The Raton Connection

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Raton Pass

Taken from my posts on my blog. I created the blog solely to tell my stories of hunting for Forrest Fenn's treasure and then never made one single post until now.  I've been searching since 2011. Since it's unlikely anyone is going to see those posts, I thought about making a thread here so hopefully it will get read. 

 
This is my first post on a blog I created in 2013. I know, I’m kind of a late starter. And to post for the first time After the treasure was found makes me laugh. However, there is a need within me to tell my story. Well, my last solve anyways. I’ve had several over the years, one in which I felt I couldn’t be wrong. I clung to it for years, never wanting to give up on it, not allowing myself to consider other options……

Then in 2017, the forward to Forrest Fenn’s new book, “Once Upon a While” was released before the actual book and one sentence that Douglas Preston put in there changed everything.

“The final clue, he said, would be where they found his car: in the parking lot of the Denver Museum of Nature and Science.”

Almost Immediately, a reminder came up. While everyone seemed pre-occupied with the notion of not going anywhere a 79 or 80 year old man couldn’t go, how about thinking about where a 58 year old man diagnosed with terminal cancer can get to after parking his car in a place far enough away that no one could figure out where the bronze box and also his body were just from the location of his vehicle. And with no help from anyone. After all, he said the spot did not change. Where he was going to put the treasure and himself back in 1988 was in fact the same place he did put the treasure decades later.

So, I considered that car parked at the Museum of Nature and Science. Denver is not in the Rocky Mountains. It’s right by them, but it’s not in them. Treasure is not in Denver, can’t be and for a multitude of reasons. How does Forrest get out of Denver, without his car, no help from anyone and bringing as little attention to himself as he possibly can? Public transportation seems the obvious choice, rentals leave a paper trail and no one is supposed to find the treasure by tracing his movements. they are supposed to find it by correctly interpreting the poem. But which mode of public transportation did he use? You think he hitchhiked? You think he took a taxi? I don’t. I don’t think he got on a plane either. That leaves the bus and the train. Neither mode would get me to my beloved spot. Well, a bus. I don’t think a bus goes to El Valle though but I could be wrong about that. And if it did, someone would have surely noticed a man, not from El Valle, get off and start trekking into the Carson National Forrest on foot. People in small hamlets notice things like that. And he would have had 10 more miles on foot to go before he came to the hiding place. The train did not go anywhere near there. I was left with the uncomfortable reality that it wasn’t really feasible for Forrest to have chosen this spot to die in.

Of course, he would have hid the treasure first, then drive to Denver. I don’t even have to justify why I would say that. That’s just common sense. He’s not going to lug that 42 pd box around without his car trying to get to the end location, especially when he doesn’t have to.

Before I expound any further on how he got out of Denver, let’s back up to Mr. Preston’s statement. The final clue would be where they found his car: in the parking lot of Denver’s Museum of Nature and Science. Now, you could start trying to figure out what was in the museum and how to connect it to Fenn, or you could do a quick google on the history of the museum. Now I’m going to do this part all from memory just because I don’t feel like looking anything up. It’s really hot outside today and I’m sitting under the swamp cooler trying to cool down. I’m feeling lethargic and googling sounds like a lot of work right about now.

It appears that the curator in 1926? wanted a nice exhibit of an extinct bison to display at the museum. He knew about the rancher George McJunkin and his discovery near Folsom in 1908 after that terrible flood that almost swept the entire town away and contacted someone in Raton to go have a looksee. I think poor George had passed away by then. I say poor George because the discovery didn’t generate that much attention in 1908 and Denver’s museum’s interest in it wasn’t until almost twenty years later. The curator ended up sending a team of people to excavate a site in Wild Horse canyon? or arroyo? and they discovered the remains of an extinct bison in conjunction with spear points. Folsom points. I can’t remember if this one also had a spear point found in situ between the ribs of this ancient buffalo because they messed up the first time. They removed it from its location and sent it to Denver. The curator was upset. The prevailing theory of the time was that man had not been in the Americas more than 5000? years and nobody wanted to modify that opinion, not the academic community anyway. This would probably account for the only modest interest in the Folsom site when George came upon the washed out bank on the arroyo years before.

