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

For most people this clue wasn’t too tough. Here is Brian G’s original message about the clue:

Here’s a decent one continuing the Roman numeral flavor. It’s on the north shore of Lake Mendota in Madison, WI. You can google a story of the origin of the name Mendota, and it means ‘Indian’s Bed.’ Lake Mendota is the largest of 4 lakes in S. WI, so I thought a good word clue would be:

North of the Indian’s Bed, largest of the four

Hopefully it’s a good one. It’s visible from pretty far out, too. BTW, it’s the Dane County Mental Health Facility where these buildings are.

So anyhow, I had tried a Google Find on Indian’s Bed directly and I saw that like the second answer gave Mendota. So I decided to take out the “largest of the four” part. Then I figured it wouldn’t be necessary to say “North of” because once you found Mendota you were pretty much set.

Most people did just that: Googled the answer right up. Like David H:

Took about two minutes. Simple Google search for “Indian’s bed” brought up Lake Mendota. From there…easy!

andChris H:

Actually only took about 2 minutes, but only because I immediately Googled the clue and only two entries came up!

and Don R:

Took 5 minutes or less. I googled “Indian’s Bed,” and the 4th listing was to an explanation on the origin of the name of Lake Mendota (Wâkcikhomîgra =”The Indian’s Bed”) which is located near Madison, WI. A quick scan of the Madison area near the lake quickly revealed the Roman XIX.

Golux13 got it fairly quickly:

Time: 7-10 minutes. I Googled “Indian’s Bed” and it immediately turned up a story about why Lake Mendota is named The Indian’s Bed. After that, it was several minutes to find the actual image, but I was sure I was in the right area.

I like Roogling because it kind of fills me in on stuff like the story about the lake that I otherwise would never know about. I keep forgetting that because I don’t physically travel a whole lot I sort of live in a state of disconnection; you can live all your life in one large city and never really experience other states and locations. But finding out about different places virtually through google maps is at least a start!

Judy B nearly got herringoogled in the following manner:

Tricky. Very tricky. I went of on a Hindi search before doing the forehead slap and looking closer to home. I actually vacationed near Madison as a child and now remember the story of Lake Mendota. Sheesh! Talk about getting into the Way-back machine! Very nice clue and hunt!

and Moose also had some early trouble:

Ok, so I don’t know if this clue was really as hard as I made it, but this was probably one of my longest solve times yet: 30 mins. I saw “Indian” and since I live in western Arkansas, I thought of Oklahoma with all of its indian nations. After exhausting that, I thought perhaps the Cleveland Indians. No dice. Finally I decided to google “the Indian’s bed” and Lake Mendota came up. Easy from there! I can’t express how much I love the all day clues, it’s much less stressful on all of us. I’m looking forward to the next one!

I did sort of think about the different ways that people would come at clue looking for American Indian tribes and nations… I knew there was some risk, but the “direct google” search was almost immediate. So I figured I would try it out… I didn’t think of baseball though! At least you didn’t also get stuck in Atlanta…

I asked about vacations people have taken (I am vacationing vicariously this year). Shawn D got the solution and also gave this account of his vacation:

Took about 20 minutes. Found the area quickly thanks to Google, but my eyes aren’t open yet.

BTW, just came off a quick vacation with my 8 year old. Took her to Schlitterbahn, rated the #1 water park in the U.S, totally spring fed water, 72 degrees year round. (unfortunately no good Google map of the area, New Braunfels, Tx)

Then went to the Alamo and Riverwalk in San Antonio, soaked in some of the Spurs revelry, and on to the Texas coast at Corpus Christi. (also no good Google map). We toured the U.S.S. Lexington, went to the Texas State Aquarium and the beach.

On the return trip, we stopped in New Braunfels again for a tube ride down the Comal river. What a blast. Then jumped into downtown Austin to watch the bats fly out from under the bridges on Town Lake. 1.5 Million of them!

We packed a lot into 5 days. 1076 miles on the car and my daughter slept through 890 of them.

I have heard of Schlitterbahn before, sounds like you had a lot of fun! Texas State Aquarium would have been my pick if on that trip… I am a huge, huge fan of aquariums. I think I have been to a total of about 10-12 so far. I’ve only been through Texas once though, in a layover in Dallas. Hm… is it true the steaks are really big there? =)

Some people, like Andy K, actually knew the area a bit:

Have a cousin that lives in Madison and goes to the University of Wisconsin near by. After a google I recognized the name of the lake immediately. From there it was just a matter of time. Booyaa!!

Similar with Katie N:

This was one of the easiest clues in a while. I googled “indian’s bed” and found something about Mendota. I immediately knew where it was since I was in Madison this spring and walked on the frozen lake.

I have never walked on a frozen lake, let alone ice skated on one. Not many chances of that in Southern California, but I guess I should be thankful for the mild weather. Well, there WAS hell of rain this winter over here.

Okey dokes, thanks for your participation. Check back soon I guess!

Solution to “Nineteen”“