The Allison Wonderland

Well now, wasn't that fun? Sure we all had a great time noodling, but oh man, on some of those clues I'm calling Shinanigan's!I know some of you are right with me too. Clue 1Not a terrible first clue - its in a park, vs on some street sidewalk, like under a mailbox. But who knew the MacGuffin Mac being scottish, but that Highland Park was a scottish park? I had no idea... other than that Clue 1 was pretty good.Clue 2Told people to not trample the flowers, but was pretty worrthless, Impeach peachy had absolutely nothing to do do with the hunt but to reflect back on this hunt and clue 10 years from now and go oh...that's when Trump was getting slammed by the Dems. Woop de doo, what a waste of a clue, complete grabage IMOClue 3Love your melon Sponsor gets a nod, that was pretty cool.But dog eared map was somehow supposed to lead me to Snoopy? ?  AYKM? !!!!     (are you kidding me)And finally genuflect, many understood this correctly and was the best thing in this clue worth anything - that you had to bend down onto the ground and get the treasure, it wont be up in a crook of a tree.Clue 4Foreman and Clark (Tailor) and Donald Lannin (Dr.) were neighbors two blocks away from the park? AYKM ? x 100 !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!Worst clue I have ever heard of. We all pretty much got the tailor doctor thing, but again it meant absolutley nothing and was completely worthless, complete waste of time and the ink on the paper. Clue 5We all saw the russian theme going on there, and I searched arounf on the web for russian areas in St. Paul and NOTHING CAME UP. Russian Jews in Highland park? AYKM?Well they have the buildings in the area, but you would have to be thinking way outside the box to even have had a remote chance of coming up with that and if you did, no one would have believed your theory.Clue 6I figured this clue to be a winding road, but just about every park has a winding road through it. And then the Trolley theory came out and I was like, wow, that is a really great noodle! And it turns out, Edgecomb used to be South Summit, hmmm ok, we were all given a chance to look at those old maps. But we have Summit Ave and bluffs, it was just too hard a noodle for me and many others. But It did have some merit, although reaching. IMOClue 7Swing on down when in town and lights pointed to Circus Juventus. I saw a few mentions of that place. But that was not a very well written clue for that. Since when do you come on DOWN to HIGHLAND park? AYKM?Look at the map and line up 3 pools? uhhh?Before it gets hotter? How about WHEN IT GETS Hotter!? That would have led me to POOLS! Sheesh AYKM? And in order to line up 3 pools, of which ONE WAS PRIVATE! ???? WOW AYKM AND 1 AINT THERE ANYMORE ???? HDDIDD (Head drops down in deep disgust) YHGTBKMP (You have got to be kidding me PYLE!)Clue 8 First part very vague, fit many a park.2nd part of clue was actually good, stay away from the water and get by the woods.Clue 9Coal Man Saunders - we all had Hill, our fault. Had we gone with Saunders Path - Street we would have been led right there, and I suspect quite a few were after this clue. Also told us short of hill it does fall, puck was at the bottom of a hill lined up with Saunders Ave.Probably the BEST clue of the bunch.Clue 10A lovers fix - absolutely made no sense, so we should have scrambled that junk up, our bad. But Silver Fox? A mens group that holds yearly BOOYAS? If you were smart enough to scramble this and get to Silver Fox, a website search of Silver Fox St Paul does reveal the club, the booyas and 2 parks, Highland and Hidden Falls Park. So I guess it was there, we just had to unscramble that thing and we missed it. The bridges gap, putts that are pitches was in fact really good. Putts led you to golf, and pitches to frisbee golf and that was what zeroed everyone in that had noodled this thing out. Tough clue, but it was there for the pickin. Puck was foundClue 11What ifWell they do name streets, but sometimes just parts of the street names, stares near stairs, and stay low, bottom of hill, yeah that worked for me.Clue 12As I mentioned before, if someone finds it on Clue 12, great for them, they are jubilated! But to me it meens the cluewriter did a terrible job.
And so if we go by this theory, then clues 8,9,and 10 brought home the bacon and they did a good job there because it was found prior to 12 and the noodlers deserve alot of credit for figuring this out. Kuddos and Congrats!
Clues 2-7 were IMO worthless shinanigan's. How we got GRU leading to St. Paul was absolute LUCK! at least that luck got us in the city!
What I need to do is read past clues and explantions PRIOR to the hunt to get my mind right, I mean, not so right, so I can noodle these a tad better, because Like I said, half of the clue means absolutley nothing most of the time. But I should have gotten that Saunders one. And maybe the Silver Fox thing, A Lovers fix made no sense and I shudda seen that. With half the clues totally bogus, its a wonder it was found, but 8-10 did justice.
Anyway, that's a wrap from the Flippster. I grew up in St. Paul, now live way up in Moose Lake, and still love trying to noodle, it was fun to do it with my Dad for many years and he led me to many a correct park. He passed away last year. RIP Dad.
God Bless Mike

The Rehash Bash is this Sunday at 11:30 at the Newell Park building.

