Wednesday, January 24, 2018

What the blazes?

If you stop to take, not smell,
Upon the “geocache” you’ll gaze.

Since the chest is gone, this line from the poem has minimal relevance in an armchair solution. So I've decided to reveal the meaning of this clue.

When I hid the chest, I "secreted" it in such a way that it wouldn't be stumbled upon by accident. However, it would also be difficult for a searcher to locate it! So, in order to help a searcher find it, I came up with this scenario/clue. 

I tied one end of a fishing line to the hole in the corner of the lid (in this photo, the hole can be seen in the "southwest" corner of the lid). I secured the other end of the fishing line to a fake rose. If you've never tried using a needle to thread a fishing line through the stem of one of these fake roses, you're not missing out. I don't recommend it.

The previous line in the poem mentions being led to the "blaze". While I am not revealing all of the clues contained in that line, I will say that the word "blaze" in my poem serves two purposes. The first sense is similar to its usage in Forrest Fenn's poem as some sort of marker or indicator. A "blaze" is also a type of garden rose

Hence, once you were led to the right area and had BOTG, you'd look for the fake rose as your marker for the treasure. Bringing to mind the popular saying "stop and smell the roses", the line from the poem suggests you should take the rose instead of smelling it. Once you took the rose, you'd notice it was attached to a fishing line. You would then follow the line until you found the chest.

The rose itself was in such a place, I thought, that it wouldn't be especially noticeable unless you were looking for something (like this "treasure"). But I won't go into detail on that until after the hunt is over!