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

Whew, I am pretty tired out… so I’m just going to post today’s scavengeroogle solutions sent in straight up w/ out the usual commentary. Except, I’ll say that many people had known this area because it’s of course one of Saddam’s palaces in high-profile Iraq. Quite a few new rooglers as well…welcome!

Markus B:

Peacock Gardens. This one took me probably an hour, but half of that was due to pure carelessness. I somehow figured the Tigress meant the river Tigris in Iraq and the place looked exactly like something a rich oil baron would build for himself.

So I started scanning through the whole river area, twice. I found several, several good places where it should have been because of all the colors and other landmarks matched exactly. Finally when the river ended, I couldn’t believe I hadn’t found it. I triple checked that I had the right river on my screen and started again…

And halfway through the second scan, there it was, right in the spot I had looked at fairly carefully during my first search. Somehow I just didn’t catch the garden part of the complex.

Judy B:

Found it in about five minutes. Very cool!

David H:

Probably about ten minutes. I thought of Baghdad right away, and then it was just a matter or searching. I believe the building is Al Sijood Palace, and was actually one of Saddam Hussein’s palaces. Here’s a link, you can see the garden in the fifth picture down:

Chorbansi:

The blue dome and geometric landscaping made me think Middle East and Tigress was a dead giveaway, took me 5 mins. Thanks.

Mike M:

Had some time at work today, took less than 5 minutes. I immediately thought about the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.

Matt:

5-6 minutes. The hardest part was finding a map on the web of which river exactly was the tigris. Then just look for the curvey part.

Bryant:

Hey, I can’t believe I found one! However, around 1 in the morning last night, I roogled right by this spot twice as I tried to go up and down the curvy parts of the Tigres river. I think I was distracted by the other large monuments in the area. This morning I struggled with the clue some more, but the blue dome kept bringing me back to Baghdad. Thanks for this fun and inventive site. I look forward to more.

Trecherus:

It took about 2 minutes. I have looked at Baghdad a lot and as soon as I saw Tigress in the clue I knew it had to be one of the palaces that line the river there. al-Sijood Palace Saddam’s Presidential palace. The black rectangle building to the south west of the “peacock gardens” is gone due to bombing. The new Google Earth satellite images show the devistation.

Aaron B:

*sigh* Well, I FINALLY found it. As you said, depending on where one first looks, it can be rather annoying. See, the problem was that when I read “Curvey Tigress” I thought first of the mythological “Amazoness” which lead me to Brazil and Turkey, neither of which are useful. Then to Tigre and Buenos Aires in Argentina. I had totally forgotten there is a river called the “Tigress” …

But in anycase, once I got the region drop and stopped thinking so hard, it was pretty easy.

Mike B:

Once I picked up on “Tigress”=”Tigris” it was pretty easy.

Gitar2ech:

Finally solved one on my own. There it was off the big loop the river does in Baghdad. 2 weeks now I’ve been finding the locations from the comments after the solutions are posted so it feels good to find it myself. About 30 min.

David M:

Tigress was certaintly a huge hint as we all have become educated given the events in Iraq. It took about 15 minutes to spot. With the obvious opulence, I figured it was one of Saddam’s palaces. Yea, I finally solved one on my own!

Sara D:

whoa took a while (45 mins), but this was my first… should have been easier in retrospect - guess this is saddam’s old palace in Baghdad?

Mike H:

First one that I’ve found. yeah! Took about 5 minutes.

Jen S:

I realize there are a lot of solutions pending already, but this is the first one I’ve found before the final solution was posted! I did come in after Middle East was given, so that made things much easier.

Pete B:

Difficult at the start, then when the Middle East Clue appeared I thought of the places that had been mapped there, and immediately realised Baghdad is on the Tigris, was just a matter of hunting then, about 10 mins.

Tim J:

I was out all day and didn’t have a chance to get on the net till late. All day I was wondering if there was a new scavengeroogle posted and if I was missing it! This one was the easiest yet… three minutes.

Astro T:

About a half hour — I had a vague recollection that there was a river somewhere in the middle east that had a name that sounded something like ‘tigress’. Once I’d gotten the tigris, I just followed it down…

Solution to “Peacock Garden”

Citizen’s original word clues were “Port Fore Blue Jays”, Port was for Airport, Fore was for the Golf Course and Blue Jays for Toronto. I decided to change them at first because I wasn’t sure how easy it would be. So I originally had put the word “Golf” in my word hints sort of reluctantly and when Markus B. found it quick enough a few minutes after I launched it, I took that as a sign and went ahead and omitted it:

Darth Vader. Took me two minutes.

This was clearly the easiest clue ever on this site. I googled Blue Jays, got Toronto, typed it in the the Google Maps search field and it was almost right there in the middle of the city.
No idea what the Golf part of the clue means

Some of his fellow Finns (I think you are Finns, sorry if not) also solved it. Antti L said:

Took about 15 mins, I looked at the wrong golf course at first and almost quit.

and Janne Kaki notes:

I found out quite soon that blue jays was all about Toronto, though it took some time - maybe 8 minutes or so - to locate Mr. Vader, even if he wasn’t so far away from the Skydome where I started my ‘roogling.

Mike B went to a herring first that I was definitely worried about… it was the main reason I put “Golf” in the clue at first - because of Centennial College:

Wandered around Centennial College in Toronto for a while, then found Centenial Park on Google. About 10 minutes all together.

Mark L went a little astray with a different team for a bit:

Blue Jays…… thought of the Toronto baseball team…… it was the 100 years part that didn’t make sense.

