We’ve been having some weird weather lately. I’m sure Lyle will pin it on global climate change, but last week saw triple digit highs, with a cold front on Thursday that brought in wicked thunderstorms.
Freya, our doberman cross, who doesn’t like storms, decided we were taking too long to bring her in and she took off. She has an RFID chip imbedded between her shoulder blades, but we were washing her collar so it wouldn’t be easy for anyone to let us know if they found her, so we decided to go searching.
We searched before the storm, after the storm, and when she didn’t show up the next morning, once again before going to work. I put up some signs and some flyers in our neighbor’s mailboxes, and we waited.
Andrea came home at noon to continue searching, and I couldn’t stand it and left around 3:30.
As I was driving home, I was trying to think like a dog. To make a long story unbearable, I figured she may have ended up at one of our neighbors houses off of Marshall (Marshall is perpendicular to our main road, so houses off of it end up behind our property, if that makes any sense).
I ended up meeting Shane Patterson. Apparently Freya had shown up on his porch just before the storm, and she ended up staying with them for the night. I drove down to his house and called her, and she came running within about 20 seconds.
While that ended happily, in another story a friend of mine from college won ~US$50K by solving a puzzle in a book called Treasure Trove. He found the “beetle” token, and although it’s not mentioned on the news page, you can see that the other 11 are spoken for.
Here’s the story in his words:
I’m having a bit of a Willy Wonka moment and feeling quite like Charlie Bucket. Late Sunday night I solved a sort of visual riddle in a book called a “Treasure’s Trove,” a book for kids and adults that has a real treasure hunt for 12 Jewels worth a total of $1 million dollars. You may have seen this on the Today show. Anyway, we just found the 12th token! It can be redeemed for a jewel encrusted beetle valued at over $50K or a lesser amount of cash.
The riddle spelled out the name of an Overlook within the Badlands National Park. I immediately called Mark Moeglein, my best friend from college. His daughter Katie is my goddaughter and I had given her a copy of the book and we had all been doing the puzzles with the kids. Mark is lives in Oregon and I’m in Boston. We both dropped everything and each raced about 1800 miles from opposite coasts (I drove 560 miles in 7 1/2 hours after my flights). By late Monday night we were both in Wall, S.D. By early Tuesday morning we were at the White River Overlook in the Badlands and quickly found the specific tree that we were looking for. After 15 minutes of searching from the ground with flashlights and lanterns, Mark finally climbed the tree and spotted the token in a knothole 8 ft off the ground.
It is quite amazing that decoding 15 characters (BADLANDSWROVRLK) out of a children’s book set us off on this little adventure. It is even more amazing that we pulled it off without a hitch. We knew exactly which tree to search 1800 miles away. Incredible!
I’m not sure what happens next. The first token was redeemed on the Today show, but the prizes are not scheduled to be awarded until the end of 2007. Oddly enough, the film rights to the story were purchased by Paramount and assigned to Tom Cruise’s production company Cruise/Wagner. Film or no film, Mark and I have shared a tremendous adventure together, one that we hope will inspire our kids as well.