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

So Tony A had originally emailed me a long time ago about putting Bermuda on the Scavengeroogle map. I’d forgotten about it, but while culling my email I found his message about it. He originally had suggested one of the large ships around the island as the clue, but he said maybe I could search for something else on the island to choose. It’s interesting that Bermuda has hi-res imagery. I thought it might have been funny if Google had drawn a big gigantic triangle into the satellite map to indicate the Bermuda triangle.

Also, before it was not immediately apparent where Bermuda was… now they at least have the island name. Before last Friday, there was no island name, and there was no picture of the island in street map mode. So it really did seem as if something weird was going on in the Bermuda Triangle!

Quite a few people thought this was easy. Tony’s original clue was going to be something about “triangle” and “shorts”. I just put onions in there because I thought it was less apparent than shorts. Some responses:

Judy B:

Took me longer to find Bermuda (embarassingly so) than to find the clue!

As I said, this was definitely an issue. When I tried to do a “re-find” starting from scratch, I had a hard time picking out Bermuda right away. Shawn D is thinking ecologically when he says:

Too easy, But still fun. I wonder what this is. Surely they’re not strip mining on a beautiful island like Bermuda.

I was wondering about that bare patch as well, hopefully that’s not the result of some sort of mining!

Brian G used an extra hint I gave:

Couple minutes today. Kinda worked through the ’someplace different’ and triangle clue until I found it. Pretty cool high-res imagery there.

I DID think about what I said about it being “someplace different” and also the fact that it would be difficult to drop a region clue. I thought that might help a little more with nailing the clue down. Jon G was one of the few that actually looked somewhere else other than Bermuda to start:

Took 10 min. Didn’t really know what onion meant so I focused on triangle. Only things I could come up with were Triangle, VA and the Bermuda Triangle. A quick check of Bermuda and there it was. I was kinda surprised that Bermuda was so hi-res.

Ryan F was one of the other few who had a bit of herring for breakfast:

This one took about 5 minutes. At first I started searching for cities with the word “Delta” in them - the triangle part of the clue herringed me there. Finally, I just googled onion + triangle, and for some reason one of the very first entries talked about the Bermuda Triangle. Knowing Bermuda was a type of onion, I knew I was getting warm.

I was actually wondering if anyone would try and do something with They Might Be Giants (Triangle Man), hehe. I did see a google entry for Bermuda under “onion triangle”, which is why I reversed it to “triangle onions”..

Some newcomers to getting a ‘roogle solution:

Alex P:

Triangle triggered me to think Bermuda triangle right away. I did a search for Bermuda Onions and found a plethora of matches, so that further validated that it must be in Bermuda. It’s hard to find Bermuda on Google Maps though…I had to figure out its vicinity by looking at another map (expedia)…then because there are no street maps for Bermuda, it took a minute or two to actually find the island. Once I found the island, I just went around the whole northern coastline until I found it. It took about 10 minutes all together. This is my first scavengeroogle…thanks! It’s fun!

and Luke P:

First one that I’ve gotten - probably about 30 minutes. I was convinced I had it when I found Cape Onion in Newfoundland, but there was no hi-res imaging. When I got the Bermuda/Onion connection, I went to Bermuda, and it only took about 2 minutes scanning the island from there.

That’s funny about Cape Onion. I could see how that herring might throw you off…

OK, most likely we will have another clue coming up on Wednesday at 9… I’ll try to make the next one a bit harder perhaps to compensate for this easier one!

Solution to “Jo and Face”

Hey you Scavengeroogles! How have you been? Me, I could be better. I dug up this particular clue myself, but sort of owe its origin to Tony A., who had submitted a particular clue before that I sort of used to find this one.

I’m still getting used to the new 18/18 slider that Google has changed to, but am already pretty happy with their new city labeling algo. The river labeling algo needs work though! So anyhow, this particular clue is called “Jo and Face”. The “Jo” is the usual “buildings that look like writing” hack that finds me a lot of clues. However, I didn’t notice until I screengrabbed the pic that there is a “face” in the light brown area of the picture! Kind of cool, you can see the two eyes and the mouth in grey (the mouth is at the bottom of the light brown portion).