So…..

Looked around John Hopkins (the Blue Jays) they’ve been around for 100 years for sure! Background looked wrong…. decided to give Totonto a shot anyway…… Viola! There it was…… about 30 minutes total time.

And Tim J also flopped around like a herring for awhile:

It took about 20 minutes, after a futile search around Baltimore, MD, home of the Johns Hopkins Blue Jays of the Centennial Conference.

Roogler Tina has returned:

Been busy with summer classes, but glad to be back. Took maybe 5 minutes. Got right to Toronto, spent a few more minutes finding him.

Yeah, I have been thinking about everyone going back to school soon… we might get a bit of a dropoff of regulars from that. I guess we will see!

Jon G roogled it through and also gives some information on the buildings themselves…

Took about 30 min. Immediately thought of Toronto from Blue Jays part of clue, but kept looking for something with century with no luck. I finally came up with centennial after seeing Centennial College, and through google found Centennial Park, and Darth Vader was lurking nearby. I believe the buildings are office buildings of TD Financial Group, parent of TD Waterhouse which a lot of people should recognize. Another side note is that TD Financial group is celebrating 150 years this year, which is known as a sesquicentennial, linking right back in to the clue.

Trecherus noted something that I had also seen originally… there is a weird pacman shaped lake or something nearby. Once I had noticed this, when i tried to attempt a refind I found it too easy because I remembered the Pacman lake… interesting.

This one took less that 5 minutes. Fastest I have ever found one. I saw Blue Jays and thought I’ll just look around Toronto while my email is downloading and maybe do some more searching at lunch time. I was just about to give up when I saw a pacman shaped lake to the northeast. After thinking to myself this would be a decent submission for a later clue, Darth Vader popped out at me. It looked like a ghost chasing pacman.

Mike K thought this one was a bit easy… I do try to mix ‘em up so we have some hard and some easier. Though often, the easy and hard clues become reversed because of weird herrings or other such rooglisms.

This was a pretty easy clue which surprised me because most of the time the clues are so obscure that I’m surprised any one solves them. In any case the clue made me think of the Toronto Blue Jays. Went to Toronto and searched for a few minutes and found it.

Bounty hunter Aaron B came away with the following sweet herring :

Interestingly enough, I saw the original clue of “100 years of golf, blue jays” which sent me off in the wrong direction totally. I saw a webpage talking all about the golf course at Essex, ON and “100 years of golf” so I was sure it was over there. However, after repeated searching and failure, I decided just to scan Toronto because the color kinda matched and there he was, staring back at me…

That is trippy because of course it wasn’t intended!

I believe Other Chris R. got the solution because he lives in the general area of the clue:

Welcome to Downtown Coolsville. Population: Us.

Dan M solved it fairly quick:

I’ve solved a bunch but thought it was about time to finally report 1! Glad you liked the Glenwood Springs clue.

I don’t know, 15 minutes? Blue Jays made it pretty easy.

and Justin did not strike out easily:

I’m a baseball fan, so I knew to look in Toronto. It took me five minutes to find this.

I don’t know a whole lot about baseball teams but find it enjoyable to watch, especially with the lack of hockey. What’s that you say? There’s going to be a hockey season next year!? Amazing, simply amazing… I am looking forward to certain lines being eliminated on the ice, hehe.

Back to roogle reality. As you may have read, my main PC went kaput today so I am powerbooking this entry. I also had my cellphone break today, and oodles of web and internet issues. Ugh! My wife says it is something about Mercury’s influence or something. In any case, I will try get clues up next week but it is looking like it won’t be until Wednesday or so… we shall see. Have a nice weekend y’all!

Solution to “Darth Vader”

Hey folks, sorry this is not going to be much of a solution for awhile since my goshdarned email is down again and won’t come up until after i’m asleep probably. Sigh, I don’t know why they plan downtime like this right when the solutions are due to be put up!! I’ll see you in a bit, until then here is the solution…

[Edit: got my mail back up]

Dang you are all smart rooglers! Anyhow, I’ve been plagued by downed email lately so I didn’t get a chance till today to write up the solutions. This wasn’t too hard of a clue, but what was most interesting was its multiplicity. Hm… isn’t that a movie. But seriously, I asked what the buildings were and many people wrote in to give me the 401.

I certainly did a double take when Mark L sent in the first notification of strange things afoot… apparently this clue had many “doubles” which was very interesting and unintentional:

Of course Baghdad was the obvious herring … tooled around there for awhile.
Started putting words together and changing them slightly … Leender golf course in Holland? No hi-res tiles……Leander TX?….. Yep….snuck up on it, and just as I was about to submit it……woops! I realized this clue has an evil twin.

That alone gave this hunt a special twist.

They’re elementary schools….. this builder likes to stick with the same design it appears….. if you look around you’ll see other examples of his work….. he must be quite popular down there in that neck of the woods!

He also found this red one. Judy B. solved it quickly and also noted later that there were duplicates.

You are a sneaky one! I spent a good 45 minutes looking at Baghdad, Iraq. When I revisited the clue and actually read it through a couple of times, I found it in about a minute. Very sneaky indeed!

Jon G solved and analyzed the schools thusly:

Took 30 min. Had no idea what the clue meant, thought that “der” was strange, so I started combining words in the clue until I put leander into google and came up with leander, texas. Bagdad Road was nearby. Also, at first I found the other one Mark L mentioned.

