and the medallion was actually mounted five or so feet off the ground on a closed gate (per clue #2, which we didn't really solve).

One thing we did get right:  when the first clues did not seem to describe the medallion, we suspected that this was because knowing what the medallion looked like would be a key to finding it (as in 2009, when the medallion was not described until clue 6!).

Day 3 was the first day we went searching, near the Montlake Bridge.  This was more of a scouting expedition than an actual search, as there was no real reason to choose Montlake over any other place, other than it was near a freeway and it was likely to have a benchmark.

Day 4:  Tuesday, April 24

Carlson’s doodle bolstered Seattle,
Permanently linking Century 21’s inspiration.
The future of space topped even Elvis
When Glenn passed over Sputnik’s orbit.
A commenter on Facebook made a convincing argument that this clue was about the Museum of Flight, and it sounded good to us:  What was Century 21's inspiration?  The organizers may have claimed it was science, but it was really the Space Race that made science popular.  'The Future of Space' was the title of a talk that was given at the Museum of Flight the same day this clue was released (The Future of Space is mining asteroids, apparently; the World's Fair goers would probably have loved that).  And while John Glenn never actually got higher than Sputnik's orbit, it kinda looks like he did in the Museum of Flight's gallery of spaceships (Sputnik is the silvery ball in the right rear):
Not orbitally accurate

There are two problems with this line of thought.  First is, it seems way too easy (c'mon, Clue #3 even mentioned Boeing!).  More importantly, though, the Museum of Flight is not in the Seattle City Limits, as required in the rules.

But that gave us an idea.  Suppose the answer to clue #2 is 'airport'.  Then we have 'freeway', 'airport', 'Museum of Flight'.  Clearly the medallion is in Georgetown.  From there, and Clue 3's 'ends of the universe', we hypothesized that the medallion was located at the edge of Seattle (the end of the universe, at least for the medallion).  There are a few public places around Georgetown that intersect the city limits (see this map, or just Google 'Seattle', which gives you a nice outline of the city), including 3 places where they intersect Airport Way.  And one of our team members works at Boeing, in a building that straddles the city limits.  So on his lunch hour, he made a circuit of Boeing Field, checking all the possible places, most of which were at the side of busy roads in uninviting and uninteresting patches of unmowed grass.  Sorry, Patrick.

Later that day, we noticed the words 'passed over'.  Hmmm.  'Overpass'?  And the word 'linking' seems clumsy, too.  Light rail = Link, so maybe this was a reference to a place where there was a light rail overpass (like the one over I-5 south of Boeing Field, except it can't be that one, as it's not in Seattle).   On Tuesday nights I usually ride bikes around town with friends, so I hijacked the ride to check out this and some other possibilities.  If ECS had not been going on, I probably would have suggested we check out some cool place, like the fallout shelter in Green Lake I'd read about a few months ago, but ECS is serious business and the shelter could wait.  We went south.

First we checked out areas in South Lake Union near seaplane terminals ('airport' + 'Mercer Mess').  Apart from a rat trap, we found nothing.  Then we went to the Atlantic Street Park in the Rainier Valley, which is the only place we could find where 21st Ave (or Street) comes close to a freeway.  While I was looking at manhole covers, the other riders found a play structure that said 'Scavenger Hunt' on the side, along with a dozen or so objects you could find on the play structure.  We looked extra carefully in that park, but didn't find anything other than all the objects in the Scavenger Hunt.  Finally we biked over to SoDo and the Light Rail overpass that leads into Beacon Hill.  No luck their, either, although we did get soaking wet on the ride back and stayed up until midnight.  That would not be the first time.

Day 5: Wednesday, April 26

Our golden look back is reflected
By those who remembered the A-Y-P,
Formed on green grounds, like the Search itself,
Tread northwest to where you want to be.

Oh yeah, now we're getting somewhere.  I blithely ignored the first line, rationalizing that 'golden' was just a reference to the (probably goldish) benchmark/medallion, and 'reflected' just a play on the AYP pool that became Drumheller Fountain, which was called the Reflecting Pool.  Wait, it was actually called Geyser Basin?  Don't trouble me with facts.