As for word clues, this particular one is going to be interesting because it’s a little different than your ordinary location. I’m not going to say more than that because it might give it away. But anyhow, you may find this easy, or you may find it hard… all depends on whether you figure out:

“Onion Triangle”

Hehe. I think I am clever with these word clues when in reality I’m such a sluggggard. If that’s a word. I actually took part of Tony A’s suggestion for word clues and changed them a bit. And we all know what happens when I do that: Herring FEST!

Thusly, you may want to look for a region drop soon. But I am trying to figure out how to drop this region, may be difficult…

[Edit: 10:00 PDT - Whew, so the consensus is this is not too tough… I’m sort of glad about that. Therefore, no region clue drop needed!]

Clue Name : “Jo And Face”
Submitted by: Scavengeroogle Admin
Status : Solved (13)
Duration: Mon 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. PDT

Solved By: Ken S, Brian G, Andy K, Chris R, Jon G, Jeremy R, Adam M, Shawn D, Ryan F, Alex P, Luke P, Trecherus, Judy B

Word Clues : “Onion Triangle”
Magnification Needed: 15/18

SOLUTION TO “Jo And Face”

Mark L alerted us to an interesting change in the appearance of the google map: an increase of notches in the magnification slider. I think it JUST happened today, in fact I am sure of it because I happen to have a screenshot that includes the slider from yesterday when I was doing the “dragonfly” clue. As you can see, they seem to have added 3 notches, making it a maximum of 18/18 instead of 15/15 for full zoomed in.

Now, I am not 100% sure but when I did a zoom in of today’s slider to match with yesterday’s it seems as though the relative scale has not changed but for us the numbers will change. That is 13/15 is now 16/18. The slider is still 2 notches from the top, but because we have traditionally counted from the bottom in our game you just need to add 3 to adjust. Note, I am not 100% sure about this, would need to check each clue to compare it.

I am not sure that anyone else except the people who play here may have noticed the increase in notches, and that is only because it is important to the way Scavengeroogle is played…

Even more interesting is, the extra 3 notches added seem to be there to include the rest of the world? So I was thinking, is this a precursor to an inclusion of more high res satellite imagery elsewhere in the world? In fact, is it just my imagination or did they not have “country” names in the street map view before? Interesting… anyone else know if there have been significant changes in Google mapping of the rest of the world. I must admit I haven’t been paying attention because I’ve got my hands full with clue creation.

Also, did they have little “red dots” for major cities before? I think I am losing my mind here…

In any case, I will have to start getting used to 18/18. I guess the other thing we could do is reverse the scale, so that fully zoomed in is 1/18. Ahh… I’m too lazy though, let’s just leave it for now. =)

I had reservations about putting up this clue as I was writing it down. For one, it didn’t really look like a dragonfly… as Steve M said it sort of looked like a string of firecrackers. And I didn’t have a clue as to the word clue. Anything leading straight to Des Moines would have been too easy, I thought. So I decided to try to go to a different language and say “French Monk” which I thought would lead everyone to Des Moines. On Wikipedia it says: “from French Rivière des Moines, i.e. ‘River of the Monks’ “.

This wasn’t enough though, because a lot of people looked for actual French monks. I anticipated that as herrings sort of, but didn’t know it would be that bad. In addition, there is some controversy as to if that is the actual origin of the city’s name; I think some people have connected it to Indian tribes around area, and in fact one funny explanation says it means “excrement faces” in an old Indian dialect. Supposedly, anyway.

Ok, so anyhow a few people still got the clue.

Mark L wrote:

Found it by a fluke…… needle in a haystack approch…… 5 seconds

and Judy B said:

Took about 5-10 minutes and a huge bit of luck! (:

Nothing like a little Friday luck! Moose says:

I never really understood the word clue. I just waited for the location drop, and noticed that there weren’t many high-res images for iowa. Took me about 30 mins search time between calls at work.

I DID bank on the fact that the hi-res squares weren’t that numerous in Iowa. Can you imagine, though, what’s going to happen when google starts to fill in those missing areas of hi-res? It may get a lot tougher.