The team was sent in again and they found the remains of another bison and this time, for sure, spear points were found between the ribs of this animal. This time the discovery and the site was investigated by the leading paleontology scientists of the time and the site was accepted as evidence that man had been here 10,000 plus years. The google search stated that the discovery put the Museum on the map but in fact, it was Denver’s Museum of Nature and Science that put the Folsom site on the map. Despite the reluctance to accept new ideas about ancient man in the Americas, it was coming. Numerous sites had been found across the U.S by then. But it was Folsom that became famous and without the Museum, that might not have happened.

This is the last clue, I thought to myself.

Now, the Folsom site isn’t really in the Rocky mountains anymore than Denver is. Like Denver, it’s pretty close, but no cigar.

But wait…Forrest has said, I think on the Jenny Kyle site, that his family went over Raton Pass every year on their way to West Yellowstone, from Temple. Guess what I’m thinking. I’m thinking about that one room schoolhouse in Wyoming that Forrest’s father drove 50 miles out of their way every year to show his family what was written over the door. “He who teaches a child labors in God’s workshop” Forrest said in his book TTOTC, that his father was very proud of that. He was also proud of his eight year old son finding his first arrowhead in a plowed up field in Texas. His father always remembered the look on his son’s face when he discovered it. Marvin Fenn probably knew that it was at that moment that something awakened in his young son.

So, here’s a question. Do you think that Forrest’s father, the teacher, might have had more than one spot he drove out of his way to every year just to show that spot to his family? Here’s another question. Is it possible that the desire to show his family the Folsom site(this is just my speculation) determined the route Marvin Fenn took every year and was this the reason they went over Raton Pass?

There are two trails that I believe Forrest Fenn had become very attached to. One is the route that the Fenn family took every year from Temple to West Yellowstone. And the other is the Santa Fe Trail. Forrest lived at the beginning of one trail in his early years and now lives at the end or almost the end of the other. These two trails converge in one place and then move away again. In only one area in the Rocky Mountains north of Santa Fe.

Raton Pass.