Judging by the one with no buildings around it, and the other with buildings that looked like portables by it, I guessed that they were schools. I did an in-map search for “school”, and found out one was Giddens Elem. School. So, the two “BPs” are elementary schools, the original one is Bagdad Elem. School and the one Mark L found is Giddens Elem. School. It appears that they build a lot of the elementary schools in the area like that. If you do a in-map search for “elementary”, you can also find 2 sideways BPs, one pink and one blue, plus an upside down TP in white/pink that are all elementary schools. Check out the link below for pictures verifying this, which I found through the Giddens Elem. School popup information that appears when you click on the red pushpin thing in google maps.

Leander School District

I bet Leander School District is wondering why in the world they are getting all this traffic all of the sudden, hehe.

Moose chimes in with the following:

Easy one today! I first got caught on a little bit of a herring. I got Leander and Bagdad out of the clue, but I googled Bagdad first. There is a small mining town of Bagdad in Arizona. Fortunately they didn’t have any hi-res imagery. Then I googled Leander and found the place in Texas. I found the BP, and then afterwards realized it was near Bagdad Rd. Great clue! Solve time < 5 mins.

Sorry to hear about your loss, I offer you the deepest sympathy from this ZenRoogler.

Thanks Moose. And woops you almost got herringed in Arizona… I didn’t know there were so many cities called “Bagdad” around. Must be a bit weird when someone asks you what city you live in and you say “Bagdad”…

David H fought off wayward herrings in Pennsylvania:

I couldn’t really put a time estimate on this one, much of the day, I guess. Got it quickly after the second clue (re-arrange the words). Before that, I was reasonably sure that “Dad” was a substitute for “Pa,” meaning that I should look somewhere in Pennsylvania.

Chorbansi eluded the herring police in Delaware with:

Got around to roogling a bit late in the day, so the clue drops were in, took 10
mins. Tried Dover, DE before hitting Leander, TX. The word clue was neat (N Bagdad
Rd). Thanx.

Tim J got stuck on the prime herring for this clue before solving:

5 minutes after the last hint, but wasted 20 mins this morning looking around Baghdad, Iraq

Bryce H also went to Arizona:

it took me about 10 mins. i just searched for cities with names containing bag, dad, der, and lean. i got bagdad, arizona, but there was nothing there. then i saw it said it was in texas, so i searched for bagdad texas and got nothing. But leander texas was a city i found, and the streets are a little diagonal like in the picture, so it had to be there. i found another building that looks exactly like it first, farther south on bagdad road… weird.

Aaron B’s first time with a roogle solution:

First time solving! Huzzah!

sorry to submit twice an extra message in regards to Beep Bop, but I think I discovered what the two BPs are. They are schools. According to this site

The southern one is Giddens Elementary and the Northern one is Bagdad Elementary.

Whew! This was an involved solution because I got a lot of multiple messages from people about the duplicates. Definitely one for the Scavengeroogle memory scrapbook. Thank you all for playing and for the nice words of support… see you hopefully soon with more clues and bounties!

Solution to “Beep Bop”

This scavenger hunt clue was a bit of a toughie it seemed, though some were able to find it fairly fast. The word hint refers to Patton’s final resting place in Luxembourg… Judy B.’s suggestion was to say “Patton’s Rest” but I thought it might be too obvious, so I decided to go with “Lucks” which sounds like “Lux” which is a common abbreviation for Luxembourg.

Interestingly, quite unintentionally I guess you could say that “Patton Lucks Out” could be taken to mean “Patton’s luck has run out”. These things always seem to happen - double meaning where none was before!

Anyhow, the first solver was Tom who I believe is actually FROM Luxembourg:

The buildin on the left (aged about 20 years) , the smaller one is a huge swim arena at Luxembourg City, the building on the right, 3 years old, is a sports + cultural arena. Both are called Coque

This are indeed architectical wonderful buildings.

David H also discovered what the buildings were… I actually didn’t do much research on Patton so I didn’t even know that he was from San Gabriel which is funny because this is basically my home town! Well, I live very close by… in fact the region where I live east of L.A. is called the San Gabriel Valley:

To my surprise, it probably took about five minutes. First, I looked around San Gabriel, CA, where Patton was born. Then I Google searched Patton and Lucky and saw that it was the code name for the Third Army. From there, I went to Bastogne, thinking I was on a red herring, but it was right there.

I solved and submitted the clue a little earlier, so sorry for the double submission, but I did a little research. The building is the National Sport and Culture Center (if my French? is correct) in Luxembourg City, Luxembourg.

That is also interesting that another meaning for the clue popped up, “Lucky” is the code name Third Army? I swear I knew nothing about “Lucky Forward”. Truly worlds within worlds, man.

Mark L was fast as usual:

Less than two minutes……. for some reason the clue just leaped out at me! Luxembourg and the Patton Museum…..

The word clue was kind of appropriate for Adam M who got lucky:

Wow, I found this on absolutely by luck. I had been searching in Knoxville, Ky because I searched Google or Patton Lucks Out, and just before I was about to close the window, I notice a city name Luxemburg, so I figure I’d type it Google Maps and see what I got. about 30seconds later, there it is. Total time about 10 minutes.

Chorbansi chimes in with his detective powers:

General Patton–> Battle of the Bulge–> Adrennes–> Belgium/Luxembourg. I spent sometime initially looking around Berlin, Messina and Palermo. Took me an hour to solve, enjoyed it. Thanks!

