The Hunt Year was...

2006 Herald Hunt

Your online guide to the zaniness of the 2006 Herald Hunt!

When: 10/29/2006

Where: South Miami

The Herald Hunt travels to a new city/locale for this year\'s Hunt, and it was a great city for it! Despite some initial panic with the main Hunt stage still being constructed as the Hunt began, things afterwards went off without a hitch!
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\nThis year\'s Hunt saught to maintain a Halloween theme over most of the proceedings, including holding a costume contest judged by Dave Barry and Tom Shroder before the Hunt began.
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\nSimilar to 2005\'s Hunt, the blend of puzzle difficulty was pretty even across all the Hunters in attendance. Also repeating a theme from 2005, the final puzzle relied on shifting the clues numbers that Hunters received so that the final puzzle wouldn\'t be as easily solved. However, there was also the ability for most Hunters to dial a phone number and get a part-way head start on the final clue, which many people did and wound up mobbing the area.
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\nThe weather was great, South Miami provided for a welcome change to the Hunt landscape, and fun was had by all, despite the fact that the winning team had one three times previously!

The Initial Puzzles
NOTE: The puzzle answers are hidden! In order to see them, you must highlight them with your mouse to reverse the text!

1. Two trains leave Chicago at exactly the same time, one traveling west at 50 miles per hour, and one traveling east at 60 miles per hour. After two hours and thirty minutes, both trains stop and immediately travel in the opposite direction at 40 miles per hour for one hour. Which of the following statements is true?
A. Both trains are red.
B. One of the trains is nicknamed "The Raging Hermaphrodite."
C. Catherine Zeta-Jones was in the movie version of Chicago and also appears in commericals for a cellular network, although it is not clear why she should be considered an authority on the subject.

Answer: C

2. What is the capital of Montana?
A. Montpelier
B. Boise
H. Some city in Montana

Answer: H

3. Assuming that there are 127,000 unsold condominiums in Miami-Dade County and 78,000 unsold condominiums in Broward County, which of the following statements is true?
J. A lot of real-estate agents have gone back to substitute teaching.

Answer: J

4. You can tell when winter has arrived in South Florida because:
A. There's a nip in the air.
B. There's frost on the pumpkin.
M. There's maybe a quart less perspiration in your undershorts.

Answer: M

5. Complete the following Neil Diamond lyric: "I am I said; To no one there; And no one heard at all
Answer: I

Main Puzzles (i.e. the puzzle sites)
NOTE: Puzzle answers and their descriptions are hidden! In order to see them, you must highlight them with your mouse to reverse the text!

Puzzle: Herald Hunt Antique Automobile Association
Location: Start at C8, rest around map
Description:
Volunteers handed out fliers with pictures of antique cars. Four of the cars were paired with map coordinates, as in Plymouth L-5; these four cars were crossed out. The only car not crossed out was a Ford, which had no map coordinates. Hunters had to find the Ford.
Related puzzle photos and materials...

Puzzle Answer: 48
How to get the answer:
Hunters had to figure out its coordinates, which were E-8. The answer was Ford E-8, or 48.

Puzzle: "Moon Over Miami"
Location: Sunset Place, outside AMC theaters
Description:
In Sunset Place, performers from New World School of the Arts performed a crazy little opera titled: Moon Over Miami. They were wearing opera costumes, but each also had a clearly visible University of Miami football jersey with a number. The stage set consisted of a moon hung over one spot on the stage. As the performers sang, one after another of them stood in their Miami jerseys under the moon. Since the title was Moon Over Miami, it made sense that one of the numbers on the Miami jerseys appearing under the moon would be the answer to this puzzle. But which one?
Related puzzle photos and materials...

Puzzle Answer: 95
How to get the answer:
Again, very smart, and/or mentally disturbed Hunters realized that one of the opera singers, a woman with a Viking helmet and a ton of padding beneath her jersey, was clearly the ''fat lady'' of opera fame. And as everyone knows, it's NOT OVER until the fat lady sings. The number 95 on the jersey of the actor standing beneath the moon when the fat lady sang was the answer to this puzzle.

Puzzle: Store Display
Location: Lanes store display on SW corner of NW 57th Ave and Sunset Drive
Description:
At Lane's men's clothing store on the corner of Red Road and Sunset Drive, the shop window display featured oddly dressed mannequins. On one side, there were:

1. A mannequin with toy trains hung around its neck.

2. A mannequin in only a vest

3. A mannequin in only a tie.

4. A mannequin in only a T-shirt.

On the other side were another cluster of outrageously dressed mannequins. Each had a price tag.
Related puzzle photos and materials...

Puzzle Answer: 245
How to get the answer:
Hunters had to realize that the mannequins on the first side were a coded message: trains, vest, tie, T-shirt or, running them together, trainsvesttieT. Allow a smidge for Hunt wackiness, and you got ''transvestite.'' That could only apply to the male mannequin in women's clothes. The price on that ensemble, $245, was the answer to this puzzle.