Jeremy R got it, though it was a big timesuck:

That was ridiculous…I was all over the map, from Canada to Texas to Minnesota, and even a brief stop in a completely different part of Iowa. Even after the region drop I had trouble because I was convinced it had to be near the river (French monk “runs”). So much for being productive today!

Katie N did try to find an actual French Monk:

This was a hard clue. I originally thought the french monk had something to do with Dom Perignon (since he was a french monk), so I kept looking around Champagne, IL. With the Iowa clue, I immediately searched around Des Moines, and it only took a few minutes to find.

Steve M said:

I came in a little late on this one but it took me 1min after the clue drop. I vote to keep the Scavengeroogle alive i look forward to every clue. Still not Bored of it. Keep it alive

I shall most certainly try to keep up the clues. And Jon G said:

Took about 10 min. but I joined after 2 clues, so that made it easier. Have a good weekend!

My sentiments exactly… have a good weekend and I will see you on Monday at 9!

Solution to “Dragonfly”

Hello Friday. I’m actually starting to run low on clues, so if you’ve got any more submissions send ‘em in. I had to throw out a whole bunch of them because many had a wrong URL that didn’t show anything, or weren’t suitable (i.e. planes, ships, well known landmarks) so it ended up I didn’t have as many backlogged as I thought.

Also, I’ve been a bit lazy… if there’s no word clues submitted I generally don’t select it unless the actual picture clue is fantastic. Then I’m apt to try come up with one. So it’s a combination of a good picture and a good clue that will get your clue on here.

Alas, this isn’t the best of pictures and not the best of word clues. I mean, it doesn’t really look too much like a dragonfly but I figured I might as well use it since I had found this earlier and stockpiled it for such a time as now. The only really good thing about it is that it is visible far out at 10/15. As for word clues, gah. I have such a hard time coming up with these. But let’s try:

“A french monk runs close to it”

I already see so many potential slippery herrings just from googling that I will most certainly need to drop the region clue early. So sit tight if you’d rather not strain the brain because help will be coming soon.

[Edit: 9:42 PDT - Wow, nary a response in sight. Here is the region clue then: Iowa. If that doesn’t help I’ll have to reconfigure that word clue…]

[Edit: 10:38 PDT - Ahh… LOL. This is shaping up to be another one of those, “what are you trying to pull on us?” word clues. OK here are two clarifications, “A french monk runs SORT OF close to it”. And secondly, I just read about some apparent controversy regarding whether or not it IS french monk. So, egg on my face again. You may just want to look up what “monk” means in French and search near there… ]

Clue Name : “Dragonfly”
Submitted by: Scavengeroogle Admin
Status : Solved (7)
Duration: Fri 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. PDT

Solved By: Mark L, Moose, Jeremy R, Katie N, Steve M, Jon G, Judy B

Word Clues : “A french monk runs close to it”
Magnification Needed: 10/15

SOLUTION TO “Dragonfly”

I didn’t get a chance to write up a full solution, so I’ll just list some of the responses below. Most people seemed to get the U2 reference. I’ve driven to Joshua Tree Park fairly recently (2 years ago) and would highly recommend it to anyone interested. Also, nice to see people playing at work… =)

Phil M:

This area has a lot of interesting designs for neighborhoods. Actually, while serching for this clue, I found the solutions to another clue (The bug one). Not too difficult, Where the Streets Have no Name is a song from the U2 album Joshua Tree. figured I’d look around Joshua Tree National Park.

Andy K:

Not too bad at all as long as you know a little U2.

I think you should definately at least keep up the scavengeroogle going 2 or 3 times a week if at all possible. It’s a great time.

Larry B:

Got it. Clue was actually very easy. Just think album title…

Katie N:

This one took me about 10 minutes. I finally decided to see if there was a city called joshua tree, and apparently there is!

Moose:

Good clue, pretty easy though. I just googled the clue verbatim and found a bunch of stuff about Joshua Tree. I then noticed the national park in California, so I looked around there. I would have found it faster, but I kept looking southwest of Joshua Tree Nat. Park instead of north. Took about 10 minutes of actual hunting time…I kept getting calls here at work so I guess my solution time would be 20 minutes with all my interruptions.