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The Raton Pass Continued

So, if the treasure is somewhere in Raton Pass, how does Forrest make his way out of Denver without his car, no help from anyone and down to the border of Colorado and New Mexico? Does the poem hint to the means with words like halt and put in? I once thought water was the way of the poem. It started at water, turned from one waterway to another and ended at water. But I'm thinking water wasn't in Forrest's plan to get out of Denver. The bus could certainly take him to Trinidad or Raton but I think the mode of transportation is all wrapped up in the first few clues of the poem. And it isn't the bus the poem hints to. Perhaps the clues of the poem describe how Forrest gets to the hiding spot after he ditches his car. I say these things like this is what happened but we know he went into remission and didn't go through with his original plan. He hid the chest many years later but the path of the poem may have remained unchanged and it was describing how he not us got to the end spot if he had gone through with his plan of ending his life at the treasure location.
"The Katy Railroad tracks were about a half mile from our house and late at night I could hear the steam engines puff and the engineers blow their air horns. It was a soothing sound and sometimes I think I can still hear it when the wind is out of the east." Forrest Fenn, The Thrill of the Chase. p.42
I really don't need to know any more than these few lines to get the feeling Forrest likes trains. Especially the old kind. The old steam engines. Such a part of American history, the railroads were. Many have thought about the steam engine as being warm waters and a train station as warm waters halt. I did, briefly, when I was considering Taos Junction to be where warm waters halt. It had another name when it was a stop on the chile line. Caliente. some said it was shortened from Ojo Caliente but I read once that it was shortened from Agua Caliente. One meaning of agua caliente is warm waters. So Agua Caliente railstop literally meant warm waters halt. Union station in Denver was only a few blocks north of the museum. He could have walked there or taken the city transit.
A problem presented itself early on in my research on the train station in Denver.... People train don't run south out of Denver. The first stop south of Denver that the people train does stop at is Trinidad. There's no train station there and it fits the Wikipedia definition of a halt as being a brief stop on a rail line that has no station just a platform. haha! My dad had an old book on railroads, he worked for various railroad for 34 years, and I could have sworn that the word halt was used in reference to railroad stops that weren't just platforms but bonafide train stations but maybe I don't remember rightly.
Okay, I can buy a train ticket from Denver to get on the Southwest Chief at Trinidad and a shuttle will take me south. But this is funny. I'm really wanting to get to Raton but I think the journey starts in Trinidad. If I buy a ticket to Trinidad guess what happens? The shuttle takes me to Raton and I get on the train there and go to Trinidad, Then I would take the train to Raton. What?? Why not just get off the shuttle at Raton and not take the train anywhere. Yet, I think Forrest did want to take the train. The poem hints to it. It doesn't hint to a shuttle. I think the journey to the spot was just as important to Forrest as the spot itself and he was determined to do it that way.
In thinking about train stops as being a place where warm waters halt, I have to wonder how one determines where that is, being that there must be countless stops. I just pick one and hope I get lucky? The vagueness of the poem suggests to me that the rail stop must have something else that distinguishes it as THE place where warm waters halt. It could be named warm waters like agua caliente or.....it could be the place where all warm waters halt at. Or almost all. So many that this place is known to be THE place. The mecca of warm waters.
"Chicago is the most important railroad center in North America. More lines of track radiate in more directions from Chicago than from any other city. Chicago has long been the most important interchange point for freight traffic between the nation's major railroads and it is the hub of Amtrak, the intercity rail passenger system."
Railroads - Encyclopedia of Chicago
Chicago was the same way even when the steam engine ruled the rail. All passenger trains going cross country have their terminus in Chicago. Today, this would be Amtrak, the American track. I think terminus could be synonymous with halt. The steam engine no longer runs those rails but I, like other searchers, never had a problem with clues weaving in and out of the past and present as Forrest threw Time in the trash. But if you wanted to get technical, todays diesel engines carry thousands of gallons of water with them to cool their engines. I define warm in this context as heated and heated waters can get very hot. When you warm something up in the oven, you are not heating it till it's somewhere between hot and cold. You are heating it till it's hot. Although it's the old steam engine that I think Forrest had in mind, their modern day counterparts still qualify as warm waters.
By now, it is becoming clear that I believe where warm waters halt is Chicago. Specifically Union Station in Chicago. Forrest gets on the California Zephyr in Denver and takes it to Chicago where he starts the journey of the poem by getting on the Southwest Chief and taking it south. Southwest to be more precise but he is definitely going south. My mom had some trouble with this. She thought it was highly complicated for Forrest to come up with a plan that has him taking a train in the opposite direction of the end location. Over the years, she would often ask me after having listened to my latest and greatest revelation regarding the Chase, "Do you think that Forrest really thought of all of that?" Sometimes I would have to agree with her and think, probably not. Not on this, though. This is actually right up in my line of thinking if I were to hide a treasure and want to make sure that it was my poem that lead them there and not anything else. Starting off by going in the opposite direction would be perfect in my opinion. And if Forrest wanted to remain true to taking the train and naught but the train, this is the only way he could have gotten to Raton.
Down can mean both hill and south. It can mean other things too but I'm using hill and south. The size of something distinguishing a hill from a mountain is not very well defined and a mountain can be a very large hill. A synonym of canyon is pass and a pass is by definition in the mountains. I propose this interpretation of the first two lines of the 2nd stanza: Begin it at Union Station in Chicago and take the American train south into the mountain pass.