Puzzle: Romans Sale
Location: Start at M20, go elsewhere
Description:
Volunteers wearing togas handed out coupons with images of Ancient Rome, including the Coliseum, and the words: Take Half Off The Entire Store.
Related puzzle photos and materials...

Puzzle Answer: 59
How to get the answer:
Astute hunters noticed that the image of the Coliseum also appeared on the map. If they went to that location, they found a Publix supermarket. Really astute hunters realized that if they took ''half off'' the name PUBLIX, they were left with LIX -- Roman numerals for the answer, 59.

Puzzle: Movies
Location: I12, entrance of Sunset Place, and then back in corner
Description:
Hunters were handed posters for two movies, A Clockwork Orange and North By Northwest. The ''o'' in ''Clockwork'' was the image of a clock, the same image used on the map to show the clock tower of Sunset Place. Hunters who went there discovered that the clock is near a plaza with a sculpture of a gigantic orange, which matched the capital ''O'' in the word ''Orange'' on the poster. This was obviously the ''Clockwork Orange.'' But what about ''North by Northwest?''
Related puzzle photos and materials...

Puzzle Answer: 1145
How to get the answer:
As it happens, the orange sculpture sits on top of a giant compass rose. If Hunters walked north by northwest from the compass, they came to a pillar with yet another movie poster, this one for the 2006 movie Mini's First Time. There was a schedule of movies listed in the Hunt issue, including one titled simply, ''Mini.'' The answer to this puzzle was the ''first time'' for ''Mini'' on the timeclock, which was 11:45.

The Clues
45. Additions are handy, two! Apply sunlight ambitiously, open skirt. Hint: UNdress!
48. You have to follow the letter of the law. You also have to follow the telegram of the law, the e-mail of the law and the phone call of the law.
59. Take me baby. Take me the way you know I love to be taken. To the zoo.
59. Two grams fill it.
89. Seals ace Reindeers.
95. Is it zafe?
222. All illusion ages time. I've never itched so.
245. I am diametrically opposed. Which is the opposite of diameter.
1137. Absolutely facinating. Utterly amateurish. Handsomely incompetent.
1145. You got to go to Grotto ToGo. Have some tea with the lllammmas.

The Final Puzzle
NOTE: The final puzzle description is hidden! In order to see them, you must highlight them with your mouse to reverse the text!

The Final Puzzle:
So far, the five main clues were seemingly meaningless sentences. To decode them, Hunters had to solve the endgame, which started at 3 p.m. when a man dressed as Dracula appeared on stage and said, ''Ladies and Gentlemen, the final clue.'' Seven costumed characters joined him on stage in single file.
Final puzzle photos and materials...

Solving the Hunt:
All the costumed characters except for Count Dracula appeared in multiples on the Hunt Map. Hunters had to figure out that the seven figures on stage each represented a digit in a phone number. Hunters had to ''Count'' the characters on the map to get each of the digits. For example, the first character to the Count's left was a mummy. There were five mummies drawn on the map, so the first digit of the seven-digit phone number was a 5. When Hunters followed this process with all the characters, they got: 523-7666. When they called the number (with a 305 area code), they heard a recorded message: a chorus of people coughing.

All that coughing was a Hunt pun for ''coffin.'' There was a single coffin on the Hunt Map, located at a South Miami cafe. Hunters who went there discovered a man wearing a T-shirt that said, ''The Undertaker.'' If they explained that they were there for the ''coffin,'' they were handed a flier that read:

KEY FUNERAL HOME

Helping Families in Time of Need

In each word on the flier, the second letter was in a different font than the rest.

Finally, here was the key to reading the five clues Hunters got from solving the five puzzles: the secret was to pay attention only to the second letter of every word in the clues, which yielded: DRAW PUMPKIN, WRITE CELL, GIVE TO BATMAN.

The feloniously smart Hunters noticed there was a cave on the map with bats emerging from the entrance: a bat cave. Since the Bat Cave was where Batman hangs out, they went to that location and discovered: a guy in a Florida Marlins cap and jersey standing around holding a baseball bat. Clearly a bat man. The first Hunters to hand him a piece of paper with a drawing of a pumpkin and their cellphone number were the winners.

Who won (Congratulations!):
1st place team
Steve Friedland
Mark and Mindy Engleberg
Brian O'Neil

2nd place team
Ed, Paulette and Terri Truscello
Charles, Shelly, Dean, Casey and Jessica Morrison

3rd place team
Frank Zanca
Jeff Flanagan
Brett Halsey
Nina Malik
Kristin Lindah
Brendan Leonard

Photos & related materials for the winners...

Articles/Ads

Photos, articles, stories and other multimedia related to the hunt...

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Page last updated: Monday, April 29, 2024 3:51:58 AM