'Tread northwest' and 'green grounds' seemed the most interesting parts of this clue, at least to some of us.  Walk northwest from the UW, find a park (green grounds).  Or maybe Green Lake.  Or maybe Green Lake Park.  And wait, the weird words in clue 4 ('bolster', 'top', 'link'), maybe they describe an arch - there's an arch just east of the Green Lake Community Center.  And one at Meridian Park, too.  And all these places and more are near I-5.

I did some exploring on the way to work.  The area near the arch looked very promising:  arch, freeway, plus a big grassy area (green grounds) between the playground and the Green Lake Bar and Grill (kind of seems like clue #2, if you twist your mind a bit).  But no benchmarks.  Lots of benches, but that didn't work out either.  On to that fallout shelter I mentioned earlier.  It's parklike, and next to the freeway, near the north end of the big overpass that forms the Park and Ride.  I searched the grass thoroughly, as well as the sidewalk and walkways up to the gates.  I remember looking at the gates, and noticing the big sign with all the graffiti.  But somehow I missed this:
Obviously just a lock or something, nothing to see here

After more fruitless searching in the Ravenna Boulevard median, I went to work.  Green Lake still looked good, and if you interpreted clue #1 as 'highway', the three bridges over Aurora in Woodland Park (Aurora bisects, the bridges connect) were promising as well, so other team members did some searching there today.  After work, I checked out the Meridian Park arch as well as some more of the Green Lake shore, until it started to thunder and I came home soaked.

I had pretty much given up searching for the day, until we saw a casual remark by a Facebook user that Elvis was 'the King'.  Wait a second, 'topped Elvis' = 'topped the King'.  Like an ace tops a king in cards.  Isn't 'bolster' a term in bridge?  Yes it is.  In fact, all the clunky words in clue 4 are used in bridge. We went back to searching, concentrating on bridges.  A team member in Magnolia said she'd check out the 2 big bridges NW of the Seattle Center (Magnolia and Ballard).  We realized 'tread northwest' could mean to check the NW walk of the bridge (tread = walk), which means it could be any bridge with a sidewalk.  'Freeway' still seemed strong, so I mapped out all the bridges over I-5 and 520 near my house (NE Seattle), bought a Coke and some Cheez-Its, and set out on a rainy night to check them out.

Sometime during this rainy night, I realized 'tread' is also a term related to stairs.   Maybe I should check out the NW staircases, too (all the drawbridges have them).  Tread is also used when talking about trails, and both the Fremont and Montlake bridges have trails leading NW from them (Fremont has 2, in fact).  I found benchmarks along the trails NW of both Fremont and Montlake, but not the benchmark I was looking for.  Still, the drawbridges were looking good, especially if you reinterpret clue #1 to emphasize 'connect' and 'opening'.  I went to bed at midnight promising to wake up at 6am for the next clue, since I thought we were very close.

Day 6:  Thursday, April 26

Opening day, Seattleites surveyed Horiuchi’s mural,
Modern Art abstractions and Northwest traditions.
On May 15th Stern’s violin and Lees’ vision
Broke new ground at the Opera House.
 Oh man, 'Opening day'!  It must be a drawbridge (this year's Opening Day is May 5, by the way, I saw the sign on the way home the previous night).  But which drawbridge?  I found a description of the Opera House concert referenced in the clue, but it didn't seem to be relevant.  But 'broke new ground' suggests a groundbreaking.  Was the groundbreaking for the Montlake Bridge on May 15?  I couldn't find the answer on Google, so I turned it around.  'May 15 groundbreaking Seattle' should tell me which, if any, of the drawbridges had a groundbreaking on May 15.

My Facebook message at 6:45am:
Holy cow! The groundbreaking ceremony for the fallout shelter (at the Weedin underpass under I-5) was May 15, 1962!

