2016 St. Peter Winterfest Hunt

Can you believe the medallion has never been hidden in neither Riverside Park nor Jefferson Park?

Welcome back to this blog! We have been looking forward to this for the past 365 days.

You will recall that the name of the blog is "Medallion Rapscallion". Of course, the Rapscallion is the person(s) who hides the medallion, and it is our privilege to communicate with that slippery little leprechaun(s).

In fact, just today, at 4 p.m., we had a conversation with the Rapscallion, and he/she/they expressed worry that the snow might melt, thereby making it easier for hunters to find the coveted medallion, which is plastic, white with blue snowflakes and about the size of an air hockey puck.

The Rapscallion takes pleasure in attempting to sidetrack us, so whatever is said must be taken with a grain of salt ... or flake or snow.

You have probably read the first clue by now. In typical fashion, the Rapscallion has given us little to go on. That will be the case the first couple of days until clues get more specific.

What can be similiarly valueable in the hunt is knowing the Rapscallion's tendencies. The medallion in each of the 12 years has been hidden in or very close to a city park, never too close to residences and in areas where parking is plentiful.

We asked if you could believe the medallion has never been hidden in Riverside Park or Jefferson Park. Both fit the profile for a good hiding place, so that's why we bring it up.

But beware! The devious mind of the Rapscallion deviates from logic. Twice the medallion has been hidden in McGill Park, Mill Pond Park and Warren Park.

If you were the Rapscallion, where would you hide the medallion? That's the vexing question you must ask yourself, and then act upon in your search, the first two or three days of the 2016 Winterfest Medallion Hunt.

After reading Clue 2, at least one hunter guessed the medallion was hidden somewhere in Lot 5 at the corner of Grace and Minnesota.

That hunter surmised "park" was a clever second definition of "parking lot".

All who attend Oktoberfest in Lot 5 know of the unisex outhouses that cater to both women and men.

Some would look at this stuff and say, "Hogwash! You are over-thinking the clue word 'park.' "

Well, when it comes to getting into the intricate mind of the Medallion Rapscallion, who hid the medallion and is writing the clues, there is no such thing at "over-thinking." The past has certainly taught us that.

You can just bet the Rapscallion is rubbing her/his/their hands together and chuckling at the forecast that predicts a dumping of six inches of snow on Tuesday.

Get out there and find the medallion before that happens!

Twenty two.

That's the approximate number of meaningful words in Clues 1, 2 and 3 combined.

Of course, the Rapscallion may have made any number of those words nothing but fool's gold.

Let's play with Clue 3. Everyone stop reading for a minute and look up the definitions of the word "ring." Is the Rapscallion guiding us to gemstone rings, like decorations at TREEmendous Playground in Gorman Park, or rings of competition, such as baseball/softball fields found at Minnesota Square, Gorman, Ramsey, Jefferson, Veterans and Stones?

Visit www.saintpetermn.gov/parks, and you can mark features, such as ball diamonds (a.k.a. gems) to see which parks have them.

Could the clue word "harder" apply to baseball over softball?

Drat! Forget all this. The Rapscallion once again has led us on a wild goose chase. Is it any wonder the Rapscallion placed clue words "mind" and "game" so close to each other in Clue 3?

Watch for clues to get super specific ... sometime this week.

Is anyone feeling a fire ring with rocks nearby?

Hunting for a medallion can be like hiring a psychic to solve a crime. Going by feel more than sight, sound or other senses can do the trick.

At least one hunting party out there was feeling the fire ring and rocks. Were they on the right track? Time will tell.

There are all sorts of rocks rising to the surface in the first four clues. But on its face, the word "west" seems really strong. If it's true the medallion is in a park at the west, get your compass out. St. Peter grew in size along the river, which doesn't run true north and south. Everything a reasonable navigator might assume is west might actually be more north.

We could name parks in the city's western quadrant, but you know what? We're not going to, because this might just be another in the Rapscallion's long history of misleadings. The Rapscallion might mean Adam West, who played Batman and bats are more likely to live near a water source like Hallett's Pond, the Mill Pond or the river. Who knows? That's how twisted the mind of the Rapscallion can get.

