I haven’t blogged in awhile.
It’s been very dreary here in Southeastern Michigan. What free time I’ve had is directed towards
holiday shopping and getting ready for the family events.
Saturday night a new puzzle cache was released (
Will the real GeoCHECKER please stand up?
GC5HCZ3). It’s a TomasDiaz creation –
he only puts out puzzle caches. He makes
you think – no easy grabs here. You
always earn your stripes with him. I’ve spent anywhere from days to months
working on some of his and, although I have almost a 1000 puzzle finds, there
are many I’m not smart enough to solve.
So when a new one published…..
Again, I saw it on Saturday night, but TaGeez and I had
holiday chores to do. Every time he
turned his back, though, I had pencil and notepad in hand. (He’s so sweet – he kept turning a blind eye
and pretending he didn’t notice). It’s so hard not to shout spoilers, but, in
essence it’s about 50 or more puzzles within a puzzle. Some simple.
Some complex. And, of course, the
red herrings and dead ends. Some testing your geocaching knowledge about
coordinates and coordinate conversions.
Math. Science. Google Earth. Geography. And then keeping everything straight – there
are several times where you have to backtrack to other puzzles to solve later
puzzles. As my log later said, it was “brilliantly convoluted”. Luckily, I made copious notes and took many
screenshots along the way.
 |
| Cool, eh? One of the many sites I had to visit |
I could only putts around with it Saturday, but, after TaGeez
left for work Sunday morning, I sat down to “treat myself” to a few more hours
of solving. You had to solve dozens
of mini-puzzles (some within other mini-puzzles) to then solve a larger puzzle
by way of another complex puzzle. Call me surprised when I had the final in
hand.
Really. I sat there
on the loveseat. Stunned.
There was no way I’d get first-to-find. We have too many puzzle geniuses in the area
(I say with respect) and the cache was 12 miles away (as the crow flies –
driving it was probably 18 miles).
Still, I changed out of my jammies and headed out the door. I
solved a TomasDiaz puzzle within 24 hours of release – I was going for it!
Warily I pulled up to the GZ. Were these coordinates correct? Can this be
right? I don’t see anything. I was afraid
I’d show up to find a note that said, “No, you are really wrong. Go back and start from Square A again!”.
Again, I can’t give too much away, but there was a note. And, eventually, another container. Inside this one was another paper, but it was
a log with a beautifully pristine spot for an FTF signature!
I don’t know if the other seekers were busy with holiday
shopping or travel plans. And I probably
should’ve been doing chores of my own.
But as I pulled away with a silly grin on my face, I kept thinking this
was the best Christmas gift for me!
