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Post by David C. on Mar 28, 2022 17:58:11 GMT -5
Congrats to the winners, and cheers to Domino for a successful hunt!
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Post by mike6888 on Mar 28, 2022 18:06:16 GMT -5
Can't wait to find out how close it was to the statue in Raleigh, NC. Congrats to the solvers and creator. There were lots of fun little things hidden in here. I was never able to use the other part of my brain to piece it together.
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Post by Domino on Mar 28, 2022 18:20:29 GMT -5
Thank you everyone for participating and raising $$$$ for great charities.
I would like to give the finders the chance to post whatever they want on how they solved the hunt before I post up the solutions.
Cheers and Hunt Happily. There are still 3 more!
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Post by Johannes on Mar 28, 2022 18:26:59 GMT -5
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Post by GeneticBlend on Mar 28, 2022 19:26:21 GMT -5
Congratulations to the solvers and to Domino! Way to go!
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Post by forestblight on Mar 28, 2022 19:54:43 GMT -5
Thanks for such a great hunt, Domino!! We will post details of our solution soon, with photos. We were *not* able to solve all the elements of the puzzle (so we look forward to receiving that closure!), but we got enough narrow down the spot. Details to follow once kiddos are in bed!
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Post by Jenny on Mar 28, 2022 19:56:30 GMT -5
Congrats to the winners...... and then there were 3!
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Post by forestblight on Mar 28, 2022 21:41:44 GMT -5
Props to my teammates stercox, jigsaw, and DOOMer77! We've all worked together before, so it was fun to work on this together. Here is how we got there. 1. First, the colored fonts, and the frame message that was a nice nod to Masquerade. The lines start at the bottom left and read clockwise. Notice that each letter in the title (THE HAREBRAINED PLAN) draws one letter from each font, in the order they appear around the edges. We don't know if that is significant, but it's neat anyway. 2. Looking just to the right of the rabbit's chest, you'll see the shape of North Carolina in light green. 3. The bunny on a trike. With patient googling, we found the exact sculpture used as a basis for the art. It started out as "Mobile Bunny," a steel wire and glass sculpture by Josh Brooke Coté. Later Coté combined it with another sculpture and the pair were placed in the azalea garden behind the WRAL station in Raleigh, NC. But we knew that was NOT the location because (a) there's a big red herring sitting on the cement square, (b) tiny hidden text next to it says "not a clue," and (c) the sign next to the bunny reads HARE BIKE ISN'T SPOT, backwards and upside-down (and, reading diagonally, HINT!). But it helped confirm NC. 4. Notice the bunny's shadow. The head looks bluish, and that blue part looked an awful lot like a body of water. Filed that thought away. 5. ATE FIFTY in the frame text is a homophone for 850. Filed that thought away, too. 6. The bottom of the sign reads LOOK FOR4 PONDS. Again, filed. 7. In the frame text, FOWL IMAGES has cross-out symbols over an F and S. Eliminating those yields OWL IMAGE, which is funny because an OWL is fowl, and useful because the park where we ended up uses an owl on its signs. 8. The brown book. I've published a book with Arcadia Publishing, so I recognized the title right off as a series of paperbacks that Arcadia publishes, mainly about local history. So we suspected if we could find the authors' initials NJS, we could really narrow it down. Knowing it was in NC let us look through the authors of all the NC books, and jigsaw found this book by Nancy Jo Smith: www.arcadiapublishing.com/Products/9781467133838 So, hello Pleasant Garden!
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Post by forestblight on Mar 28, 2022 21:42:54 GMT -5
Using all this, we searched for a park with 4 ponds, in North Carolina, with a body of water shaped like the rabbit head's shadow, near Pleasant Garden, preferably involving owls and the number 850. Sure enough, we were led to Hagan-Stone Park, SE of Greensboro, that checked all the boxes. It's shaped like the shadow (but flipped horizontally), has owl signs, has 4 ponds, and is at elevation 850 feet above sea level. Bingo!
The clincher: We took the rabbit's magnifier as a cue to look reeeeally close at the details. There are two very, very tiny bits of hidden text that were crucial in pinpointing the spot. On the rabbit's forehead, between the ears, is a tiny white X. X marks the spot, right? But how? There is a second tiny white X on the *shadow* in the SAME SPOT. Knowing the pond's shape, we could place the X on the map, narrowing it down to a small peninsula extending into the water of the rabbit's "forehead." Harebrained indeed! Perhaps the sun is shining through the rabbit's hollow head, casting a shadow on the exact spot. Cue the "Map Room" music from Raiders of the Lost Ark. This, too, is a nice nod to Masquerade's use of a shadow. Thank goodness we didn't have to wait for the next solstice.
Confirmers:
1. Hidden text next to the rabbit's ear reads FOR REST OH K's. The fact that it is next to the rabbit's ear means we have to *hear* it to understand it (that's our right brains working as planned, Domino!). It is a homophone for Forest Oaks, a part of town nearby.
2. There is a stand of bamboo (mentioned in the frame text) very near the site.
3. The beaver in the thought cloud. There is significant beaver activity on the peninsula.
DOOMer77 drove to the park on yesterday (Sunday) and scouted the area, but did not spot the Pewter Rabbit because it was getting dark. But we knew we were close. Today, stercox and jigsaw drove to the park (almost 7 hours each way) and spotted it hiding under an isolated shrub. I, like a lug, stayed home and searched vicariously.
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Post by forestblight on Mar 28, 2022 21:43:24 GMT -5
Things we COULD NOT figure out:
1. We got that the first part of the "thought cloud" code worked out to SALTED but we couldn't figure out the rest, nor what SALTED refers to.
2. The parts of the frame text we did not use.
3. "I'M ONE OF SEVEN FIFTEEN..." with the "2 of 1 to 8" (2 of 128?) book in the middle. Nice nod to the riddle text of Masquerade, btw, but we don't know what any of this means.
4. Double underlines at the top under ATE FIFTY FEET and in the same color, plus double overlines at the bottom over STEPS TAKEN, also in the same color.
5. The TMMHATFT book. We figured out the text at the bottom reads SECRET UNCLE using alternating characters, but we don't know what it means, nor what the title refers to, who MOONER (MONROE?) is, or the significance of the 7 and 97.
6. On the handlebar of the trike is this hidden text: HA <DROP> BANTER. It uses the same fonts as the the title and frame, but without color.
Photos to follow! Along with any corrections and refinements by DOOMer77, stercox, and/or jigsaw.
Finally, kudos to Domino, The Creator. What a great hunt to sink our teeth into. Both sides of our collective brain were exercised mightily. And we look forward to hearing the rest of the solution for closure!
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Post by forestblight on Mar 28, 2022 21:55:49 GMT -5
Oh, and we knew based on the hare’s story around the border that the proxy would be between a stone/rock and a some brush or a bush.
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Post by forestblight on Mar 28, 2022 21:59:04 GMT -5
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Post by forestblight on Mar 28, 2022 22:01:38 GMT -5
(left = stercox; right = jigsaw)
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Post by susb8383 on Mar 28, 2022 22:49:00 GMT -5
Nice job! I too looked at the Images of America series but totally missed the outline of NC. Without knowing the state, the author NJS was impossible to find.
Congrats!!
btw, the images you posted in the last two posts didn't come through.
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Post by forestblight on Mar 28, 2022 23:21:54 GMT -5
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