Scavengeroogle: A Google Maps Scavenger Hunt To Waste More Of Your Time On

What was cool was that I didn’t even notice before about the building to the right of the Sad Texan. Jen wrote:

“… and he’s so sad there’s a tear coming out of his eye.”

Hehe, kind of funny. Well, I guess I was trying to get a little too cute with the word clues. “White House” which is “Casa Blanca” in Spanish, which is a lake in Texas, which is close to Laredo where the Sad Texan lives. After all “White House” has too many connotations… but I didn’t want people to just type in “Casa Blanca Texas” because I believe that takes you too close to the answer. But some people didn’t even need the clue. Jason C. says:

… I don’t get what the clue “white House” has to do with it but I looked around the metro areas(dallas, austin, houston, san antonio) before thinking where would alot of people wait in line to go through when it occurred to me it might be a border crossing station, and wham I found it at the first place I checked after that which just happened to be Laredo.

About what the sad face is, Colin P. writes:

An unhappy border crossing.

And that pretty much looks like what it is… border crossing station buildings between the U.S and Mexico. I guess they shaped it like a sad face to discourage illegal crossings? The right side lane is completely clogged but the left is open…

Solution to “Sad Texan”

I know, I know. I just got through talking about the clue schedule being in the morning blah blah, but I just had to post this clue up because it made my day (or rather, night). It’s an honest to goodness “emoticon” found by Johnny K. while surfing around google maps. Very large at 12/15, and I have a feeling that once again people who live near the area will get it right away. Yeah we’re in Texas again. Just can’t seem to get away from the Lone Star. Well, Texas never whispers (inside joke).

As to the word clues… hmm. There weren’t any provided with this submission. It’s fast becoming the most difficult part of Scavengeroogle for me to figure out word clues that are fun yet difficult, but not TOO difficult. Let’s go with “White House”, and if that’s too hard I’ll add another word clue or two later that may help. I actually am pretty sure I know what this sad face building really is… but someone from the area can probably tell us more.

[Edit: A little nudge, as promised… “White House” in a different language may help you out.]

Clue Name : Sad Texan
Submitted by: Johnny K.
Status : Solved
First Solved By : Mike Z., Robert M., Bill P., Dan K., James C., Jason C., Matt R., Blake L., Shawn D., Brian G.

Word Clues : “White House”
Magnification Needed: 12/15
Difficulty : 4/10

SOLUTION TO “Sad Texan”

Well, here’s that elusive solution to Minnesota Pi. We only got 4 correct solutions this time, and it took two days and an extra clue. So yeah, look around Duluth which is Low’s homebase and you should find it. I think it is water or some sort of pond that just happened to be shaped like Pi.

Solution to “Minnesotan Pie”

Incidentally, I was wondering if anyone else is getting “Googlemap Wrist Syndrome” like me. I was surfing around about an hour yesterday in the godforsaken plains of Nebraska/Kansas/Oklahoma looking for something interesting when I noticed my wrist really started to hurt. I use the computer quite a bit, but usually am not bothered by carpal tunnel or any wrist problems. I dunno, it’s the repetition I think. I don’t do a lot of gaming involving the mouse either, so maybe that’s why this seemed unusual.

Actually, I would really like to be able to control the scrolling of the googlemap with my mind. Yeah. Attach some electrodes. That would be ideal. Someone needs to invent that, like, tomorrow.

Speaking of tomorrow, see ya all then.

You are all insanely fast Scavengeroogles. That is all I have to say. The spark was not the hardest clue, though I bet it would have been really tough if I didn’t give out the name of the city. Regarding, what the “spark” is … I dunno the nature of it. Jason notes:

I found 2 others of these sunlight glints in the area before I found the one you had
posted.

Funny, yeah I noticed that too while surfing around the area. It seems like some sort of glare spot, though I wonder how that happens. I have also seen many google map blurps that really do look like defects and not glare, but they are often visible on the maps pretty high up, like 11/15 or something.

Solution to “Giant Spark”

Aw.. well I guess E did stand for “easy”. Tons of correct solutions, many in 2-5 minutes. The usual suspects were first however. I have been thinking of doing a “leaderboard” but damn that would be work to keep track of since I don’t have the solvers names in a database right now, and I dont even want to think about doing it by hand.

