So after some consternation over scheduling conflicts, I have finally decided that the 2017 Allison Wonderland Mock Hunt will actually kickoff on Wednesday, March 1st. The idea being that by starting on a Wednesday, clues 3, 4, & 5 as well as 10, 11, & 12 will all fall on weekend days and hopefully give people plenty of chances to get out and hunt (assuming it lasts into the second weekend).
We will kick it off at Joseph's Grill and oh, look at that, Wednesday is also their pasta bar night. See, this plan just keeps getting better. I'll arrange to get a table in the dining room starting at 6pm. We'll also release the clues at 6pm this year. The usual rules will apply again this year. It will be in St. Paul on public property. You can register for $10 which will win you the entire pot (which will be at least $250 if not more) or you can hunt for free which will win you $100 prize if you find it. You must return the medallion to claim your prize, The medallion will not be hidden on ice, under ground, on a steep hillside, indoors, inside anything electrical, on top of a structure, or anywhere else that would make you think, "Is digging here maybe a bad idea?".
The clues will be posted daily at 6pm on the Allison Wonderland Yahoo group, The Cooler Crew Facebook group, and the Pioneer Press message boards (if it seems anyone is reading them).. Feel free to cross post them elsewhere if you wish. There will be one clue per day up to a maximum of 12 with the hunt going until someone finds it. I do reserve the right though to end the hunt if circumstances require it, in which case registrations will be refunded.
Good luck!
I wasn't sure that I would ever use Swede Hollow for a Mock Hunt because it has kind of a sketchy reputation and indeed some people did express some reservations about hunting there. But there have been other Mock Hunts there and some people do love the park. Still, it wasn't my original plan. My original thought was I wanted to write a clue about Carbones that used a car and bones. So I looked at the Locations page of Carbone's website to see which ones were by parks. It turned out the answer was just one and it was Swede Hollow. So Swede Hollow it was. And then I decided to work Carbone's into the first clue as well. I spent a while getting that one together. Then I went on a binge and wrote clues 2-10 in one day. I finished up clues 11 and 12 the next day. And then when I was all done and happy with the result, I realized I never even used the car + bones clue. But I felt like what I had was already better than that, so I just dropped it, even though it was the reason I ended up in that park to begin with.
And another side note, when I went to the park, I parked on Bates where there is an obscure entrance to the park. There's a trail there that leads to the stairs and I was going to hide it somewhere along there. But there was this old couple slowly climbing the stairs. I didn't want to hide it with them there and I didn't feel like waiting for them, so I went up the stairs to the top part and looked around there. I walked around there looking for places and things to write clues about. I noted the parking lot was gated off which seemed pretty strange. And then I noticed all the leaves along the curb. I did have it in my head as a possible strategy to hide it very near the parking lot as people would probably assume it was further into the park. So then I thought, why not in the parking lot, especially since it is closed off anyway? So I kicked aside some leaves, dropped it, and then covered it up again. And that got us to Clue 10.