Wow, you certainly searched around a lot! Citizen notes the major problem with international clues. I have really been struggling with this too, having to do a “side by side” with an external street map. Until Google puts some more street maps in other countries we will still have issues:

About 30 minutes. Luxembourg is just a big blank in map view, so I had to use another Google map site that had a link to the American cemetary where Patton’s grave is located. I solved it in 10 after following a false lead in the Ardennes where Patton’s “Lucky Forward” fought the Battle Of The Bulge. Most of the time was getting google maps pointed where I wanted.

Moose is back in action and writes the following novel…

Finally, I get to do another ‘Roogle during regulation! I’ve been out of town and overly busy when I have been in town for the past week and a half. I actually went to Memphis last weekend and saw the pyramid while I was there, and then I noticed the pyramid bounty when I got back. Weird ‘Roogle coincidence? Or do I have a stalker?

Anyway, on to today’s clue. Took about 5 minutes. I know I came in after the region drop (or exclusion rather), but I didn’t even read that part until after I had solved it. All I did was google “Patton” and I found a website saying that he was buried in Luxembourg. I noticed that Luxembourg didn’t have too much hi-res to search, so I proceded to grind for the moths. Found them easily, good word clue. I’m assuming that “Patton lucks out” is actually “Patton’s luck is out” implying that because of his unfortunate emobilism, he met his end when his luck ran out. If that’s not what was intended, it’s how i read it nonetheless. And that’s how I solved it. It was nice to get a chance to ‘Roogle again!

By the way, that no-clue bounty is hard!

No, I’m not stalking moose. I mean, I’m not stalking you, Moose! Hehe. Last but not least is the “Other Chris R” who writes:

Wow…I spent entirely too much time on this one and I still don’t get the clue. Googling Patton sent me to Virginia, California, New York and France but nothing on Luxembourg (LUCKSembourg?). This was definitely one of the tougher ones, good find Judy B!!

And that pretty much does it for us. Not as many solutions. A side note: I have gotten some sort of “wrist tendonitis” or something from using the mouse too much. It’s not only from Roogling clues, but still I may need to cut down a bit for a week. But I still hope to get another clue up later in the week, or if not then on Monday. Till then, happy ‘Roogling!

Solution to “Metal Moths”

Hey kids, so first off I’m taking a break until Monday. I am all worn out on scavenger hunt clues right now, so I’ll see you then. But I’m most likely going to put up some more Scavengeroogle Bounties between now and then so check back once in awhile!

Wow, so this clue was pretty difficult all around even after the region drop(s). I turns out there were unintentional herrings in the clue, most prominently was Empire, Michigan. I didn’t even notice this! I meant the clue to refer to the nearby Empire Mine. Oh wells. I DID expect to get lots of people to look in Hershey and other chocolatey places.

The other part of the clue was for Chocolay, MI which is nearby. Jon G was first to get it on a hunch:

Tried all around Hershey, PA and Birmingham, AL (home of Cadbury) with no luck. On a hunch I googled chocolay, which led me to Marquette, MI and to the Turret. It feels good to be back after taking a few weeks off from ‘roogling to get married. There were a lot of changes and new stuff in the scavengeroogle world in the past few weeks!

OtherChrisR, who was the center of a little controversy over the Bounties awhile back, got it soon after:

I think I lucked out on this clue. As soon as I pulled up Google Maps I zoomed in on the northern US and the first city I saw was Chocolay. From there I just scanned it until I found it.

And Chris Re, who is OtherChrisR’s doppelganger came in right after with a kind of trippy side note:

This was really weird. On a previous clue, the one with the rocket ship and the “stroke”, I thought the clue referred to Arnold Palmer and proceeded to search through every city named Palmer. I actually stumbled upon this very same picture in Palmer, MI and even emailed it to fellow office scavengeroogler Mike M. Freaky weird.

That is very weird when that happens. I know something like that has happened at least twice already. Mark L got to the UP (this is so cool that I actually learned something from Scavengeroogle… never knew what the Upper Peninsula was):

On and off about an hour….. I had no clue until the region drop. Looked around Empire MI for awhile…. tooled around in map mode and found a city called “Choco-something” in the upper peninsula.

Phil J got it after the updates:

Took about 90 seconds. Once I saw your 3:45 update, I scrolled around until I found Chocolay in the Upper Peninsula, then found it about 10 seconds later!

Jason Y also did the Empire, MI dance first:

How Long: On and off during the day. I started with Empire, Michigan, and then kept searching farther away. If only I would have looked a bit north.

Michael H had a bit of misdirection:

An hour before the Michigan clue, then 5 minutes after.

The problem is that it’s too easy to go off in the wrong direction. Chocolayte Empire said “Hershey, PA” to me, and I figured the odd spelling of chocolayte would become clear once I got there. Empire could also have meant Empire State for New York. I think I’m getting the hang of it now, though.

Well, yes there will always be herrings, chocolate or otherwise. Otherwise, it’s no fun!

Justin did finally get the UP:

I searched all around Michigan, having forgot all about the Upper Peninsula. Once I stopped being a moron and searched up there, it was pretty easy to figure out the area I needed to look in. It took about 30 minutes altogether.

Justin, like I always say… none of you are morons. In fact most of you are Roogle Geniuses. I give you all credit for even taking the time to search around.

Markus B said:

Now this was hard! I looked times times though Hershey, PA and didn’t find it… After Michigan I found Chocolay and still took me too long. Well I guess the harder they are the bigger the satisfaction is

Yeah, that is what a lot of people have said. I guess not finding it can be really frustrating. But finding a difficult one can be a big rush that makes up for not finding the others… or at least I’ve heard! Thanks for playing, y’all…

Solution to “Tank Turret”“

I was pretty surprised how difficult this clue was… I guess the clue that Kilovh gave wasn’t as well known. The Olive Plums Place refers to Bangkok of course. I didn’t know this either though, so don’t even feel bad!