Scotty B:

I was kicking myself for not thinking of Joshua Tree Nat’l Park, but the fact that I live near No Name Key, FL had me thinking that there were probably other places like that in our great country as well.

Thankfully, my buddy just told me about a trip he took to Joshua Tree, or else I would probably still be trying to input a town called No Name, Arizona.

Jim:

Where the Streets have no Name is from U2’s Joshua Tree album. Found the address for Joshua tree, then a couple minutes of searching around before I found it.

Back to work, I guess.

Jared R:

I think I sent this in but not sure. Busy day and I am confusing myself. Gotta love the scavengeroogle distraction from real work.

Judy B:

Just a couple of minutes. I knew the music reference and am very familiar with the actual location. I put the town name in and saw DaBomb after a couple of additional clicks.

Jim M:

Got the Joshua Tree reference, but thought it might be Vegas where the U2’s video to the song was filmed … tooled around the outskirts there then cruised over to 29Palms, went one a brief sojourn south to Palm Springs, before hitting the target in Yucca Valley. About 10-12 minutes scan time.

Thanks everyone for playing… see you Friday at 9!

Solution to “DaBomb”

Hey all of you, did you miss me? I didn’t get any love/hate letters in my email so apparently not… anyhow yeah I missed Monday sorry ’bout that. It’s getting increasingly harder to keep the scavengeroogling going. I guess we will see, but I am thinking I may stop the 3 clue sessions per week thing by the end of summer. I’m not sure if the site will continue but I’m hoping to at least keep posting some clues once in awhile. I think a schedule was fun, but it probably can’t go on at this rate. I really appreciate everyone who’s been playing along though. It’s the main reason I’ve kept the clues going…

Anyhow, to happier items. Here is a pretty excellent depiction of one of those cartoon type bombs submitted by Pcb100. Like something Wile E. Coyote might dream up. Pointed straight down as well. Visible pretty far out, at 11/15 or so. We will go with Pcb’s word clues, straight and unaltered:

“Near where the streets have no name.”

This may or may not be easy, I think it depends on entry point. We will most likely drop a region clue soon, but I don’t think you will need it. If all goes well, that is. Also, I’m going to run these things from 9 to 12 instead of 9 to 2 from now on… have fun!

[Edit: 10:25 PDT - Not that you need the region, but here is one: California. My connection has been up and down today so the solution may not come in at the bell and updates are sketchy for me right now…]

Clue Name : “DaBomb”
Submitted by: Pcb100
Status : Solved (15)
Duration: Wed 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. PDT

Solved By: Ken S, Phil M, Andy K, Larry B, Chris R, Katie N, Moose, Scotty B, Larry, Jim, Josh W, Mike Z, Jim M, Jared R, Judy B

Word Clues : “Near where the streets have no name.”
Magnification Needed: 11/15

SOLUTION TO “Dabomb”

A little shortage of players, probably because I had to close the game early today… sorry about that. Still a good number of solutions came rolling in today. I’m sort of getting used to just giving out word clues based on what people say. I mean, I try check them a bit usually but it really saves time when people submit word clues along with the graphic clue.

Oh, on that note… if you submit a clue please tell me exactly what it is you are submitting if it is not obvious. I have had people send in tantalizing word clues and a cool title for the clue, but when I click on the googlemap link, I’m not able to tell what it is I’m looking for! Also, make sure to grab the link correctly and “test” your link first in a browser to see what you’re sending me. Googlemaps are a bit funny that way… Thank you for sending in clues though!

So to the scavenger solutions. Golux13 solved as follows:

My first search for “GC” turned up a bunch of Government of Canada sites, so I looked at one and searched on “Hollow Spring.” Turns out there’s a Hollow Water Indian reservation in Manitoba, and there’s even some hi-res imaging in the area… but not what I was looking for. Then I looked at the clue pic again and saw the golf hole and thought “GC = Golf Club!” A quick Google search on “golf club hollow spring” turned up Spring Hollow GC in Spring City, PA. From there, it was mere moments.