Solution to “Brought To You By The Letter E”

By the way, I thought I’d drop a quick note on the so called “posting schedule” of clues. So that you don’t have to continually reload the page all day long… We are shaping up to get into the habit of posting 1-2 clues per day, not including weekends. That’s about all I can handle right now. Diehard Scavengeroogles should look for new clues mostly in the morning, around 9-11 PST, though of course there will be exceptions.

Solutions to clues that haven’t been found by 5 or more people will generally be posted up after about 2 days. So that you don’t tear your hair out! Also, I have been known to have a soft spot for dropping extra word clues for tough ones. I don’t want your eye doctors to get TOO rich.

Also, I try to update the “Pending Solutions” as quick as I can (this is done manually because I need to check the solutions) but there can often be lags… so if you don’t see the little numbers move up after submitting the answer, that’s because I haven’t gotten to it yet.

Happy Scavengeroogling!

I’ve seen a number of these weird “google defects” when surfing around. I’m not sure if this is some sort of problem with the satellite transmission, google’s stiching algorithm, or an honest to goodness reflection of sunlight. It’s interesting in that it’s in the shape of a cross almost… anyone know what can cause that? This was submitted by Alex P. who was going to give you the super ambiguous word clue of “Canada Suburbs”, but I thought that would probably be a little too hard, so I’ll give you an additional hint of “Longueuil”… rolls right off the tongue, don’t it. Longueuil Tongue. Har…

In any case, I’m not going to post too many of these google defects because chances are, they’ll go away when google gets new satellite maps and then I’ll be left with a bunch of clues that can’t be found! And that would net me a lot of angry emails…

Clue Name : Giant Spark
Submitted by: Alex P.
Status : Solved
First Solved By : Colin P., Jason C., Dan S., Shawn D., Excelsior

Word Clues : “Longueuil”
Magnification Needed: 12/15
Difficulty : 5/10

SOLUTION TO “Giant Spark”

E is for… Easy, Extreme, Elephant, Eels. I don’t know, think of something good! This looks like a bunch of building that happened to be arranged in the letter “E”. You can see it from really far out, 12/15. Shouldn’t be too difficult given the word clues, but I’ve been chastised about saying things are too easy before, so… searchers beware. Anyhow, Jeremy sent this clue in, but I modified the word clues to make it a bit shorter. All you get is “NY 684″. Gentlemen, start your google maps…

Clue Name : Brought To You By The Letter E
Submitted by: Jeremy R.
Status : Solved
First Solved By : Jason C., Christohper A., Colin P., Josh H., Sam O.

Word Clues : “NY 684″
Magnification Needed: 12/15
Difficulty : 3/10

SOLUTION TO “Brought To You By The Letter E”

I would just like to say that you are all, like, googlemap geniuses! Thinking back on it, this was a really tough clue, I certainly underestimated the difficulty. As to what it is, everyone seems to think it’s some sort of target for military practice which is what I had imagined it possibly could be. The area is called “Dugway Proving Grounds”… what a big target though. How can anyone fail to hit that? Haha.

Jason C. says:

Even though I knew it was in Utah given the clue, it still toook me a while to find it but then I started thinking it might be a target for the military so I started looking closer in the military lands and found it. So my best guess is that it is a target and it is so close to Dugway, Ut it seems plausible.

And Shawn D. writes:

I looked around the salt lake for an hour till I saw your second clue. Then I found it pretty quick. It’s part of the Dugway proving grounds. Probably a target? See:

http://www.kued.org/skullvalley/road/

Solution to “Moroni’s Halo”

I’ve only been river rafting once, as a kid. And it was quite a dicey affair, getting dunked in the water various times. I think I’ll confine myself to virtual river rafting via google. =)

Anyhow, quite a few of you found this clue. I’m wondering what this really is and it hasn’t been answered really. Jason C. writes:

This has something to do with the colorado river water coming into denver but it was
so long ago that i read about it that i can’t remember the details of all the
structures and stuff used to get it to denver.

I kind of thought something along that lines given the location. Some sort of water transportation thing via aqueducts getting it ready to be shipped out toward L.A.? I don’t believe it’s a dam though and a few readers agreed with this. If you know what this is please comment!

Solution to “Let’s Go Rafting”