In addition to the more difficult word clue, my email was screwed up intermittently so I didn’t get some solutions (if you solved this earlier, please let me know). Mark L was one who got it earlier but was foiled by my mail…

Hmmm thought I sent it in before 9:30 PDT…. please disregard this if you got the first one…. thanks!

Mike B also got it before the region drops:

About 30 minutes. Found something on Google about Bangkok being a Sanskrit word for “Place of the Olive Plum Grove”. Fortunately only a small part of the Bangkok area is HiRes.

Boy, it sure is still difficult to do foreign clues. I note that trying to do a refind is pretty tough at times because there is no corresponding street maps (or hybrid mode) to compare with.

Tim J got a little herring is his ‘roogle pudding:

spent most of my time looking in taiwan, the “olive plum coast”

Wow, I had no idea about that one actually! Markus B didn’t need the word clue and used brute force after the region drop:

I was too tired today to really look for it. After the region clue it took me like 3 minutes, just searched around Thailand, starting from Bangkok. Still no idea what the clue stands for

Richard K. said:

It took about 15 minutes. The hard part was figurang out “Bangmakok” which means “Place of the Olive Plum.

Chorbansi notes:

took 15 mins to solve, the region helped. I had fun solving, thanks!

David H is living proof that persistance pays off:

I’ve been up all night (for reasons not related to this clue) and I pretty much saw the clue when it dropped, so, on and off, it’s taken me 13 hours. Lots of red herrings. I pretty much knew right away it wasn’t in the U.S., but I spent most of my time looking around Australia because of the Cassine australis (Red Olive Plum Tree), which is native there. After the Thailand region drop, probably took about ten minutes. Tough one.

Whew! I’m glad you weren’t up only for the clue or else you would have given me a major guilt trip! Wow, that Australia herring is pretty cool though… how did you come up with the tree name, was it through googling? I think I should have researched Olive Plums a bit first before posting the clue.

Don R avoided herrings and got it pretty quickly:

Took 5 minutes. Didn’t check in today till just a few minutes ago, and the country clue had already been dropped. Googled “Thailand Olive Plum” and found an info page on Thailand provinces which noted that Bangkok meant “Region of plum-olive trees.” Mapped to Bangkok and began searching the limited area that was high-res. Bingo.

Vlado K. says:

Took me about 5 minutes. (with Google Earth)

The Thailand clue made it very easy… but due to time differences, by the time I get here there’s already a couple of clues and several “Solutions Pending”… at least I get to answer this one (unlike the bounties).

Keep up the great work.

Thanks for the vote ‘o confidence. And it is OK to submit a solution even though it is “Solutions Pending”… a normal clue is good all day long. The Bounties are one time things. Speaking of which, I’ve got to start in on making some soon. I actually have a few, but actually am short on PRIZES right now. I hope to find some prizes this week though…

All right, I will talk to you all very soon!

Solution to “Sea Snake”

Whew, I am beat, I’m just going to list a few of the responses… We had a large number of solutions today with various times to solve (If I missed listing you, please tell me). Lots of new faces too. Here ya go:

Markus B.

When I realized that “mass” was for Massachusetts, I searched for universities in Masachusetts and found the city of Andover, then it was easy.

Took me over an hour, I think

Katie N.

This one only took me a minute. I knew it was Andover because of the capitalized A, and Mass. was then obvious.

Peter R

Good searching clue today. Didn’t catch onto the capital letter “A” in “And” until I had looked for “Pomp” and “Circumstance” in Massachusetts.

Looking around Andover lead to finding Pomp’s Pond on the map view, and easily found the sat pic right after. About 10 minutes.

David H

Probably about 20 minutes. At first, I was looking around Harvard and other Boston area universities. Then I noticed the strange capitalization in the clue and then, five minutes later, Pomps Pond.

Mark L

Mass part was easy and the landscape matched….. then connected Pomp and Circumstance to Harvard….. looked north

Theresa S

How long: About 15 min. After looking fruitlessly around Andover, Mass. for a while, I finally investigated the second part of the clue & found Pomps Pond.

Jon K

took about 10 min- the herringbone bit was odd, but Andover MA was pretty easy to pull out (all right, my wife did that part looking over my shoulder). Then just a matter of matching something with Pomp and Circumstance- pomp’s pond.

Ryan F

This one was so ironic because I’ve been looking for clue submissions in my New England home area for days but haven’t found anything noteworthy. I checked the clue this morning and couldn’t think of any leads at all. Re-visited page this afternoon and AND OVER just jumped out at me right away. Since I knew there was an Andover. MA right near me, this one then became real easy.

Don R

Took about 5 minutes. Immediately “saw” Andover, MA in the word clue. A quick scan and I found the tortoise head. Frankly, I didn’t even use the pomp = “Pomps Pond” hint. I just noticed that when I switched back from satellite to map mode after solving the puzzle.

Jake M

Hello, brand new to the site. It took me about an hour or so… spent a lot of time looking in pompano beach Fl. Tricksie. But, in a flash of light, it came to me… great clues. Have a nice day.

Adam M

Wow, I after about 10 minutes and a lil help from my boy Shawn. For some reason Andover, Ma. was in my head, but I wasn’t even sure if it was a city. I must have heard it on a movie or something.