Yeah there were a few herrings along the way… That’s cool I actually purposely shifted the IP address pic a bit in the screengrab in order to include part of the golf hole… I just wanted to see if that would be an extra hint and sure enough it was! Other people found it similarly, like Mike J:

Took me around 30 mins. Started looking aroud Grand Canyon (there is a Spring Hollow hiking area in Zion Natl Park). Couldn’t find it there, and looked closely and looked like part of a golf course at bottom right. Googled that and lead right to answer.

I’ve been to Zion when I was a kid but missed going there on the latest Colorado trip a few years back. Though I did get to Bryce which was pretty amazing…

Ryan F didn’t use the green but would’ve:

Took about 2 minutes. Thank god I knew what “GC” usually stands for. Although the green and sand trap in the corner might have helped once I actually saw it. I usually don’t study the picture itself as much as I probably should.

Shawn D also used the golf green hint and is yet another person playing at work:

Man, I’m hot this week. Took all of 2 minutes. I saw what looked like a golf green in the picture Did a search for Holow Spring Golf Course and bam! there it was.

Damn, now I gotta work. Great fun

Hehe. You said “Bam”, like Emeril. Andy K was also scavengeroogling under the boss’s nose:

woohoo…. a golfer here hard at work

Ken S. has family near the IP:

This one is half a mile from my in-laws’ house.

Mike M. crossed over to the “other” search engine, using Yahoo:

20 min, google searches didn’t work, one yahoo search did the trick…..

Jarret R. got the OC, er, excuse me… the GC! I keep typing OC…

Took about 10 minutes. . . didn’t put GC together with Golf Club right away.

So anyhow, I’ve gotta take off. But anyhow, I think I may have to miss putting out a clue this coming Monday. I am not 100% sure… I know, you’re thinking what is with all the breaks! Sorry ’bout that, but I think I’m going to be out…

So unless you see otherwise in the status bar, I will see you all Wednesday at 9. Happy weekend!

Solution to “IP Address”

Welcome to Friday, the bestest day of the week! Today’s clue comes from Jim M. and is a pretty cool depiction of the letters “IP”. Which of course, leads us all to think about IP Addresses. If not, then you’re not a nerd like me probably. Wait, I am a nerd? Oh yeah. When is everyone supposed to be using IPv6 again?

Ok, anyhow I’m not sure what this is really… I think it may just be some water tracks on the ground or something, although it is on top of something that is pretty circular. I can’t tell if this this a cylinder or a depressionn or a circular clearing. It is visible pretty far out at 11/15. As for word clues, I am once again going with Jim’s direct clue:

“GC’s Hollow Spring”

I think this may be a case of if you decipher the word clue then you’ll pretty much get it right away. Though I’m not sure. I’m never sure. These scavengeroogle word clues are weird, wild things. Anyhow, hope there’s not too many herrings afoot. By the way, I need to shut the clue off early at 12 noon PDT since I’m going out to be out the rest of the day most likely. Also, I may have to skip a day or two of clues next week. Will post at the status bar at top of the page if this happens though. Talk to you all soon …

[Edit: 10:27 PDT - Well, I was going to get specific for the region clue but thought that would be too much of a giveaway. So for now I’ll just say: Northeast U.S. ]

[Edit: 11:35 PDT - OK, last chance for a quickie solution… let’s narrow the region to: Pennsylvania]

Clue Name : “IP Address”
Submitted by: Jim M.
Status : Solved (8)
Duration: Fri 9:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m. PDT

Solved By: Andy K, Ken S, Mike M, Golux13, Shawn D, Mike J, Ryan F, Jarret R

Word Clues : “GC’s Hollow Spring”
Magnification Needed: 11/15

SOLUTION TO “IP Address”

Well, I’m a bit surprised so many people were able to pick out the synonyms correctly from the clue so quickly. Schlage was not too bad, but you had to translate “litigate” twice. Litigate = Sue = Soo, or rather Sault? I’m bad with French, I would have pronounced Sault like “salt”… At least people seemed to like this clue which was straight from Brian G. I didn’t tamper with it at all!