OMG, I have been kicking myself for not going out to the disc golf course. I thought about it.   I have played that course a ton, it is probably the only part of any park I am really familiar with. This should have been my year.   My name is Anita Braunstein.  Can you tell me again when the rehash bash is, maybe I can go to that?

I remember that.  We burned clues as I recall and people brought some food to share too.  Fun times!

 

 

Sent from Mail for Windows 10

 

--
inkswife Terry

In 2000 the medallion was found at Newell in the early afternoon of Clue 7 which was a Saturday. People had already made plans to be out for the night hunting and were facing an empty schedule. The weather was unusually nice that day so we decided to go to Newell anyway, light a bonfire, and have ourselves a Pity Party. Since then the Pity Party has become an annual tradition for hunters to come to grips with the end of the hunt. When possible we try to have it near to the park where the medallion was. And thus we will be having one tonight at a place called Sweet Peas in the Highland Park area. It is on Snelling and Randolph, just north of Plum's. The plan is to meet at 7pm though anyone is certainly free to head over earlier (or later) if you like.

Was anyone able to find the tree in the beginning of the deed is done video? We went to the spot and looked at very single tree in the ravine and up above around the ravine and couldn't find a matchChristi

Line 3 bodies water with a private pool outside the park? Wtf is that?

If we didn’t know before we know now who the clue writer is.

The only person who knows who lived there, is someone who lives RIGHT THERE.  

Like, say a newspaper columnist who lives at  2059 Upper Saint Dennis Rd #r, Saint Paul, MN 55116....
https://www.google.com/maps/place/2059+Upper+St+Dennis+Rd+r,+St+Paul,+MN+55116/@44.9084431,-93.1664961,17.5z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x87f62bc5a70f33e7:0xd2455a84d0d6fe97!8m2!3d44.9080598!4d-93.1653179?hl=en

David they are downright down a rabbit hole of ludicrous ridiculousness!

The bodies of water weren’t the water towers?

And, clue 4 can suck it.

I would have at least guessed the explanation this clue was the golf courses, the only reason Highland hit my radar (once). One patterned neat and trim (the nicely manicured golf course) and one salvaged life and limb (kind of haphazard layout through trees and ungroomed disc golf) the two cutters (bad throw/swing) who lived down the way (also was found by a set of neighbors last time at Highland), you decide which will play (the fact that it was on the disc golf course makes it seem more like this should be the explanation). Herringbone and Sawbone... to try to get you to think of people not "things"?

It is definitely worse. They should never ever write clues that involve us knowing where private citizens live. Though it's not like those were the two guys that come to mind for this clue anyway. In fact, if you had somehow figured that out I would have laughed it off rather than saying "Oh yea, that sounds right!". Absolutely terrible clue. The correct answer to this clue was President Johnson and Dr. Gillette.
David B. Allison

The Clue 4 explanation is almost as bad as the Snap Crackle and Pop cutouts from last year. 

And they're about as bad as we thought they would be.

https://www.twincities.com/2020/01/28/2020-love-your-melon-pioneer-press-treasure-hunt-clues-explained/

Also there were a lot of cherry looking trees planted and cherry and plums are in the peach familybut l thought that would be plum and cherry street in IM,

I totally agree with Rebecca! I also enjoy taking photos besides talking to people l meet. I was more confused this hunt than ever. The clues fit so many parks. I was going to post some photos of Highland, but for some reason they come out blown up so l gave up. I am happy it was found before the midnight clue!

The beauty of this hunt is reconnecting with people I see only once a year. We are always happy to see each other again and if we run into each other at a park, we reassure each other that our noodles are on par.  I was convinced it was at IMP and all the clues except for the last 2 were "fitting" for me. I learned a lot about trees doing the tree trek and was convinced at one point that the medallion was near the Ginkgo tree (noodlers treasure noggins) and tennis court (nyet = sounds like someone yelling "net")! I'm glad PP makes it hard to find, it is after all worth $10,000! I'm also happy that the hunt didn't go to the 12th clue because I really dislike the mosh pit and being told precisely where it is. David, thank you for continuing this wonderful forum. I think the io site is fantastic and I doff my warm cap to you!

Although in defense of clue writers, sometimes there are things out there that you don't know about that will fit the clue better than what you intended. You can't do much about that, but it certainly shouldn't be a regular occurrence in your clues.

I knew there was a good chance it would be at Highland, but I excluded it after the noodle about the streetcar line to Phalen. I was all in on Phalen or Trout Brook after that. I even figured that the bodies of water was water towers, but I didn’t remember there were three at Highland (I haven’t lived there for 10+ years). I just assumed there might be some that you could see from other parts of the Phalen or I was wrong completely and you had to be in lower town (I mentioned that the other day). 

Regarding clues: The thing about clues for me is that if the solution to a clue is worse than the best possible solution it is a bad clue. In other words, the best possible solution to the clue that I assumed was the streetcar line is the streetcar line. Not the plane (Mounds). So, when we see the answers, if there is a half-assed solution to that clue, it was a bad clue. (IMO). Maybe there is a better Highland solution, but we will see. You can half-ass any answer (snow, ice, water, etc.) but you can’t always write good ones.