Steve C

Hey, good clue. took about an hour. I went on a different trail for a while. I looked up Edward Elgar, the composer of pomp and circumstance, and looked in worcester (his birthplace) except in massachutesetts, but that didn’t work. so i looked in andover mass, and was stumped for a while. then i saw lake pomp or pomp pond, then bingo there it was.

Phil M

This started out hard and then got easier as I figured out the clue. I first looked up things like “Pomp and Circumstance” or “Mass Pomp” or “over circumstance”. That didn’t get me very far. Once I looked at the clue a little harder I put “Mass” together with “And over” and got “Andover, MA”. From there on it was cake. 5 mins.

Justin

I found it odd that the word “And” was capitalized in the word clue, so I figured it must have been pretty important. It was not long after that I realized that the clue refers Andover, Mass. It took about 5 mins.

By the way, I forgot to mention that you are all mad, MAD Scavengeroogle geniuses… it still surprises me how many people actually solve these things!!

Solution to “Tortoise Head”“

Hey y’all. Sorry I decided to close the clue early because I’m pretty worn out today. Um, well… here is the reason why in case you are interested. I have a close family member who has been battling cancer for a couple years. But lately she’s not been doing so well, so she finally had to come home for what is called “hospice” care. This is basically for terminally ill patients… they neither hasten nor prevent eventual passing. It is supposed to be more a comfort for the patient and for family. (I am new to this but I believe that is what it is)

This is a very close aunt of mine, today was the day they had to bring her back from the hospital. I was over there for about 8 hours helping them get the house ready. They bring a hospital type bed in and everything. They live about 2 minutes away from my parents who live only 10 minutes away from me. It was rough… anyhow, I sort of wanted to explain about that. I’m not sure why I’m telling you all, but this sort of feels like a journal sometimes… so be it! That made me feel better.

Anyhow, back to the clue for today. I used a Mike M clue again, I was totally unsure if it had been found or not. Tried to get Oneida linked in there with Standing Stone People (though I knew that Easter Island, Stonehenge, and the various Romes would be herrings) We had a pretty wide response for how fast it was solved. Here are some of the responses, sorry no comments on them or any particular order…oh yeah, I’ll try post a clue again on Monday or Tues.

Markus B.

It took me over an hour, while trying to work at the same time. First tried to look for cities that have the word ’statue’ in their names X)

John N.

5 or 6 minutes. I just looked up “standing stone people” on google - several of the top links were about the Oneida Indians/territory or whatever, and it mentioned Oneida Lake. Figured I’d take a look around.

Ken S. wrote:

Took me 30 seconds. Fastest one so far. I went right to Rome, NY

Mike B.

About a minute. Googled “Standing Stone People” and got lots of references to updated NY. Tried “Rome, NY” on a hunch, zomed in, and it was right in the middle of the screen.

Max P.

How long it took you: 10 min. (first crack at this though!)

The Beamer

Holy Crap, this was the fastest I’ve ever gotten a clue. I originally tried Rome Italy just for kicks, but the page wasn’t loading.

The only other Rome I could think of was Rome, NY (wasn’t that where one of the woodstocks was held?), and I punched it up - immediately saw the star. I still have no idea what the stone people are about.

Judy B

You weren’t kidding about the red herrings in this clue! It took me about half an hour, but a good 20 minutes of that was looking at Rome Italy. I knew it wasn’t in THAT Rome, but what a cool looking city! I just kept finding more stuff to look at. At least it looks like I’m working!

David H

You weren’t kidding about the red herrings in this clue! It took me about half an hour, but a good 20 minutes of that was looking at Rome Italy. I knew it wasn’t in THAT Rome, but what a cool looking city! I just kept finding more stuff to look at. At least it looks like I’m working!

Jonas M.

30 minutes… started off in Italy with a clue I thought was about Easter Island. Then I got my bearings after googling for “standing stone people”.

Erica

How long it took you: (just for grins) I’d say this took about 10 minutes. I first searched People of the Stone, and I came up with The Onyota’a:ka. I then sat confused until I realised I should put Rome somewhere in the search query. Then I found Rome, NY and found it easily.

Phil M

Took about 10 mins. For some reason I started looking in scotland. Somthing about Roman Standing Stones led me in that direction. Once I looked up People of the Standing Stone, it all fell into place.

Mark L

Checked out Easter Island 1st….. nothing hi-res. Did a Google of “Standing Stone People” and Oneida NY came up….. about 2 minutes looking around there.

Landis

How long it took you: a couple minutes, once I figured out the Oneida were from NY (and known as the ‘Standing Stone People’).

Woo-hoo - I finally got one before the solution was posted!

Katie N

Wow, this one stumped me. I originally thought it had something to do with the druids, so I searched around England for a while. I finally caught on to Oneida, but I thought it was referring to the tribe in Wisconsin. Then I remembered that it probably had something to do with Rome, so I googled Rome and Oneida and found it.

Peter R

Funny thing about this clue is that I saw it about a month ago and was going to submit it, but I had an ADHD moment and forgot about . . . hey look at that bug!

Sorry, back to the topic at hand. Only took about 10 minutes because I completely forgot where it was. Had to check a bunch of Rome’s (GA, IA, WI, PA, etc.) but once in NY, I guessed that it was probably the STANwix monument.

Solution to “Ninja Star”“

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”“

Wow, that was pretty fun. I think we will stick with the all day clue thing for now. It seems like a lot of people appreciate the option of checking in whenever they like during the day to solve a clue. On my end, I didn’t have to sit in front of the computer and update as madly as before. It was especially good because putting up this solution didn’t waste my lunch hour. Well, OK, it means I still need to type this solution after dinner but I’d much rather do that!