Phil M’s process follows:

Well this sure was a tough one at first. I figured out that Schlage had to do with locks. Thats why I began to look in the great lakes area since there are a lot of locks. I couldn’t quite figure out what Litigate had to do with until i thought about the locks in Sault Ste. Marie. Sault is pronounced like Soo, which sounds like Sue or to file suit…. or Litigate. So there you go… Litigate Schlage = Sault Locks.

There were the usual fast finds:

Mike M

deciphered the clue, found it right away, 3 min

Mark L

Piece of cake…. 5 min…… clue was great!

Jim M

Clever clue, but got it immediately - less than 1 minute to solve.

I would have been completely lost, because I’ve never heard of Sault Ste Marie ever before. Plus, we don’t have a lot of water locks here in California… unless you count the aqueducts but I don’t think there are too many ships sailing down the Owens or Colorado Rivers… I’ve floated down part of the Colorado in an inner tube, however.

Some interesting herrings. Josh C wrote:

Took me about 30 seconds after the region drop. Started out looking for some sort of German connection (because of Schlage.) eventually figured out Sue Locks, but had no idea where to look. After I found Soo Locks in Michigan I was kicking myself.

But Jon G got help from his mom to get past them:

Right off the bat I thought it was Suez (Canal) locks from the clue but it was very low-res at the Suez Canal. Tried to search for other canals with locks and finally remembered my mom took a trip to Sault Ste. Marie a couple years ago. She talked about all these big barges passing through some locks there which are called the Soo Locks. So take it from me, it DOES pay to listen to your mom.

Mike J went camping to find it:

Didn’t start until after the region drop, guessed the second part of the clue meant lock, first part was a legal word. Saw a Soo Locks campground on a map program and behold there’s a section of water the right color and there’s the ship.

Hey this is two in a row for me! Yea

Some people knew the area… interesting, so what is “UP” actually? I’m guessing (through google searches) that it means Upper Peninsula Michigan? Josh W:

I figured that the clue was for “sue locks” which became Sioux Locks. Those are north of the UP of Michigan.

I found it a little to the left of Sault ste. marie, ontario, a little west of highway 75, basically took some plodding around.

Michael J:

I know the secone clue was Locks, so I just started searching for different locks around the country when it hit me. I knew about Sault St. Marie.

and Shawn D:

On a roll this week. Took about 3 minutes. Just say ya to the UP, eh? (Michiganders would undestand that.)

I saw that car chase on the news here in Dallas. Man, that traffic looked ugly.

Texas car chases usually end much less peacefully.

Yikes, I can only imagine what the cops do in car chases around Texas! I would assume they might take a more direct approach?

JaredR gets magic crunchy bonus points in addition to his normal solution points for finding a ballpoint pen that looks mighty similar to the one that we had in our search today:

I guess it doesnt count but this is almost the same.

Alternate Ballpoint Pen

Yeah, it is even in the same general area… this is one reason why ships can be difficult as clues. Airplanes are even worse sometimes…

Oh boy, Friday at 9 cannot come soon enough for me. See you then…

Solution to “Ballpoint Pen”

As I write up this clue on Tuesday, there are 2 or 3 helicopters whirling nonstop nearly above of my house. This has gone on for about six hours. There was a car chase that has ended in a standoff on the freeway about 1/2 mile away from me. They even sent in a robot for crisis negotiations. Fun, I wish I could work that into a clue or two. Man, Los Angeles… I have to laugh like hell.

Anyhow, here is a clue sent in by Brian G. which is a nice red ballpoint pen. Or a ship that looks like one. I know I said I wasn’t going to include any more ships and airplanes but I caved in because this was kind of fun. I’m wondering how hard this will be because there must be a billion ships possible. Well, I’m going to give you Brian’s clue so you get to blame him instead of me in case it’s tough! Here you go:

“Litigate Schlage”

Oof, that seems sort of hard. I think it needs be tough because it’s visible from so far out and is somewhat isolated. I will drop the region clue soon, have no fear.