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The Raton Pass Continued Again

The train is chugging along its rails. Once it hits Kansas, it is basically following the Santa Fe Trail. A trip through time. Would you enjoy seeing the countryside through the Amtrak windows, visualizing families in wagons from many years ago making their way slowly across America's prairies in the hopes that they find a better life at the trail's end than the one they left behind? Would Forrest enjoy this train ride?
Trinidad sits at the beginning of the Pass and Forrest must take it into the Pass before putting into station. So into the Pass he goes. The next station is Raton.
I tried to think what home of Brown could be. My best guess was Johnson Mesa which looms above Raton in the east. The dry Cimarron's birth place at its base. But even I wasn't buying it. One day when I was at my sister's house in Las Cruces, she passes by me sitting at the computer, stops and tells me she thinks the home of Brown is Colorado because it is the home of Molly Brown. Now, this wasn't an original notion. I had heard this before from reading the blogs. I had even considered it before. Very briefly. Many had thought it. But this time I grabbed onto it because it was perfect. If you were on the Southwest Chief, the first place you could put in below Colorado was Raton.
I25 didn't exist back when Forrest was a kid. The road was highway 85 that ran through Raton and over the pass. But even Highway 85 wasn't always in the spot where I25 runs through the pass today. The original Highway 85 was the scenic highway, built in 1911, I think. Again, going off of memory here. This is the old Raton pass road. In fact, in the 1930's when the Fenn family started trekking to West Yellowstone, the only highway over the pass at Raton was this road. They went over this road. At least until Highway 85 was moved east to the route that I25 follows today which would have been 1941 or 1942. This road still exists and much of it is unchanged, well the pavement has worn away. If you think about how the roads must have changed since Forrest was a kid, do you think an unchanged section of an old road that his family went over in the 1930s might qualify as a dear and special place? Do you think he might remember that old road fondly?
So, the road still exists today although private landowners have messed with it in order to prevent people from going up it. They have even put a gate several miles up the road and it has surveillance and everything. This is illegal because the road doesn't belong to the landowners, it belongs to the city of Raton. But the city of Raton is sympathetic to the landowners' cause due to vandalism from people going up the road. I had this thought at one time that the treasure was at the old port of entry building on that road. I thought it was the structure I had seen from Google Earth about a quarter mile south of the Colorado border. Per a 1911 topographical map, there was a geodetic elevation benchmark right there that gave a higher elevation by about four feet than the one posted on I25 at the summit of Raton Pass. I thought the benchmark was the blaze and was determined to get up there. Of course the gate stopped that. So, I tried to come in from the Colorado side. Private landowners on that road in Colorado are even more serious about not letting people on that road than their New Mexico counterparts. I had even considered trespassing onto Wootton Ranch. Glad I didn't do that. Eventually, I just went to city hall in Raton and asked them if I could get past that gate. To my surprise, they opened the gate and let me and my family past. They were very nice about it too. I had no idea it would be so easy. Well, my excitement could barely be contained as we drove up that road, when after not enough miles, we came upon the old port of entry building to our left, I exclaimed that we must be almost to the border. My little brother informed me that was not so, that the border was still about 3 more miles up. This was very confusing to me but it meant one thing. That benchmark wasn't there. That structure just inside the border was not the old port of entry building. About a mile past the port of entry the road was fenced across and on the other side were deep trenches plowed into the road making it impossible to pass in a vehicle even if the fence wasn't there. We could go no farther and had to turn back. Eventually I gave up on my solve at that spot and looked on the road closer to Raton. The iridium layer always intrigued me and my sister became convinced at one point that the treasure was right there but on the other side of the road. I didn't share her enthusiasm.
I started thinking about that horseshoe curve in the old postcard of the old Raton Pass road. You can't see it from the iridium layer. One must go up the road from the layer to the next curve. Then look back and down. My son didn't think we would be able to see it. I drove to the spot, had him get out and then asked if he saw it. After a moment, he said yes and I got out and looked too. There it was. And we took pictures of it. I have never seen a modern day picture of the horseshoe curve before and I wondered why. I wondered why another searcher hadn't taken a picture since more than one has brought up that old postcard
We searched in the area of the curves. We went back to that old road many times. One time, I stood at the point where you can see the curves and I heard a sound in the wind. It was the flag on Goat Hill and the sound of it flapping in the wind could be heard across the bowl that the horseshoe curves were in to where I stood high up on that road. It was so surprising that it could be heard at that distance. My hearing isn't all that either. After that, I thought about that flag a lot.
In thinking about that flag, a thought occurred me. The flag flies over the land of the free and the home of the brave. Brave was a word in the poem. As a matter of fact, there seemed to be three places in the poem referencing brave. That would be "and with my treasures bold", "no place for the meek" and "if you are brave" Maybe they were all connected. The etymology of the word brown comes from the word for bear. This has been brought up over the years also. Brave can mean endure. To bear something can mean to endure it. Could home of Brown be the home of the brave? The United States of America? Maybe in the poem, it is specifically referring to the land directly under that which the flag flies over. Since the train puts in to Raton station below Goat Hill, this fits nicely into the line, put in below the home of Brown. And just like that, I discarded Colorado as such home.