Not many problems in the herring department, and many people got the answer lickety split. You are all too darn smart. The pun, of course, is GlenWOULD Springs which I thought was a nice one by Dan M. I have actually been to Glenwood Springs in Colorado. It was on the way back from Aspen actually. I forget which summer it was, but I really remember Glenwood Springs because it was BURNING. Well, the far hills in back of the city were burning at least. As I was filling up my guzzlermobile at the gas station there, the ash from the fire was coming into the city…

Some new faces and some old ones I haven’t seen in awhile! OK, as a one time thing, here are the solutions in the exact order I got them:

Judy B (6:24 am) notes:

Glenwood, but I probably wouldn’t! (:

Mike B (6:49 am) did the right thing:

Total time - about 5 minutes. The clue yielded “Glen would” which became Glenwood. Googling found Glenwood, CO and then it was obvious.

Shawn D (7:34 am) got a quick hit:

glad to be back. good one. gotta run

Chris R (8:00 am) was similarly speedy:

Took about 4 minutes.

Katie N (8:43 am) is back from vacay:

It only took me a minute to think of ‘glenwood’ and a google search took me immediately to glenwood springs. It’s good to be back in town and playing again!

Adam M (10:17 am) nearly herringed out on Koalas:

I search for cities that started with Glen, and even went as far as Austrilia, until I thought “If I wouldn’t then Glen probably would” LOL. Took about 10minutes.

Trecherus (10:28 am) nearly overdosed on Glens:

It took me about 10 minutes. I started searching the birthplaces of famous Glens such as Scott Glen, Glen Campbell and places like Watkins Glen, but all had low resolution satellite imagery. I finally went back to the clue like I should have in the first place and started to think “what about glen?” and realized that “Glen Would !”. I put “Glen Wood” into google and google suggested “glenwood” as a search. I clicked on that and the first link was to the City of Glenwood Springs (http://www.ci.glenwood-springs.co.us/), Colorado. They had a nice interactive map on their website that allowed me to zoom in to see that the exclamation mark is a Hot Springs Pool

Mark L (11:34 am) went “duh”:

After I figured out Glenwood “DUH” it took me about 5 minutes

Justin (12:38 am) exclaims:

I thought about the clue, and then I realized that the response to the word clue is “Glen would”. I googled the word “Glenwood” and found Glenwood Springs, CO. It took only a few seconds after that to find the exclamation point.

Margie M (1:07 pm) almost got lost in a wooded glen:

Took about 20 minutes. I got stuck looking around Wooded Glen in Indiana, but since there is nothing (with a capital NOTH) around Wooded Glen in Indiana, next try was Glenwood and Colorado came up on the first results page. This would be my first solve.

Moose (1:52 pm) googled and roogled:

Great clue. I really like the wording of it. Took me under a minute to solve. Read the clue, figured out that “Glen would” or “Glenwood.” First response on google gave me Glenwood Springs, CO. Google Mapped the city, zoomed in, and there it was! I love this day long clue. I drove straight into work (at 3pm cst) from being out of town for the night, so it was nice to find my ‘Roogling waiting for me when I got here. Yay, now I still get to have my name on the solvers list! I really like this day-long clue stuff.

Peter R (4:50 pm) sends love from Canuckia:

Love the whole day clue thing BTW. Gave me some time to actually get things accomplished during the day!

This one took me about 20 minutes, but it was a tough 20 minutes. I sat down and stared at the clue for about five minutes trying to figure out what the clue meant. Finally, out of frustration, I said, “What do I care if Glen would . . . oh.”

Of course the rest of the time was spent googling for Glenwoods. Why can’t you Americans be like us Canucks sometimes and just use a town name once! Iowa, Illinois, New Mexico, etc. I can’t wait until you have a Springfield clue. . .

Karl (5:14 pm) sped through:

Took about 1 minute to get glenwood, and another minute to find the hot springs website!

Phil M (5:50 pm) is a time traveler:

I really like these all day clues because I work during the day. Plus I’m on a different time zone so that makes it harder.

Hank (7:46 pm) briefly sez:

Downtown Glenwood Springs, CO.

Fun stuff! I’ll see you all soon, remember to check back around once a day or so in order to sink your fangs into some meaty roogle clues…

Solution to “Exclamation Point”“

This time the server was OK but my webmail went down, making me think that everyone was out of town and not playing. Then, suddenly mail went back up and I got all the messages dumped on me at once. A few new players in the mix, and it was pretty much split on whether or not you needed to know it was in England. I thought long and hard about a word clue… and I knew that if you weren’t careful you’d go to Missouri, Marshall, etc. Hence the “foot only” clue. Yeah, I played soccer in high school. (Side note: I really don’t like American Football, but I won’t get into that) Anyhow, here are some notes from you:

Don R was first on the board:

Good ol’ Googly Eyes! Started out with MU football, taking me to Missouri University in Columbia. But then I started thinking about the “foot only” part of the clue and realized we were talking about soccer, which the greater world calls “football.” MU football had to mean Manchester United in England. Found the location for the MU stadium (Old Trafford) and started scouting the area. Found Googly Eyes a bit to the east/southeast. Nice!

Richard J did a bit of herring research first:

How long it took: It took me about 40 minutes. I spent about 30 minutes looking through Kansas City and Columbia, Missouri since I associated MU with University of Missouri. Then you dropped the England Clue and I immediately thought Manchester United soccer.

