No Paddle Up Her Creek

Posted on June 26, 2013 by waterhigh

Water high!

Even though it was only six feet deep, this unfortunate canoeist got trapped by the power of the Jefferson River. She was pinned against a bridge in the frigid water for four and a half hours.

http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/woman-rescued-after-being-pinned-against-jefferson-river-bridge-for/article_f7f50241-1f31-5fde-a073-b1b7be87b2c6.html#.UcrYz3CpJVM.gmail

Rivers in Montana generated by National Atlas, a United States government agency and then annotated by poster in March 2007. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Thankfully, she had quick thinking partners and teams of emergency responders who rescued her.

Not that she was a Chaser, but, as others have cautioned, be prepared and respect the power of nature if you’re out there, water high or not.

(Re–(Updated) Clues Blues

Posted on June 19, 2013 by waterhigh

Forrest Fenn’s Treasure Ches

{Now scheduled for Friday, June 28th at 0505 Fenn Time}

For those of you not familiar with the Chase, Forrest Fenn has been giving out one new clue a month on the Today Show. It was scheduled for June 17th but got postponed. Not for the first time. Last month they made him get up at 3 something in the morning two days in a row. “Truck trouble,” they claimed. (Although I suspect the crew was out searching for the treasure on the extra day.) ~~It’s now scheduled for June~~ ~~27th~~ ~~(Not~~ the 28th)according to Stephanie (What’s A Blaze) at Chasechat.

So far the clues have been:

helpful. Like don’t dig up old outhouses (people apparently thought that’s what “putting in below the home of Brown” meant. Not what came to my mind.
common sense. Like, don’t dig up a cemetery. Again, not something that crossed my mind.
vague/general. Like, it’s above 5000 feet. Not a surprise since he said it was in the Rocky Mountains.

Actually, I don’t mind the generality of the extra hints. I don’t want to hear that it’s been found already. I still plan to head West as soon as we get the chance. I say we. I’m waiting on my husband to clear his schedule. He’s mildly amused by my new hobby. Also, I haven’t exactly figured out the poem yet….

Forrest Fenn says all one needs is the poem, which is in the book.

Meanwhile, enjoy the Thrill of the Chase as you search/seek/solve/obsess …..

Tea with Olga

Posted on June 16, 2013 by waterhigh

: tea time (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Some things don’t jump out at you until later.

This chapter of The Thrill of the Chase is about a neighbor and friend of Forrest Fenn’s, a bittersweet story. It put me in mind of many things, the line from Robert Frost’s poem, for one, about having promises to keep.

Another was a woman who lived down the hall in the hospital dormitory. She was old, and frail, and worked in the surgery department, as I recall. She was a refugee from the Sudetenland. Quiet.

I dropped off some cherry tomatoes from my Dad’s garden one day. She couldn’t eat them, but insisted on returning the kindness by preparing blintzes for me. A first and best ever for me.

She also shared a bit of her story. I hope I get this right. I think it was well after the Nazi’s had rescued/annexed/invaded the area, and that it was the Russians coming through much later. Either way, soldiers came to the house and demanded that her mother get up to prepare them a meal. Her mother was quite ill and in bed. They beat her anyway. If I knew anymore than that, I’ve forgotten it.

I also don’t know what happened to the sweet woman who made me the blintzes. They closed the dorm, and I’d moved on. She had a daughter in the area.

There are so many stories out there that we never get to hear. Or is it that we don’t “listen good”?

So, what did I learn from this chapter of TTOTC? I think it was about making adjustments in the face of reality.

Yes, Forrest Fenn was headed for the summit, the usually icy, snowy peak, but the green of the meadows within the ponderosa and aspen seemed the better choice.

And, that’s why I think he may not have hidden the chest where he originally intended. Just speculation on my part. Like he said, “Indecision is the key to flexibility, . . . .”

Forrest Fenn’s Treasure Chest

But then again, he said he “knew exactly where to hide the chest . . . .”

Addendum — June 23, 2013

I just listened to a WGN interview with Forrest Fenn, not sure of the date, in which he said he’d been very certain of where he was going to hide the chest. You can listen to it and find other Thrill of the Chase info at Shaun’s site. (http://www.creationeer.co.uk/forrestfennfacts.htm)

Today’s Discovery

Posted on June 15, 2013 by waterhigh

Can she see me?

