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

Good morning to you all from the past, that is from Saturday night… I decided to get an early start on my clue whilst watching SNL (still like the old ones better, but what else are you going to watch?) Anyhow, Jim M sent in a cool bug for today’s clue, which is of course called “Bug Hunt”.

Speaking of bugs, the other day I discovered some tiny “wood pellets” around a small hole in my bedroom floor (we have wooden floors that are raised up above the ground). I actually don’t think it’s termites but a subterranean type of wood boring beetle. I googled it… hmm, may have to get that treated. Ugh.

Anyhow, Mr. Bug is visible from quite far out, perhaps 12/15 or even 11/15 because it’s a very distinct shape and bright white. As for the clue, I think we will go directly with the clue thought up by Jim because I thought it was pretty clever. We’ll see how hard it is, and I will probably drop a region clue sooner or later. Here’s the clue:

“Hope’s Springs Eternal”

Wow, this is really distracting writing this up while watching TV. I think I’ll have to sign off now so I can pay attention to these scintillating skits featuring Tom Brady. Thank you again for playing and stay tuned for clues…

[Edit: 10:24 PDT - Man, I’m sleepy today. Coffee just barely does it. Anyhow, thought I would drop a region clue because I have to go out for a bit. Here ya go: Southern California]

Clue Name : “Bug Hunt”
Submitted by: Jim M.
Status : Solved (12)
Duration: Mon 9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. PDT

Solved By: Chris R, Mike M, Golux13, Jarret R, Craig S, Shawn D, Mark G, Mark L, Mike J, Katie N, Brian G, Mike Z

Word Clues : “Hope’s Springs Eternal”
Magnification Needed: 12/15

SOLUTION TO “Bug Hunt”

Whew that was sort of tough. Anyhow, I believe that the CTC stands for “Combat Training Centre” which is near the CFB (Canadian Forces Base) in Gagetown, Canada. I think this might be some sort of field training area. When I first looked it up, I thought it could be either the “Canada Tourism Commission”, “Canadian Labour Congress”, “Computer Training and Consulting” or “Canada Tibet Committee”. Talk about your herrings, geez!

I believe this is our first clue in Canada. Jon G points out a problem that I was having when I was trying to do refinds:

A few google searches led me to C.F.B. Gagetown, wasn’t too hard after that, just a little looking around. Hardest part was getting google maps to find stuff in Canada.

Godamn, yes I had that same problem. For some reason googlemaps doesn’t like to pick up anything in Canada. You have to actually go and look for the places manually. It kept thinking New Brunswick was in New Jersey no matter how close I zoomed in on Canada. It was also a bit difficult because of the low contrast. Jason C:

Took about 15 mins, I was sure I would miss it considering that I couldnt see hardly anything on the screen with the dark colors in the photos.

Mike Z found it by process of elimination on the googlemap squares once Brunswick was dropped. This is usually a good idea, especially if you think the clue is in a rural region where google maps may not have as “squares” of high detail mapped.

Because there wasn’t much land area mapped at high detail, I just searched New Brunswick until I found it. Easy. Of course, I had the benefit of seeing the region clue when I started.

Quite a few people were misdirected in the beginning. I am quite the dunce regarding all things military, which is why this one was so tough to come up with a clue for. But I thought that giving the man after which the town was named might do the trick. Indeed, Ryan F said:

My first successful find! Took only 2 minutes or so, after Googling “Thomas Gage Canada”

Michael J came to the solution in a bit of a roundabout:

Not bad. I enjoyed reading about the history of Gage. He was born in Sussex, England, so I started searching in near Sussex, New Brunswick. Not far from there is Gagetown.

Katie N went to Montreal first which actually I had a feeling that people might try, having seen that connection too.

This took me a while. I looked in Montreal for a long time because I found something about Gage being the governor. With the New Brunswick clue, a google search led me right to Gagetown.

Daniel M: did the same for a bit:

Took me about ten minutes. Gage had been governor of Montreal for three years of his life, so I spent about five minutes there. I hate to say that it took the clue drop for me to finally get it. But it still only took me ten minutes…clue drop just happened to occur while I was looking.

Jim M did the Montreal thing and in addition went to Hamilton…

Was looking in and around Hamilton (there’s a Gage Park there) and Montreal (where Col. Gage was governor at one time). Spent 15 min. then gave up and waited for the drop - about 2 min. after the drop.