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The Raton Pass, One More Time

If you get off the train at Raton, go outside and look up, you see Goat Hill due west. Its familiar RATON sign in white letters perched on top and to your left of the sign, the American flag waves over the hill. This was my new home of Brown.
From there it's no place for the meek. (Sometimes I think that maybe it IS the place for the meek (the place of the mouse - Raton). before it becomes the home of the Brave) (part of the Union)
From there it's now the home of the Brave. New Mexico has it's own star now.
Raton creek flows next to the railroad tracks. There will be no paddle up your creek. Above can be a synonym of up. How about there will be no paddle above your creek, just a ton (Raton sign) and a stream flowing high (the Flag of the United States of America waving high next to the sign). The waving flag creates a stream in the wind and a stream is water. Loads and a ton can be used interchangeably in sentences. The searchers are loads of fun to be around. The searchers are a ton of fun to be around. are a ton. R a ton. Hahaha!
Raton and hence New Mexico wasn't always part of the Union. It was attempted numerous times to get the new state approved by congress, to no avail. Until August 21st or 22nd, 1911. Congress finally approved New Mexico as a state. Now it wasn't officially made a state until January of 1912 but that didn't stop a man named Robert Kruger from erecting a flag on a wooden post on top of Goat Hill on August 23rd. 1911. There's a picture of him leaning against his flag a top that hill. The 46 star flag had 1 line of 8 stars. 1 line of 7 stars, 2 lines of 8 stars, 1 line of 7 stars and the last row had 8 stars. The 47 star flag was never an official flag because Arizona became a state right after New Mexico. New flags are flown the following 4th of July and by July 4th, 1912, The United States had 48 states. The American flag officially went from a 46 star flag to a 48 star flag. But that didn't stop some from flying an unofficial 47 star flag, however briefly. Some flag making companies even made some 47 star flags. These flags, from what I can tell, typically had 5 rows of 8 stars each staggered with the last row 7 stars. That flag that Mr. Kruger flew in 1911 is currently in the Raton Museum on 2nd street. Yet, I have never gone there to confirm that it was indeed a 47 star flag. But why wouldn't it be? New Mexico had been a territory before and the American Flag has flown in Santa Fe since General Kearny came over the pass in 1846. If you look at the flag in the 1911 picture you can only count 45 stars but you know that isn't correct. The flag has folded over due to the wind and is covering up 1 or 2 stars. You will also notice that the last row is without a doubt 7 stars and the one above it is 8 stars. This does not line up with the 46 star flag but it does with the unofficial 47 star one. It's obvious to me which flag it is. Robert Kruger was celebrating New Mexico finally becoming a member of the Union. I know other places in New Mexico claim to have flown the 47 star flag first but I believe they are incorrect. Only Robert Kruger was flying that flag on August 23rd, one or two days after New Mexico was approved by Congress. This means that Goat Hill in Raton was the first place in the United States, in the world where this flag was flown. A nice bit of history, I think, for a father of three, a teacher, a history buff, to want to instill in his children as they made their way to West Yellowstone each June. Heck, the highway they climbed, the old Raton pass road, old highway 85 went right past the road going up to the top of Goat Hill. Do you think there was a chance in h@#l that they didn't go up there? I sure don't. I wonder if they ever hit that road on June 14th, Flag day?
So, it seemed to me that the flag flying up there must be the blaze. After all, the flag is sometimes referred to as old Glory and you've heard that phrase, a blaze of glory. But where to go from there? The flagstaff or pole was not the original one....what happened to the original wood pole of the original flag flown up there? I don't think it's in the museum down below. Would they have just thrown it down? Wouldn't that be disrespectful? I'm looking from the old 1911 picture and a modern one of Goat Hill, back and forth. Suddenly I notice something in the modern picture. What the heck is that? It looked like an old power pole but no lines ran from it. It just was there on the other side of the RATON sign, looking very nondescript. I've been up there a number of times even when I wasn't looking for the treasure up there and I never noticed it. Could that be...…? Is this what is meant by being wise. Seeing something that everyone else overlooks and seeing it for what it really was, is? After much extensive looking and comparing it to the old photo, I think it might be.