No, not that discovery. Sorry.

This little guy surprised me. He was hiding under a basket. Sort of in plain sight. Like the chest?I think he would have turned green if he’d had time.

Check out the toes. Do they remind you of a certain bronze jar?

Riches New and Old…

Posted on June 10, 2013 by waterhigh

Something Old

We just celebrated a 90th birthday in the family. One of the “Fennster’s” has a newborn. Treasures all.

Get a new hat, custom fit.

If you head west in search of the chest this summer, remember to enjoy the sights along the way—just in case you don’t go home with the gold or bronze. Find some other nuggets or gems to share.

At least take some pictures so when you approach 90, you’ll have something to jog your memory.

Old barn in an ancient valley

Meadowlarks and “Flutterbys”

Posted on May 31, 2013 by waterhigh

The most beautiful birdsong is that of the meadowlark. I miss them. I’m a hundred plus miles distant from where I grew up. Even twenty-five miles away from the farm, and twenty years later, the song was not the same. It was truncated, not as sweet somehow.

I can’t imagine they’d make very good eating, but I won’t judge what hunger necessitates. (See the TTOTC book and One of These Things is Not Like the Other.)

Lewis and Clark, other early explorers, traders, and the emigrants that followed, even contemporary travelers, have found themselves in dire straights in cold mountains and hot deserts.

This image was selected as a picture of the week on the Malay Wikipedia for the 1st week, 2010. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I know a woman who didn’t learn until she was nearing fifty that her father had spent a year in Stateville for stealing a chicken. Four kids to feed. Had lost a farm and home due to fire before the Depression hit. Even so.

She remembers at four or five overhearing adults discussing an eviction. One of them saying, “Well, I can’t kick them out in the cold.”

Purple Prairie Coneflower

Summer always returns. Here we have Indigo buntings, hummingbirds, cardinals and vultures. Prairie flowers and butterflies galore. (At least, until the chemicals and transgenics get them.)

I’ve never known hunger. Not like that. And I hope our children never do. It’s so much nicer when they can enjoy and observe the “flutterbys”.

“If Robert Redford had ever written anything….” Forrest Fenn

Posted on May 30, 2013 by waterhigh

Robert Redford in 2009. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) ( Sorry I missed this event. I love Madison.)

When I returned my armload of TheThrill of the Chase-related library books yesterday, I thought I’d check the history section again. It’s about 4 1/2 feet long, but has had an amazing amount of titles I could use in the chase.

After a minor delay (they’d rearranged their shelves), I found 5 more books to check out that I hadn’t seen before. I suspect someone else in this county is also on the TOTC hunt and had just returned them.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when they landed on a young Robert Redford. Serendipity strikes again. Important Literature. I won’t mention the title, but it was sub-titled A Journey Through Time. Does that not resonate, fellow Fennsters?

The book is full of photos of a trip on horseback that Redford took in the Rocky Mountains (more than 300 miles west of Toledo) and some fascinating anecdotes, historical and otherwise.

English: U.S. Postage: Lewis and Clark Expedition, 1954 Issue-3c. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Currently, I’m thumbing through a book, a 1979 publication by the National Geographic Society, and taking copious notes. And then there’s one on Lewis and Clark.

Another of the books on that same history shelf is on fly fishing. I should probably study that before I head west.

My husband/fiance/boyfriend at the time tried to teach me how to fly fish.

Putting In

One of the problems was that we were in a canoe on a lake in Wisconsin. (A friend dubbed the plastic orange-ish Coleman “a barge with points.” It did have stability in its favor.)

We’ve since bought fly rods. I’ve got waders, needed for another purpose. I picked up an assortment of flies. I watched my Dad fly fish. Am I ready for a chalk stream in the Rockies? I just hope no one will be video-taping.

Terremoto

Posted on May 25, 2013 by waterhigh

English: USGS map of Yellowstone Caldera showing earthquake locations. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The first earthquake I experienced was the Yellowstone event in August of 1959. Maybe I was 5. All I remember really is seeing my mother upset in the middle of the night. We had passed through Yellowstone that day and were in a motel room just west of there. She thought a semi had rumbled off the road just outside but couldn’t see anything.