"Golfers" might move us to the disc golf course in Riverside Park, which is reasonably close to Highway 99 West and some of its signage.

We don't know. What we do know is that new snow -- lots of it -- could very well work to the Rapscallion's advantage in concealing the medallion. What about Jefferson Park? 

Medallion hunters number many already, and they are secretive so far. They aren't sharing their theories. They aren't marrying themselves to one park. They are keeping open minds. 

And in mind games, which the Rapscallion loves to play, open minds allow psychic energy to flow in.

You might need to be a groundhog to find the medallion under all of this snow.

By now, everybody has googled the lyrics of Everyday People and read, "You can't figure out the bag I'm in."

What is with the capitalization of certain words in Clue 5? Perhaps all this is is the Rapscallion telling us to google the lyrics. Mission accomplished.

So, let's say you were the person writing the clues, and you needed to link Everyday People and Song. Hold that thought, because Sly and the Family Stone sang Sing a Simple Song, and the words, "I'm walkin'" show up.

Hitting a long ball sure seems like a reference to baseball or softball, but it happens in golf, too, albeit not disc golf.

Let's face it: Yesterday's clue sure seemed to put us smack dab in the heart of Stones Park. But hunters combed it to no avail.

The newer the clues, the more specificity. Or at least that's how it worked in the past.

But with which future clue will that really start to matter most in the grand scheme of the fact that the medallion is buried under at least eight inches of snow. A groundhog would certainly have an advantage at this point.

Conventional wisdom might still suggest the medallion is in Stones Park. Many hunters are searching there.

The park has a covered wagon playground and is near Highway 99 West. There's a walking path, and this public property isn't far from the state hospital.

So no wonder it's well searched.

Reading tonight's clue triggered a thought: Who is the park named after? Calling up the City of St. Peter website and plugging the word "stone" into the search box netted a surprising result -- references to Kasota stone, a building material seen all over St. Peter, but ... . In tonight's clue is the word "signs".

Hmmmm. Kasota stone signs, maybe?

A drive to the north end of town, where the Kasota stone city sign stands next to a snowmobile trail, revealed the medallion is probably not there. The hiders wouldn't put it so close to 65 mph traffic. Too potentially dangerous.

"County fair" appears in the lyrics of Hot Fun in the Summertime. The Rapscallion has said in past years that the medallon wouldn't be hidden at the fairgrounds, which are not quite public enough, in this sense, for the hunt.

Then thoughts drifted to Stone's Throw Gallery at the corner of Minnesota Avenue and Skaro Street. Clue #3 included the words "throw," "gem," and "ring". Driving to that private property, which is bordered by public property in the boulevards along the sidewalks, triggered guesses that hiding a medallion there would be very difficult and not practical. The hunt started on Friday, when there wasn't much snow, and temperatures in the low 40s on Saturday and Sunday would have made concealing nearly impossible.

We have been told there are many hunters participating, so the eight inches of snow that blanketed St. Peter isn't discouraging them to the point of giving up until clues get more specific.

You know what? Clues are about to get way more specific, if the past is a predicter of the future. We are about to sail into the charted waters of the seventh day of the hunt. An eighth day would be rare but not unprecedented. Remember last year? A clue on a ninth day would be a first.

Does the Rapscallion have you stumped? Keep at it, because your chance is as good as anyone's at claiming the $1,000 Chamber Bucks prize.

The hunt has taken on an old fishing tradition: Everyone goes to where the boats are because they think those guys must know something they don't.

Fishing must be good in Minnesota Square Park and Stones Park, because that's where virtually all of the searching action is.

Whichever it is, and it might be neither, tonight's clue points to the edge of the park and in the light. Blend that information with key words from the first six clues, and that should put you right on top of the medallion.

As the composer of the Medallion Rapscallion blog, your guess is as good as ours. But wow, the clues hinting men-and-women, rocks, ring, pebble, state, summer fun ... all that tugs at our shovel.

Again, if you knew which park, the search would be a matter of getting lucky at working the perimeter. But who for sure knows which park?

In past years, clues this late in the game have gotten all the hunters flocking to a single park. This year that is not the case.