Brian G also went astray but got it anyhow:

Was in Nova Scotia for a long time. Finally checked New Bruns. after the region clue. About 25 mins. today. Not sure what CTC stands for. Gagetown - clever…

and Josh W was in the States for awhile before getting it:

Gagetown, New Brunswick. Took me a while of looking in West Virginia for the Battle of Monogahela…I realized it was in Canada.

Hope you all have a good weekend, I certainly need this one. See you Monday morning, bright and early.

Solution to “See Tea Sea”

It’s Friday. Truly, TGIF… Anyhow, Steve M. sent in this really cool large writing find (nearly a month ago, egad) and I had been wanting to use it for a long time because as far as I know it hasn’t been found yet on the other google sightseeing sites. I could be wrong… and don’t you go looking in case I am! You’ll spoil your own “fun”. =)

Well, I didn’t use it until now because I was stumped as to what kind of clue to give, not to mention what exactly is it? It is 3 enormous letters spelling out “CTC”, hence the name of the clue (By the way… no, it does not have anything to do with the Boston Tea Party). It has a maple leaf on the top, so I guess that’ll tell you what country it’s in at least. But I still might need to give a region drop. The lettering is a bit faint on the contrast, but otherwise is visible quite far out at 9/15 to 10/15.

I am somewhat at a loss to give a clue. Steve M noted that he had difficulty coming up with a clue and I did too. After some searching on google, I think I know what it refers to now. Emphasize on “think”. After agonizing on a clue for some time, I am just going to give you:

“Colonel Thomas Gage”

I need to finish up some other stuff so I can’t dwell on the clue any longer: whether it’s easy or hard is outta my hands. I have a feeling it may rank a bit on the hard side. As always, expect clues. I have dreams of clue drops sometimes. Clues, clues, clues!

Happy Friday…

[Edit: 10:19 PDT - Region drop time: New Brunswick… and keep in mind that maple leaf. I’ll be out for a few hours so behave yerselves.]

[Edit: 12:02 PDT - A quick hint: don’t go looking in the place where Gage was governor of…]

Clue Name : “See Tea Sea”
Submitted by: Steve M.
Status : Solved (13)
Duration: Fri 9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. PDT

Solved By: Josh W, Chris R, Jon G, Mike M, Ryan F, Brian G, Katie N, Daniel M, Michael J, Jim M, JoJo, Mike Z, Jason C

Word Clues : “Colonel Thomas Gage”
Magnification Needed: 10/15

SOLUTION TO “See Tea Sea”

I’ve actually been to Moab before, on the way back from my Colorado trip awhile back. It was blastingly hot because it was the peak summer season, but a pretty nice place. We drove into Arches National Park and had a good time there. Got to the famous Delicate Arch but it was just too plain hot to walk up to it. (This is the arch that most photographers want to take a pic of)

Anyhow, so my word clue creation skills have been lacking lately! The Kangaroo Rat in question is actually the “tailings pond” for an old uranium mine near Moab. I thought that “U Mill” might be tough enough but several people noted they just used google. Adam M:

Just did a google search for U Mill, and it led me to Moab, Utah

Phil M said:

WOOT!

I figured it would be a Uranium Mill from both the picture and the clue. Searched google for any popular Uranium mills and Moab, Utah was my first guess. I think this took me about 2 mins.

I think the colors are from all the sediment that collects in the retaining ponds.

Damn, I thought I checked for “U Mill” on google and it didn’t go directly to the solution. I was going to say “Uranium Mill” but that was too obvious. I was also going to do something with “isotope” but thought that might be stretching it.

Jon G:

A few google searches led me to uranium mill websites, and after looking around Moab where the atlas uranium mill tailings are, I spotted our friend the flying kangaroo rat.

The speedsters were certainly out in force today. Jason said:

Found in 10 secs, just looking at this place on Google Maps last week.

and Shawn D:

Real easy, about 2 minutes. Still great stuff, tho. Keep up the good work.

and Mark G:

As I was eating my late morning nachos, I realized I forgot to check today’s Scavengeroogle. By the time I checked, I saw the “Utah” clue. Only since I had once been there did I check Arches National Park first. And voila. 37 seconds flat. It’s the luck of the nacho, I tell ya.

Chris R noted the ambiguity of the “U” which was originally meant to stand for uranium:

Is it U for “Utah” or U for “Uranium”??!!