We returned to Yellowstone when I was ten, camping in our brand new Nimrod tent trailer. I do remember that trip, especially the bears banging the trash cans outside in the dark. We climbed our first mountain, Mt. Washburn. Gazed in marvel at

Morning Glory pool. I took some shaky black and white photos with a small square camera.

The Mountain That Fell

The devastation from the earthquake was apparent. A highway disappeared into a lake. A house/cabin sat half-submerged. Giant boulders rested across the valley from the mountains where they rolled down from. Huge.

Rolled down the mountain, across the valley and up the other side

In time, I made sure our kids saw the park, too. Our youngest was ten. I just looked at the photos; there’s a camera around her neck. I used to hear them whine about being the only kids who’d never been to Disney World. I pointed out that they had climbed a mountain, camped on an ocean beach, and seen every waterfall and cave that we’d ever been close to. They got it. I still don’t think they’ve been to Disney World.

My second earthquake (4 of the 6 have been in Illinois) was in the 70’s when I awoke in the night with my bed bouncing up and down. No. I didn’t do drugs. {And now, #7. Italy again. Poolside.}

The third was in the 90’s. I was sitting in the car during Intrepid’s dance lesson when the car started a slow up and down, very subtle bounce. Sustained. I looked at the railroad tracks: empty. Hmmm. I listened to the news that evening. A deep quake had occurred in South America but had been felt in skyscrapers as far away as Toronto. I was excited so I called the US Geologic guys out in Colorado to report it. I’m not sure if they made a note of it, but I thought they’d want to know.

The fourth was ten years ago north of Bologna, and the bed was flying sideways in the dark. Giant headlines in the paper: TERREMOTO. (I learned a couple other words that trip, including “andiamo”–what John Wayne yelled every time he jumped on his horse to go chase the bad guys–and “basta”–what the waiter kept asking. I thought he was saying “more pasta?” “No, no. I’m stuffed. No more.” He just wanted to clear my plate.

The most recent two were in central Illinois. Again, a bed shook, but first the windows rattled. Then, later that morning, the aftershock. I was in the upstairs of a barn. It swayed.

Interesting that the New Madrid earthquakes of 1811-12 rang a bell in Philadelphia. An eye witness said the land rolled so much that trees rocked horizontally. The Mississippi was re-routed. They say the fault is due to slip again. Maybe overdue. The VA down that way took the top six stories off its Hospital and reinforced the lower twelve stories. Just in case.

There is chatter about how the Yellowstone caldera is heating up/acting up/lifting up. Last time she blew, there was ashfall all the way through Nebraska. If my search for Forrest Fenn’s TheThrill of the Chase treasure takes me out that way, maybe I’ll tarry scant if the earth moves.

English: “At Yellowstone and some other volcanoes, some scientists theorize that the earth’s crust fractures and cracks in a concentric or ring-fracture pattern. At some point these cracks reach the magma “reservoir,” release the pressure, and the volcano explodes. The huge amount of material released causes the volcano to collapse into a huge crater—a caldera.” From nps.gov (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Like Jimmy Buffet sang, “I don’t know where I’ma gonna go when the volcano blows.”

Yellowstone’s Volcano Bigger Than Thought (livescience.com)
New Madrid Earthquake Expected Within Next 50 Years (fox2now.com)

A Rumor of Gold

Posted on May 23, 2013 by waterhigh

The Hand of Faith, the largest gold nugget in the world. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Just what does it take to abandon family and the comforts of home? Dreams of adventure? Fortune? Fame? Maybe just a dare. Or a failure of common sense, as in buying lottery tickets? Oops. Not you, of course.

I guess I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for a great-grandfather that had that something. He sailed from Denmark and ended up in Cripple Creek, Colorado, at the right time. According to a great-uncle, he found a large gold nugget. Great-grandpa also knew when to say “Basta”, enough. (Yes, that’s Italian, not Danish.) He sailed back to Denmark and returned with his bride. They bought a farm in the midwest and lived happily ever after. Actually, I couldn’t say; I never met him. The same great-uncle also claimed we were related to the Danish royalty. I told my kids that even if they were princes and princesses, they still had to do their chores. There was no one left to ask whether it was true or not. (I wrote a novel based on that nugget; maybe 15% truth, tops. 85% lies and imagination. Surprising to readers which parts are actually true.)

