2001 Allison Wonderland Mock Hunt

This actually tells you much more than it seems most realized. In addition to saying its a park in St. Paul, it says you can see a previous hiding spot. Of course that previous hiding spot isn't actually *in* the park. Its the 35E overpass at Victoria where the medallion was hidden in 1969. It seems one person at least caught that the previous hiding place was separate from the park and suspected Linwood from the beginning. However, even they failed to notice that the first letter of each line, A-I-F-I, if converted to numbers according to each letter's place in the alphabet, becomes 1969, the year that "previous hididng spot" refers to. The use of the words "suspect" and "plot" was merely a red herring, as all good mysteries have one. "Uncover the chest" suggested it was buried under something.

I guess this turned out to be much harder when you didn't already know what it was talking about. The thing that was small and the thing that was green and tall, were both walls. One is a large green wall of the tennis court (when seen from the court side). The other was a small wooden retaining wall running parallel near the bluff on the far side of the tennis courts from the street. The green wall ran east and west. If you started on its western edge, and then drew an imaginary line due south, it would intersect the wooden wall at precisely the treasure's hiding place.

Of course I had to explain this one early that it was supposed to refer to "over the hills and through the woods" as being the path to Grandmother's house according to the children's song (which I was apparently mistaken about) That in turn was alluding to the fact that the treasure was near the hilly wooded part of the park and if one were to park in the parking lot, you might indeed go over hills and through woods to get to the area by the tennis court.

Also, "looking up and down" was a hint that it was close to the bluff and the hiding spot could be seen from both above and below, even though it was "under the snow".

The "landmark" was the Landmark Brewery, visible from the park. However, near the hiding place, there were many trees in the way and the view of the brewery was obscured.

"Serves", "love" and the rest of the clue were referring to a game of tennis as the treasure was hidden near the tennis courts.

"Balk", "walk", "strike out", "foul", "chalk", and "home" were meant to represent pretty clear references to baseball/softball which were meant to tell you that the treasure was in a park with that had such fields as opposed to Cherokee Park which I figured a lot of people might have been thinking up until that point. However, if you read the clue as a whole, it suggests fairly clearly that the treasure is not actually near the fields as it says you have to do a lot of walking, you'll be way in foul territory, and nowhere near home plate.

The mummy hails from ancient Egypt. The "Terminator" is from the future. Dracula however, both the book itself and the time of its setting, is very much a product of the Victorian Age, which in turn suggests Victoria St., which runs into the park.

The kinds of wheels refer to car wheels and train wheels. Both train tracks and 35E are visible when standing near the bluff at Linwood, including the place where the treasure was.

This was a clue that had two meanings. Linwood has a nice southern view over the city. But also, if you were to look south, you might see Pleasant Ave. right below the park.

The first part of the clue is referring to actor Blair Underwood who was famous for his role in "LA Law" (reference to laws) as well as starring in the movie "Just Cause". The treasure was located under wood, specifically in a hole at the bottom of a wooden wall.

The second part of the clue referred to the star of the Hollywood version of "Romeo and Juliet", Clare Danes. "Holy Great Danes" was then meant to suggest St. Clair Ave., the northern border of Linwood.

Dan and Lynn are the people who got me really involved in the treasure hunt the last year at Cherokee. They were always coming up with some pretty farfetched theories, yet somehow always ended up in the right place. The whole point of the first part of the clue though was to use the phrase "Lynn would" as in Linwood.

The second part of the clue was to tell you which part of the park. Shakespeare's birth place was Stratford on Avon, which alluded to Avon St. "Orient yourself" was a play on words meaning to put yourself east of Avon(orient meaning east). I also though using the word "tenuous" might make people think "tennis".

The "female king" was Billie Jean King who played tennis. One of the posts in the fence around the tennis court was also directly in that line between the western edge of the green wall and the treasure. So if you drew perpendicular lines to the green and wooden walls through the fence posts, eventually you would have found the the hole in the wooden wall in which the chest was sitting.