U is for “Unknown”, hehehe. On the other hand, Katie N thought of uranium right away:

This only took me about 3 minutes. I’m a complete nerd, so I was immediately thinking about uranium. Only took a minute to find Moab, Utah.

I think I almost failed College Chemistry, LOL. Jared R did process of elimination (Jared by the way I did catch yr solution for Friday but I forgot to put it up till now, sorry bout that. Also, I was confused by the fact that there is also a “Jarret R” playing the game… there are also two different Chris R’s. Hmm - I don’t use last names for privacy’s sake, but I may need to distinguish y’all somehow or another! ):

Easy to find but I joined after the clue drop so was able to narrow down the six uranium mines in the US to the one in Utah.

The other Chris R also used process of elimination:

Googled Uranium milling in Utah and came up with a list of all U Mill sites in the state. After that I just went down the list until I got to the Moab mill. All in all it took about 15 minutes.

I had a feeling that color matching would help a bit… the rocks are a really vibrant brick red that I don’t believe occurs in too many places (though I know there is a place in California that is really red like that). Tina wrote:

I had no idea what the clue meant, but I started in Utah, color matched, and it was right there.

and Jarret R said:

I knew it had to be somewhere with red rocks from the color, so when I plugged in uranium mill, I scanned for either Utah, NM or AZ. . . once I saw Moab, UT, I could see the color resemblence. . . took about 5 minutes total.

Justin didn’t let obstacles come between him and Scavengeroogling:

I got my wisdom teeth removed today, so finding this clue is definitely the high point of my day so far. It took only a few minutes

When I got my wisdom teeth pulled, they knocked me out first. And then the bastards woke me up too early so, as my brother later told me, I was high as a friggin kite on the way home.

I had been thinking of coming up with an area of the site that is a repository for unused clues, and Steve M just suggested the same thing along with his solution:

I think google helped out on the clue a little to much , it took me to the Uranium mills in Utah in which i did color matching it took me ten minutes. P.S you should start a google art page for all the cool stuff people have been sending that you dont have enough room to make clues for, just an idea.

At first I was thinking that there are too many other sites documenting googlemap places like this, but I guess it would be different because we are in general not documenting famous places per se… but it WOULD entail more work on my end, so I’d have to think about that. =)

I am still considering the “Scavengeroogle Hunt”… I’ll mention some ideas in another post, but one of the things I really wanted to come up with is PRIZES. I am trying to think of things that are cheap but that ppl would like (I can’t really afford to give away the cash prizes like other sites right now). I would try fish for real sponsors but not sure if they would bite. Maybe I will visit the local Dollar Tree to see if they have anything fun…

See you Friday at 9!

Solution to “Flying Kangaroo Rat”

Hello lovely scavengerooglers! Did you have a big extended BBQ weekend? I didn’t. Instead, I stayed home and installed a second hand, half broken radio in the car and then cleaned out my bathroom sink drain pipe which was starting to smell like yummy sewage…

Anyhow, Michael J sent in this cool picture of what he called “rainbow water” but what I’ve decided to call Flying Kangaroo Rat. Come on, you must admit it looks like a kangaroo rat that has sprouted wings… no? I particularly like the colors on this one. It is visible quite far out, about 8/15 to 9/15. Because of that, and because it is pretty easily spotted because of the colors I decided to make the word clues very difficult to start with. Here you go:

“U Mill”

I will dispell immediate multiple scavenger herrings by saying right off the back that “U” does not stand for “University”… I’ll drop the region clue soon. And of course other clues if needed!

[Edit: 9:50 PDT - It appears I’ve underestimated both how plainly visible this object is, and everyone’s overall smarts. I thought this would be really hard but I need to remember that most of you know how to play the game and are pretty sharp! Anyhow, here is the region drop as promised: “Utah”. You might also be surprised that I originally didn’t intend the “U” in the clue to stand for Utah… ]

Clue Name : “Flying Kangaroo Rat”
Submitted by: Michael J.
Status : Solved (21)
Duration: Wed 9:00 a.m. - 2:00 p.m. PDT

Solved By: Jason, Mike M, Tina, Katie N, Phil M, Chris R, Adam M, Shawn D, Steve M, Jarret R, Mark G, Jared R, Justin, Josh W, Josh C, Jon G, Chris R, Matt D, Trecherus, Jim M, Mike Z

Word Clues : “U Mill”
Magnification Needed: 9/15

SOLUTION TO “Flying Kangaroo Rat”