End of the universe. Green grounds (Green Lake). It fits.
After negotiating with my wife to make sure I could go, I rushed over to the Park and Ride, parked near the bomb shelter, and looked around.  No one else appeared to be in sight.  I headed for the gate first, hoping to find a plaque or something related to the groundbreaking, where I saw this:
Second look
Hmmm.  Says 'survey' and 'benchmark'.  That's promising.  No threat of fine or imprisonment if disturbed.  Let's see if it unscrews or something.  Nope.  Maybe there's something behind it.  Nothing I can find.  Maybe there are instructions, as there were on the metal disc in 2009.  I don't see any.  Maybe that's a phone number there, and if I call it, it will have instructions....  Hey, wait a minute.  2E0C1S2.  Okay, that's just ECS 2012 interleaved.  This is clearly the medallion, let's jiggle it some more.  There's a little bit of play.  I can always bend those clamps...

And then it popped off and fell to the ground, along with a key on a really long chain with instructions attached.  Plus the gasket.  Don't forget the gasket.

From 2007, I knew there was a phone number to call, so I called it first.  At the very least, you want to be kind to your fellow hunters and let them know ASAP that there's no sense in rushing around looking for something that's already been found.  After that, I texted the my wife and the only team member I was sure would be up at the ungodly hour of 7am, and returned home triumphant.

Lessons Learned

Just like in 2007, clues we were sure we had figured out, we didn't have figured out.  'Ends of the universe' wasn't meant to mean anything.  The answer to clue #4 was 'overpass', not 'bridge'.  Clue #2 referenced the locked gate, not the Century 21 logo (but the logo was on the medallion).

It really helps to think and re-think the clues, as we actually did have the correct answers to most of the clues at some point (just never all at the same time).  More importantly, you want to be able to quickly switch between clue interpretations when something better comes along.  Like when I was absolutely sure it was drawbridges early Thursday morning, until, whoops, 'freeway' 'bridge' works a lot better.

I have an amazing capacity for overlooking things hidden in plain sight.

The clue writers are willing to break their rules.  As I mentioned about clue 1, they gave away important information in the first clue (something I don't think has occurred since the first search, which the current clue writers were not a part of).  Also, I would say this is the first time that the clue was hidden at a remarkable spot related to the ECS theme.  In the past, it's been on a post, under a bench, behind some rocks, on the sidewalk, and in some ivy.  And while a couple of those places have been somewhat related to the theme of the search (the 'frog' medallion in a wading pool, the 'music' medallion in front of a record store), this time it was just sitting there at one of the few remaining Cold War relics in the city.  Previously, you could count on the medallion being somewhere almost aggressively mundane, but not anymore.