But the old flag no longer flies on that hill, just the newer one. Maybe the blaze is not old glory herself but her marker, her flagstaff. It marks the spot where she once flew. Could look quickly down mean search directly below (the blaze) your quest will end, (this next interpretation I borrowed from my old solve as I have not discovered this at the spot) adjacent to sandstone boundary stone slab with divine eye. Just take the chest and leave out from under where I once flew. (She's a grand ol flag, she's a high flying flag. forever in peace may she wave)
If you believe scant in the poem to be a flat sandstone slab, surely everyone has looked up tarry stone?
I believe marvel gaze and the gold are the same thing.
My son and I have gone up and examined that old pole. There was some snow on the ground then. My son jumped down to the next level and saw what I expected to be there. lots of sandstone. practically a walkway of sandstone. He took some pictures but was frustrated because he stated he needed my eyes down there and I was afraid to go down. I saw in the brush a little ways back down the road what appeared to be a natural walkway that would bring anyone directly below the pole. there was snow on it and I wanted to wait until it was gone before I went there. We also attracted attention that trip. A big ol black Dodge ram with an extend cab crept down the old pass road and it was obvious they were watching us. They saw my son and I emerge from the pole area and go to our car. The truck came up Goat Hill and immediately turned around and went back down after they had viewed the back of my car. presumably the license plate. I don't know if it was a rancher in the area that lived on that road and thought we looked suspicious. I wanted to come back in a different car. We planned to but the Covid thing happened and we stayed home. I always had a problem with that area even if fit so well. It was too close to town. But I shrugged that off and just let me let the poem tell me where to go.
It was late on Saturday June 6th that I checked Dal's blog and was presented with the news that the chest had been found. After staring at the computer screen, completely stunned, for a while, I started to read the many comments already posted. As I read, I too wanted to say something and did so just before midnight.
THE CHEST HAS BEEN FOUND!!!!!!!!!!!
Cloudcover on June 6, 2020 at 11:44 pm said:
Ever since Once Upon a While came out or rather the forward was released, I soon gave up my beloved search location. It was one of several but that one lasted me years of outings into the Rocky Mountains. I headed to Raton and surrounding area and did not sway from there until I read this post today. In the last year, I became convinced that the poem was talking about the American Flag and the speaker of the poem was a particular flag, a 47 star flag (unofficial, of course) erected on August 23rd, 1911. One day or two ( I see conflicting dates when I research) after the new state was approved by congress. I like to believe one day because it was you know who’s birthday. I believed the treasure was on a hill bearing the same name as one General Washington overlooked to monitor British movement up the Delaware. A new flag flies there today. But there is an old wooden post that nobody notices and it looks an awful lot like the post that a 47 star flag was once flew from. Why would the treasure be there? It was isolated but almost a part of the town so I don’t know. So far removed from any other locations I looked at in the last 9 years.Another crazy idea of mine. I hope something of what I thought in all of these years was correct. Forrest did say it was found under a canopy of stars.
Congratulations to the finder. This might be the first time in a long time that I go to sleep without thoughts of a particular poem running through my head.
Sparrow on June 7, 2020 at 3:00 pm said:
Cloud cover—-
Thanks for the post. I had noticed acrostics in rhe poem from the beginning. One of them “Wise And Found The.. WAFT always made me wonder. A flag does “waft in the wind”. So your thoughts intrigued me. “Under a canopy of stars” may indeed speak of a flag. I hope we get to see the solve— I’m excited to see it.
Do you think it's possible that Forrest was referring to the American flag when he said a canopy of stars? I think I will hope so however unlikely that may be until we hear the true solve of the finder.

