CLUE #18 - FOUND!

 

Congratulations to Evan for finding Dinosaur #18!

Here's a synopsis of hunt in his own words:


I was so stoked to find that clue 18 was just a short bike ride from my house! I hopped on and rode over (motivating my ride with 'Dino DINO dino Dino DINO dino' under the breath), locked up, and started looking for that robot . . . maybe looking a little too long in the middle of the street. I crossed Grand to check out that All Seeing Eye neon sign, and then the little alien they have in the window. But didn't see any dinos till I crossed back over to get at the same perspective the clue was taken from. And right by my bike on the trash can there, a sticker with a dino phone number to call. 

(You can still call the number: (206) 312-6254 -AdamD)

I was late. He had been waiting for me in Grand Lake Theater for like an hour and I was holding him up, he had things to do, etc. He told me he had to get on the freeway and would leave 'it' with the penguins. I first thought of the bird sanctuary at Merritt, and started to hop through the Farmers Market, trying to remember if there were penguin statues or something by the eastbound 580 onramp . . . when I remembered the totally sweet mural I had just walked past (without noticing it that time, but I do love driving past it, even though there's never enough time to really check it out).

Turned back around and found some adorable little penguins on a rock, but no dino signs!

 

I looked in a bunch of those little holes for a note or something, then decided to continue up the mural, to make sure I wasn't missing anything before getting over to the bird sanctuary on my bike. And! At the very tip top of the mural, giant emperor penguins! And behind the support beam for the pedestrian walkway! ... Some kind of object?

I ran up the penguin-incline and there was what looked like an red-orange dino -- ENCASED IN A BLOCK OF ICE. (didn't see any 'found' sticker though. . . )

(Oops, forgot to put that in there before I froze it -AdamD)

Well, I'm not the patient type so I went with 'smash' over 'melt', and cracked the whole thing open on the North Pole. My dino was free! We are so happy together! Thank you dinohunt!

CLUE #17 - FOUND!

Congratulations to Kimber, Donny Shot & Rue for finding Dinosaur #17!

Here's a summary from Kimber of the hunt:

Donny, Rue and I were loaded up and ready to hit the streets for Dino#17, and the clue dropped! I knew right away that the numbers on the image were GPS coordinates. The only problem I was having is that I was missing the (,) and the (-) when I was putting them in my google maps app. I hadn’t noticed them being part of the image. Therefore, my result kept coming up as “Yellow Sea” in Korea. Thinking this might be some silly part of a clue, I searched “yellow sea” in SF and Oakland, hoping maybe there was a restaurant, business or landmark with the name. After getting no results, I looked at the image much closer. Alas!! Once I noticed the (,) and the (-) and entered them correctly, we had an address of 217 Leidesdorff St, in SF!



Upon arriving at the corner pictured in the clue, I immediately noticed a little card hanging from the pole on the right. I quickly took all the information from the card and headed back to the car where Donny & Rue were waiting. The front of the card contained a random group of words. On the back of the card, a picture of a Dino and in the corner “password:qwerty”. Donny and I got to work at trying to solve the meaning of the words I jotted down. I couldn’t make sense of them to mean anything specific so I started looking at them being some scrambled word puzzle. After taking the first letter from each word, I got “Bummer and Lazarus”. Donny quickly found a lead on google, containing the location of a plaque, just a block away, honoring the two stray dogs that once roamed the city streets.

 

As Donny & Rue circled the block, I quickly roamed through the Transamerica Redwood Park. On the concrete planter box where the plaque was located, there was a picture with text that read “In Emporer Norton We Trust” “SODOZL GY IGKOMGF OO”. Back at the car with Donny&Rue we started googling and letter scrambling. For the moment, the password:qwerty had spaced my mind, and no letter codes I was familiar with were working to solve the jumbled letters. After googling, Donny had found information on Emporer Norton that linked him to Mark Twain, as well as San Francisco Brewing Co. Near the park there was an alleyway named after Twain, but after a thorough search, we found nothing in that alley. San Francisco Brewing Co. was not too far away to walk, just a few blocks up Columbus.


Upon realizing the SF Brewing Co. was a bust, Donny remembered the password:qwerty and learned how to use the code to solve the jumbled letters at the bottom. It spelled out “limits of horizon II”. He found that it was a sculpture in a park at One Maritime Plaza, near Embarcadero Two. We quickly headed back down that direction and to the park. Once at the park, we looked all around the sculpture trying to find either the Dino or another clue. We were just about stumped when Donny discovered a little tag attached to some fishing line that had been buried in the shrubs and grass. The metal tag had a phone number that I quickly called, and left a message.

Within a few minutes, I received a callback. The voice on the other end was familiar, and I was asked what the password was. I answered with “qwerty”, and I was then being navigated out of the park and away from the structure. “proceed straight out of the park. Make a right. Make a left. Proced straight. Make a right, make a left, go over the bridge. Etc etc.”  The voice had navigated us to a bridge near Sydney Walton Square, at the corner of Davis and Jackson. We were then instructed to check the round planter box. We let Rue look around and she quickly found the Dino stashed under one of the planters. Success!!

This was an incredibly well put together hunt, and was tons of fun!!

CLUE #14 - FOUND!




Congratulations to Robin for finding Dinosaur #14! 

Clue #14 was an illustration I did of the Moonrise sculptures by Ugo Rondinone, located in front of 555 Mission St. (hence posting this clue at 5:55pm)

When I arrived, I was saddened to realize that I could not hide the paintings inside of any of their mouths like I originally planned, so I settled with putting it behind the middle pedestal.

 

CLUE #11- FOUND!

Congratulations to Kimber Morrison for recovering Dinosaur #11! 

 

The message written backward in code on the above image is: cgrebqnpgly ng gur nyonal ohyo

It's written in a code called rot13, in which you rotate the alphabet 13 places. So, "A" becomes "N" and so on. Kimber figured it out by writing it out:

 

...but you could also use this website to find the correct answer: www.rot13.com

The message translates to: pterodactyl at the albany bulb

The Albany Bulb is landfill that has been turned into an art garden by artists over the years. Sculptures made out of driftwood and scrap metal line the coast of the peninsula, along with other pieces of art that have been fabricated elsewhere and left to the elements. I haven't been out to the Bulb in several years, so I was amazed by the amount of people living out there in makeshift camps! Chalk arrows lead the hunter from the parking lot to the coastline, where the painting was lashed to a sculpture.

 

CLUE #6 - FOUND!

Roses are beauty but I never see
Those blood drops from the burning heart of June
Glowing like thought upon a living tree
Without a pity that they do so soon.

-John Masefield

MIDAS TOUCH 

Congratulations to Jake Precht for finding Dinosaur #6!

The hiding place was the Morcom Rose Garden in Oakland. At the entrance to the garden, the above poem is on a plaque:

I walked around the garden a little bit, re-familiarizing myself with the location. Lots of folks who live in the neighborhood take walks through there, and some of them volunteer to help maintain the garden, so I wanted to make sure that where I decided to hide it wouldn't interfere with their routine.

All of the roses in the garden have names like "First Kiss" and "French Lace". I found a hole in a rock wall behind the bush labeled "Midas Touch" that would fit the painting perfectly:

NEXT CLUE: Wednesday!

 

CLUE #2 - FOUND!

Congratulations to Kelly Nabours! Please enjoy your painting!

This was the clue:

The painting was hidden inside of the Icosaspirale, a metal sculpture located at 1 Maritime Plaza!

reaching in...

unwrapping...

...and there it is!



I think the painting was recovered within 25 minutes of the clue being posted. I'll have to start making these clues harder!