Worth the Cold

That something seems to have been passed down through the generations, so much so that one child I’ll refer to as Intrepid. She decided it would be fun to take a high school class that combined biology and phys ed credits, and spent a 3-day weekend in February(! ) camped on a frozen lake in the Boundary Waters on the Canadian border.

Why I looked on the internet for the weather report, I don’t know. I saw that instead of a low of 0 degrees F, a front came through with 40 mile an hour winds and 20-something below temps. I didn’t sleep that night.

Not THE blaze

She’s also the one who phoned home one night from a trip to the wilds of Alaska to tell us not to worry about the forest fire. She had to hang up then so the other kids could call and scare the heck out of their parents. Not until we got her photos developed did I realize how serious it was. Not the kind of blaze any TOTC searcher wants to run into.

I suppose I had a bit of that something as well. Once, I went west with a friend in a VW bug to visit a former co-worker who’d moved to Colorado.

We thought we’d see the sights while there, so ended up hanging in a cable car over the Royal Gorge. I turned to her to tell her that I was getting off, not enjoying the view while terrified, but, too late. The door slammed shut. At least I made it across without screaming or fainting. Oh. Back to the story.

Trailblazing. I was the navigator. I love maps. We’d visited the Air Force Academy, been down as far as Pueblo, and wanted to get back to Denver or Boulder or somewhere. I saw a short-cut. It was right there on the map. No name. No number. It appeared to be paved. So, we took it. Before long, we started seeing jeeps. Army jeeps. And other things. Low buildings. Low flying jets. Who knows. Soon, one of the jeeps with 2 or 3 guys in it, came up to us. We stopped. They asked what we were doing or where we were headed or how we ended up there. I explained. I showed them the map. They gave us an escort. I followed them right up the road I’d planned on. Saved several miles. I don’t think I’d be alive to mention it if it happened these days.

There were other things I didn’t mention to Intrepid until she was older, like sleeping on a picnic table in Tennessee on the way back from a Florida camping trip—different friend, spring break sort of thing. Intrepid comes up with enough ideas of her own. I’ve got a few gray hairs to show for it. She’s too tied up these days to venture west on a rumor of gold. Maybe I can get an older child interested.

Surprising the reactions I get when I mention Forrest Fenn‘s The Thrill of the Chase treasure hunt. Nobody thinks it’s real. That’s okay. I’m a firm believer in the Fenn formula. Somebody’s going to find it. And all the other TTOTC searcher’s are having fun. (Though some of you might need to slow down…..you, know. Basta.)

Serendipity

Posted on May 21, 2013 by waterhigh

The morels and asparagas already gone, I wandered a washed field on Mother’s Day afternoon and found a trove of arrowheads, mostly pieces. Like gold and fish, they are where you find them. I think luck plays a part, but also some logic and imagination. To find Forrest Fenn’s The Thrill of the Chase treasure, it will take all of the above. And research. He says the lucky finder will be able to walk right to it, deliberately.

And so, we seekers continue our research and refine our plans. A simple Venn diagram (see Wikipedia) is a series of overlapping circles yielding useful data. A Fenn diagram is going to look more like a flow chart

Flowchart (Photo credit: BWJones)

branching off each time a clue has more than one solution. There are so many diagrams because no one knows where to begin. Well, we might think we do.

I thought at first it would be a simple fill-in-the-blank game. Decide where the warm waters halt, where to put in, and what the blaze is. Okay. But ‘halt’ has many meanings, likewise ‘warm waters’, even ‘warm’. And then you start to wonder, what does ‘it’ even mean!

A couple weeks ago, I came up with an utterly unique answer for “where warm waters halt”. This week, I even found a butterfly connection.

So, maybe the Chase isn’t keeping me away from the internet, but it has gotten me into the library, especially the history section. Here’s to all your discoveries made along the way. Enjoy.