Emerald City Search!

From Emerald City Search

This was a fairly eventful week: I finished "The Seven-Day Miracle Detox" (I'll blog about that another time), "Wii Music" came out, Auntie Nancy and I helped feed some homeless people, and I even did some computer programming. But the highlight was something called the "Emerald City Search."

The Emerald City Search is a treasure hunt amongst the parks and other public places of Seattle. A medallion is hidden somewhere in the city, and each day a clue is given in the newspaper. Because a good clue can be interpreted in many ways, people end up looking all over Seattle. Some people spend almost every waking hour of an entire week searching!

Fortunately for me, I don't hear about the Emerald City Search until Wednesday. I go to sleep ~8:30 am, and my cell rings at ~11 am. It is my Uncle Gordon. He tells me about the search and that he thinks he knows where the medallion is hidden: Discovery Park! However, Uncle Gordon can't check it out until after work. So that gives me time to check out the clues (8 of 10 have been posted by then).

I spend a few hours reading the clues, reading what other obsessed searchers are thinking, researching frogs (this year's theme), and learning about the many different parks and sights in Seattle. (It was a very good way to get me excited about exploring the city! Did you know that 5% of Seattle's land is reserved for parks and other green areas?)

In the evening, Uncle Gordon and I drive to Discovery Park, armed with flashlights and walkie-talkies. It becomes dark very quickly, but we make it to a scenic ridge where I take the attached photo. Discovery Park is huge, and we explore the park for awhile, but we don't see anything that clicks. We also disagree on where in the park the clues are pointing.

We take a break for dinner at Wendy's, then we explore some other nooks and crannies near Discovery Park. It is good exercise for me, and it is totally fun trying to figure out the clues with Uncle Gordon. I also see some parts of the city that I'm sure I wouldn't see otherwise.

We go back home a little discouraged, but we are also excited to wait until midnight for the 9th clue, which is bound to be helpful. Will we go out at midnight, or wait until dawn? Or might someone have already found the medallion that night?

It turns out that someone does find the medallion shortly before midnight. (There was a minor but moot scandal about how that happened.) And Uncle Gordon and I are totally wrong on the medallion's location: it was miles away in some other park!

Overall, I had a great time: learning about the city, exploring, exercise, free food, humility, and bonding with Uncle Gordon. And, I had an honest chance at finding the medallion, but it cost me only a day rather than a whole week. (Poor Uncle Gordon! But I know it was fun for him. :-)

I know Minneapolis has a similar annual search, and I imagine other cities do as well. For those in SF, there's always the Chinese New Year Treasure Hunt!