Upcoming events

You liked the Emerald City Search and can't wait until October to do it again?  Here are some ideas to tide you over.  (If you've read my earlier blog posts, you may note that I'm repeating some of these explanations.  Sorry about that.)
  • April 28: Columbia City Street Scramble - Head down to Columbia City for this checkpoint race on foot or bike.  You could even take light rail and eat BBQ afterwards (or during, for that matter).  You get a map with 30+ checkpoints (each worth various points) and try to visit as many as you can in 90 minutes or 3 hours.  Technically, this is 'urban orienteering' and a 'rogaine' (in classic orienteering, you have to visit the checkpoints in order; in a rogaine you can visit as many as you like in any order you like).  But really, this is just a scavenger hunt in a cool neighborhood where your chances of getting truly lost are negligible.  Prize:  A ribbon and, we've been promised, something other than the chocolate bars they used to give out.  I think they even mentioned something about a contest.  Ooh, I like contests.  There are lots of categories to compete in, so don't think you have to be some uber-marathoner to win a prize.
  • April 28: U District Double-Header Alleycat/Scavenger Hunt + Sprint - Sounds like a triple-header to me.  In case you don't know, Alleycats are unsanctioned bike races in city streets.  Curiously, the prizes are usually better for these things than actual pro bike races.  Get your Lance Armstrong on, but wear a helmet.  I will be booking it from the Street Scramble in Columbia City to make this on time.
  • May 3: First Thursday Adventure Run - Road Runner Sports, Green Lake.  Run (or walk) to checkpoints in the neighborhood for an hour (they could use the fallout shelter, but I doubt it), get raffle tickets, drink a beer while waiting to see if one of your tickets is drawn.  Prize package of $3000 in merchandise and gift cards from Road Runner and the various checkpoint businesses (plus they always have an after-party at a local bar with another raffle worth about $500).  Pre-register to save time and to get the opportunity to buy a beer for $1 (you used to get a free beer before the Washington State Liquor Control Board stepped in).  Buy an event T-shirt for double raffle tickets for the rest of the year, as well as a free beer for every run.  Note:  I bought a shirt for the April run, and it promptly paid for itself as one of the extra tickets yielded a prize of a couple of restaurant gift cards.
  • May 5: Hood Hunt - Sunset Hill.  Hood Hunts are like Street Scrambles, except even lower key, with no entry fee, no map (print your own in advance) and no prizes.  Walk/run around for an hour looking for checkpoints, then meet up at a neighborhood pub/eatery.
  • May 6: Orienteering (Score-O) - Shoreview Park, Shoreline (near Shoreline Community College).  Orienteering is a classic sport involving running around the woods with a map and compass looking for checkpoints as quickly as you can.  Local meets are usually low-key, in parks that aren't all that wooded (this one will likely wander through the more-buildingy-than-woody Shoreline Community College campus in part).  Instructors are on hand to help you out, and there are courses for beginners up to experts, so don't be intimidated. 'Score-O' is another way to say 'rogaine', so you'll be trying to find as many checkpoints as you can in a time limit.
  • May 12: Port Gamble Rogaine - 2, 4 or 6 hours, with bike, foot, or duathlon (half and half) options.  If you thought a Street Scramble was fun, and you'd like to do it in a wooded setting, try this (I'd suggest the 2-hour foot option if you're a beginner).  More adventurous than Columbia City, but not in the middle of nowhere, so you aren't going to get eaten by a bear.
  • May 17: BEAST race #2 - Mukilteo, Lynnwood. - Hardcore adventure racing takes place in the middle of nowhere, where you run around for a bit, ride a mountain bike for a bit, and paddle a kayak or something.  I don't do that.  But I am willing to run around a bit and ride my bike in the wilds of suburban Seattle, which is what a BEAST race is (Barebones Evening Adventure Something Something). Also, to make up for the lack of paddling, there's usually a random extra 'challenge' in the middle of the course on the order of croquet, disc golf, or doing a Winnie the Pooh 30-piece puzzle (harder than you might think after you've biked 10 miles).  Prizes are minimal to non-existent.  Teams encouraged.  If you're never done orienteering, I would not start here; the chances you end up exhausted on some gravel trail in the dark are non-trivial.
  • May 19: Seattle Challenge Urban Adventure Race - It's the start (I think) of the Urban Adventure Race season, a series of scavenger hunts/races that are obviously inspired at least somewhat by The Amazing Race.  These are usually too expensive for me to enter, but this one has a nice deal going where the entry fees are $30 instead of $50.  As I understand it, you run around, solve puzzles, possibly perform a humiliating activity or two.  Not Fear Factor humiliating, more like 'eat a chocolate-covered grasshopper' humiliating.  Don't like grasshoppers?  Make your teammate do it. Prizes are usually not insubstantial.
  • May 23: Evening Orienteering - Robinswood Park, Bellevue.  Did you notice how long the daylight lasts these days?  The Eastside orienteering club, Sammammish Orienteering Club, takes advantage of this with evening courses at Eastside parks.  There's a free meal afterward, so you don't even have to resort to eating at TGIFridays afterwards (the free meal is better as well).
  • May 26: Gig Harbor Street Scramble - Unlike most other Street Scrambles, this one is free.  Something about how Gig Harbor is trying to help their citizens lead healthier lives.  You might be dubious that having Seattleites travel to Gig Harbor to do a scavenger hunt will lead to Gig Harborites (Gigites?  Gig Harboridians?) exercising more, but then you find yourself buying lunch in downtown Gig Harbor and their secret plan is revealed.  Really, though, it's a nice little town, and the weather usually cooperates.  Tip:  only climb the hill up out of the Harbor once, unless you're some kind of masochist.
Also, try geocaching.  I'm going to do that one of these days myself.  Really, I swear.




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