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The Poem, Interpreted

Now I haven't changed the poem. I'm merely writing what I think the lines mean.
As I have gone first into the new state
And with my treasures unfurled,
I can keep my secret place,
And hint of states/stars new and old.

Begin it at Union Station in Chicago
And take the American train south into the mountain pass,
Not far, but too far to walk
Put in to the station below the home of the Brave (at the place of the meek - Raton).

From there It is now the home of the Brave,
The flag is ever waving oar; ( I mean o'er not oar)
There'll be no paddle above meek creek, (Raton Creek)
Just a ton and a stream flowing high.

If you've been wise and found my flagstaff,
Search directly below it, your quest will end,
Adjacent to sandstone boundary stone slab with divine eye,
Just get the chest and leave out from under where I once flew.

So why is it that I must go
And leave my secret place for all to seek?
The answers I already know,
I've done it worn, and now I am less than the Union. (there are 50 states now not 47)

So hear me all and listen good,
Your diligence will be worth the end,
If you honor me by standing before my blaze and in its wood
I give you the arrow to the divine eye.

[davebakedpotato]

Well that's a lot of work!

In my investigations into Colorado I found that Denver Union Station sits exactly on 105 degrees West. Does warm water halt at 105 degrees? IDK, but I thought it was interesting.

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I know, my solve is very long. I felt a need to explain in detail how I came to the conclusions I did. I tried to make Union Station in Denver fit as where warm waters halt but had trouble doing so. Union Station in Chicago made more sense to me, it fits in my opinion. I think my explanation is pretty good.

[goldwatch]

Jun 21, 2020 17:23:07 GMT -5 cloudcover1 said:

I know, my solve is very long. I felt a need to explain in detail how I came to the conclusions I did. I tried to make Union Station in Denver fit as where warm waters halt but had trouble doing so. Union Station in Chicago made more sense to me, it fits in my opinion. I think my explanation is pretty good.

That's ok. As that tree guy in Lord of the Rings said,

"Anything  that's  worth  saying,  is  worth  taking  a  long  time  to  say."  


Or something to that effect.  

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Thank you Buckeye Bob. I really hope people read it and are not put off by its length.

[annie]

cloudcover1 i loved your post. One of my earlier searches was Raton. Because I did the anagram rearranging =not faR. NOT FAR The problem with anagrams is if you have enough letters you can make any word. But you clearly went on a journey. Strange how time and imagination can take us to different places and thought processes. At one point i was researching Barnum Brown the dinosaur man.took me to dinosaur etc. Even bought the children’s book about him.
I remember Rafton well. Good for you.

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Thanks so much annie! I appreciate your comment. It's so funny that Raton was never really on my radar all of these years until the last two. I think it's a wonderful testimony to the imagination that people can come to the same place with completely different solves. Or have similar thoughts and totally different locations.