Justin said:

The clue refers to Manchester United, a team that plays the lesser form of football known to us in the U.S. as soccer. I didn’t start until after the region drop, which made finding this pretty easy. It took less than ten minutes.

Hehe, you said “lesser” football… I think it might be the other way around for a lot of non-US folks… Andy K was glad for the region clue:

The regional drop was a lifesaver. For some reason I just could not get out of the US. Very clever clue, easy to get stuck on the wrong concept

as was Jason C:

Took about 10 mins. Started after region drop. Would have started in Missouri if not for region drop. Been too busy lately to play. Good to get one in b4 the holiday weekend.

and Ken S:

The region drop saved me. It immediately looked like a dorm complex. I searched every “MU” (Marshall, Miami, Mansfield, Millersville, etc.) in the states but had no hits for England until the region drop. (45 minutes)

Huh, I didn’t think that but it IS sorta setup like some dorms. Also, I think that searching for “MU Football” gave one England hit about 2 or 3 pages into google searching… I sorta banked on that to provide some difficulty.

Jon G said:

Took about 2 minutes. Immediately thought of Man. United with all the news about the Glazer family lately. Happy 4th of July all!

I actually didn’t even know about that since I don’t keep up with English Football that much… Adam M said:

Manchester, England! I was looking around the US at first, but I found it in less than a minute of reading the region hint.

Moose also plays soccer. We should start up a Roogle Soccer league… I am kidding. I have grown two left feet since high school…

Well, once I was looking in the right country, this was pretty easy. I play a little soccer, so I figured out pretty quickly that MU - Manchester United. Just searched around Manchester, and found it within 5 minutes. I would’ve made it sooner, but I had a meeting for the first hour of ‘Roogle play today. I’m excited about the day-long clues now.

Mike M actually got to play today, seeing as for once I didn’t use one of his submitted clues!

day off from work, forgot about ‘roogle until 1.5 hrs in, found it pretty quickly…less than 2min, but that was after the region drop

Mike, a side note: I believe you are the originator of the “roogle” abbreviation… is that right? I was going to give you credit in the FAQ. It is hell of easier to say ‘Roogle than Scavengeroogle…

Golux13 notes:

5-10 minutes. I didn’t need the region clue drop, though I did spend a minute or two checking out Marquette University. Since I quickly figured out that football meant soccer, Manchester United was an easy find. Then the only tough part was wandering around the sat images of Machester until I found the target.

Thanks everyone for playing. I keep saying this, but I really appreciate you all coming to check out the site once in awhile and spending your time searching for clues. OK, have a good long weekend everybody, and see you on… well, I’ll see you when I see you!

Solution to “Googly Eyes”

I have to run, but first an important note (I’ll put this in another separate post):

Since there is no dissent, I made a decision to just go with the all day clue thing and to go with the “non-regular” clue drop. So, the last regular drop will be this coming Friday (many of you will be outta town probably). After that, clues will go up on a non-regular schedule (though, I may try to stick with Mon, Wed, Fri for awhile).

I’m going to do this regardless of if I figure out the mailing list and regardless if I figure out auto-notify. I think it is not too much to ask for people to come to the site on their own at any time during the day to check if a new clue has been dropped.

Mike M.’s info on his word clue:

Pic from Montgomery, AL, Montgomery is the first name of the Simpsons character Mr Burns. The pic is from west of the city, right next to a river. The service road that it’s on is off of Washington Ferry Rd.

Comments, hurriedly… Most interestingly, I have noticed that sometimes the word clue ends up having more than one way to solve it! Like Chris R:

This one was easy. I figured “Burns” was Pulitzer-prize winning journalism John Burns, who was friends in college with ABC correspondent Bob Woodruff. Consequently, I knew there was a “Bob Woodruff Lake” in Montgomery, AL — and there it was.

That is cool, he didn’t use the Simpson’s tie-in… also he was the first to solve it! Here are other comments.

Peter R

Whoa, that was real easy today (well, compared to the only other one I ever got).Though of Montgomery, AL right away and just scanned left along what I can only assume is the Alabama river. Took under five minutes.

On an interesting side note, pseudo-googling (i.e. Yahoo! search engine) revealed a Montgomery Ferry Dr. which ALMOST lead to a red herring.

Beamer

I first started looking at all the different “Springfield”s in the US, but none of the colors seemed right - so I re-routed myself on the Mr. Burns clue. Hmmm…Montgomery? OH SNAP, Montgomery, Alabama!

From there, I just followed the waterway westward, and thar she was. A very
satisfying find.

Jon G

Took about 2 min. Immediately thought of Montgomery, AL from Mr. Burns part of clue and typed Montgomery into google maps and there it was not far from where it started me at. Didn’t even need the rest of the clue.

Mike Z

Very easy! Under 1 minute. I got the Montgomery clue right away, went there and saw some some green patches next to the river. Zoom in a little and there it is. It’s so nice to know that I have the rest of my afternoon free today.

Golux13

I inadvertently saw the region clue drop, but I would have been put on the right track by “Mr. Burns” anyway. I was already looking for Montgomery and ferry references, and Montgomery, AL would have been first on my list — and definitely was when I saw the clue.

Not sure about the rest of the clue. “West,” sure — look on the west side — but “ferry” doesn’t seem to relate to anything I saw. The only “Ferry” reference I could find easily was Wares Ferry Road, which is on the east side of the city.

And I’m off… see you Friday at 9!

Solution to “One Eyed Willy”