[Edit:11:00 PDT - Whups, I almost forgot to drop the region clue before I went out… not that many of you have needed it! Surprised me again. Anyhow, here you go: Michigan…]

Clue Name : “Ballpoint Pen”
Submitted by: Brian G.
Status : Solved (13)
Duration: Wed 9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. PDT

Solved By: Mike M, Chris R, Jim M, Phil M, Mark L, Jon G, Shawn D, Michael J, Josh W, Josh C, Mike J, Jared R, Ken S

Word Clues : “Litigate Schlage”
Magnification Needed: 9/15

SOLUTION TO “Ballpoint Pen”

We had a slow start todaybut it picked up toward the end. Graduations, summer breaks, work etc. interferring probably? So, anyhow the “hope” was of course Bob Hope and “springs” pointed to Palm Springs. I live fairly close to Palm Springs but have never made the trek there for some reason or another. Although I think I may have passed through there when I was a kid. I’m sort of curious about it, because the stereotypical view of it is as the blue-haired golfer’s paradise or something. Although amazingly, the Coupland book GenerationX was set there…

Shawn D got it fast and sent in a guess as to what the “bug” in our hunt today actually is:

A record for me. About 7 seconds. But I’ve played golf in Palm Springs before. Everything is Bob Hope or Dinah Shore there. Almost went to Hope Arkansas first but I thought I’d try Palm Springs. Didn’t even need the Geo clue. Darn, now I’ve gotta work the rest of the day.

BTW, I’m pretty sure this is the Palm Springs Riviera Resort and Racquet Club. Where the Rat Pack and Elvis used to stay and play.

Others were similarly fast. Mark G:

I got real lucky again. By the time I checked, I saw the Southern California clue. Immediately I checked a map of Palm Springs, CA, zoomed to 11/15, and switched to satellite. And there it was. 9.79 seconds flat. Same as Ben Johnson. Minus the steroids.

Mark L:

Less than a minute after bringing up the map….. (Palm) Springs

Mike J:

Google’d the clue, saw the comedian, then went to his Spring City and looked around. Surprised me when I saw it so quick.

Some were familiar with the area. Craig S said:

Found this one quickly. I have family that lives near there.

and Jarret R wrote:

Time to solve - less than 1 minute. . . been to Palm Springs a few times, pretty easy to solve.

Mike Z went to Arkansas first, something I must admit I didn’t check into before posting the clue:

This one took all of 1 minute and 30 seconds. I got the clue almost immediately but the first thing that came to mind was Hope, Arkansas and Hot Springs, Arkansas. After a few seconds I thought of Bob Hope and realized the clue was about Palm Springs instead.

Golux13 also tried Hope, Arkansas first before getting it:

Time: About 1 minute after I saw the region clue. Went instantly to Palm Springs. But I have no idea how I was supposed to get to Palm Springs from the clue “Hope’s Springs Eternal.” My first thought was Hope, Arkansas, but there are no high-resolution images in the entire area, so I would have been lost without the region clue drop.

Katie N similarly didn’t need the “hope” part of the clue to get the solution anyway:

It took me about 5 minutes. I got to this one late, so I already had the Southern California clue. I don’t really understand what the clue means, but I happened to check Palm Springs and lucked out.

Brian G noticed something I saw right away to, there is a thin vertical line of lo-res imagery right through Palm Springs. I’ve often seen things like this and wonder why that happens - is it just a stitching problem?

Nice clue! There was that annoying strip of low-res satellite in the middle of Palm Springs, that threw me off for a little bit. Lots of golf courses there! About 20 mins.

And that’s all she wrote. A quick note: East Coasters who want to submit some clues are extremely welcome. For some reason I either seem to be choosing West Coast clues or the majority of clues coming in are also West Coast. I think it is mainly because if there are no word clues that come in with the picture clue, then I have to make up the word clue. And I’m more likely to be able to make up a good word clue for an area I’m familiar with, and since I’ve only been to the western states…

It is starting to get blastingly hot here again, I may have to cave in and turn on the A.C. soon. See you all Wednesday at 9…

Solution to “Bug Hunt”