It’s time to wish Forrest Fenn Happy Birthday again. He turns 87 in a few days. Just Wow!
A couple ways to thank him for the Thrill of the Chase? Go here.
Category Archives: Forrest Fenn
Safety First… — Thrill Of The Chase
From the man himself (via Dal’s site):
SUBMITTED JUNE, 2017 by Forrest When I said the treasure was not hidden in Utah or Idaho it has been my plan to not narrow the search area further. But in the light of a recent accident, and in the interest of safety, I feel it necessary to alter that plan. The treasure chest is…
Reblogged: Stop This Nonsense…… — Thrill Of The Chase
Forrest Fenn’s Treasure Chest
A difference of opinions on the Chase. I’m with Forrest and Dal on this.
New Mexico State Patrol Chief, Pete Kassetas The New Mexico State Patrol Chief wants Forrest to stop the chase. He called it “nonsense” and suggested that Forrest should go get the chest “if it exists”. Pretty insulting, don’t you think? Pete Kassetas is the chief’s name and he seems to be pretty full of…
Of Fools and Gold
Reblogged: Another occasional searcher story. “… star-filled night”, etc.
Image credit: abebooks.com
It all started with a book, Coronado’s Children, that recounted (alleged) tales of forgotten treasures in the wilds of west Texas. I first came across it at an early age – maybe eight or nine. And I was immediately hooked, poring over old road maps, drawing anally-precise little Xs on the most likely locations of the concealed bullion and mislaid bags of stolen bank loot. From the sound of it, these riches were stashed in every hollow tree stump and under every rock pile in the region. So I began to scrimp and save, buying a cheap metal detector a few years later. Mail order, no less. I may have wet myself when it finally arrived; bright red control box and coil, a pair of adjustable dials to fine-tune for precise depths and metals (coins, nuggets, ingots), the detection meter with its bouncing needle – it was…
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Memorial Day inre: Ernie Pyle
Memorial Day tribute to Ernie Pyle over on Dal’s website. Click here.
(Read for Goofy’s thorough comments on that post.)
Fennboree IV
Travel plans for June 9th – 11th?
Here’s a link to the necessary information for the 4th annual Fennboree, for Fennatics and the curious. It always sounds like a good time, just a little far away for some of us.
Gorgeous area, though.
66,000 Links North of Santa Fe
The Junior Oxford Dictionary is Losing Touch with Nature
Forrest Fenn wants to get kids off the couch and out of doors. What does this news say about our culture when “selfie stick” & “hashtag” replace words like “acorn” and “otter”? : (
Sharing this post from Lady Muir:
I was shocked to read the list of nature words removed from the Jr. Oxford Dictionary in the last decade. What follows are excerpts from an essay that explores the intersection between language and life.
Forrest Fenn on TV This Weekend
Saturday morning tune in to NBC’s Weekend Today Show for the latest from Forrest Fenn, who hid a treasure chest somewhere in the mountains north of Santa Fe.
Here’s a link to the interview.
Here’s a link to the announcement on Dal’s site.
100 Years Ago
On Summer Seas (1916)
The National Park Service was created one hundred years ago. Yellowstone preceded that, being designated in 1872. And once upon a time, I dreamed of being a forest ranger. My imagination had me up in a tower in a sea of green trees–a rather narrow view of the current job description.
Glacier National Park
One of the more unique rangers we’ve met was dressed to the hilt as a French voyageur and remained in character, impressing our youngest. I think there was even bread baking involved.
1868 Quetico Superior Route, Passing a Waterfall by Frances Anne Hopkins (Scene showing a large Hudson’s Bay Company freight canoe passing a waterfall, presumably on the French River. The passengers in the canoe may be the artist and her husband, Edward Hopkins, secretary to the Governor of the Hudson’s Bay Company.) (public domain)
That national park was the site of the Rainy Lake gold rush in the mid-1890’s. Northern Minnesota is not the first place I’d think of when searching for gold. Better odds, maybe, of finding Forrest Fenn’s treasure chest.
Forrest Fenn’s Treasure Chest
Longevity
Don’t you wonder what secrets to a long and happy life Forrest Fenn might share? (In addition to being extremely fortunate in the outcome of his flying career, I mean.)
100 years ago
So, I asked him. Diet? Exercise? Are you some sort of vegan?
His response:
This old lady was asked that question. She said she drank 4 Dr. Peppers a day since she was 8 years old. She said her doctors promised she would die at an early age if she didn’t stop. She said, “I’m 104 years-old, still drinking 4 Dr. Peppers a day and my doctors are all dead.”
Wiki-link — Dr Pepper Interesting: they sued Coca-Cola back in the fifties.
Once, at the county fair, I tossed rings and won a couple large, glass bottles of Dr Pepper. I had to give them to my brother because I couldn’t stand the flavor; tasted too much like prune juice? Like a lot of other fine things, I acquired a taste for it later in life.
Happy hunting, all!
Portal
I won’t be making it to this year’s Fennboree, but if I could, I would take a moment in Santa Fe to get a look at an ancient wrought iron gate on East Palace Avenue, the site where dozens if not hundreds of scientists, mathematicians, and physicists, after meeting with gatekeeper Dorothy McKibben, disappeared from sight beginning in April 1943.
(Well, first I might stop at that French pastry shop at La Fonda where Amy bought those gorgeous treats for Forrest’s book signing last September.)
Said portal transported those invited to the site of the Los Alamos Ranch School on a mesa in New Mexico. You probably know (part of) the rest of the story, but for me, I learned a lot from a book called Bomb, by Steve Sheinkin, my newest favorite non-fiction author. Wow. He used to write textbooks for schools but kept notes on all the things they wouldn’t let him put in–fascinating stuff I should have learned. Sheinkin puts it together in a compelling and quick read. (Young Adult level but hey, who’s got time for an academic treatise these days?)
So back to the story: the race between the Americans and the Germans to develop the bomb; some very, very brave Norwegians on a mission; the spies who wanted to steal the plans for Stalin; the guys who just wanted to give it to the Russians so there wouldn’t be only one superpower in possession of the new and terrible weapon of mass destruction.
When I was young, my ideas of Russian spies were partly based on Boris and Natasha, and hearing intimations about the McCarthy era excesses. Somehow my public school history classes never got much past the Civil War by the end of the school year, hence the black holes in my knowlege. (No, that’s not a typo; it’s spelled Fenn’s way.)
[Side note: There was a Rocky and Bullwinkle episode titled Buried Treasure. Hmm. Frostbite Falls?]
I could also rave about Sheinkin’s newest book, Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret Viet Nam War. I have no excuse for not knowing or remembering more about the topic, having been of school age when it was in the newspapers, except that the facts didn’t all make it into the media at the time. I wish that weren’t still true. History gives us perspective if we’d only choose to look at the parallels in our own day. Does your view of Ellsberg color your impression of Snowden? What caused Benjamin Arnold to switch sides? Had you even heard of the Port Chicago 50?
Do you agree with Abraham Lincoln?
“I am a firm believer in the people. If given the truth, they can be depended upon to meet any national crisis. The great point is to bring them the real facts.”
(Check out Steve Sheinkin’s other books like King George: What Was His Problem? or The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights or Lincoln’s Grave Robbers, etc.)
April is Not the Cruelest Month
Lake Michigan
Wishing hoping and praying for the safety of Randy and all those out searching for him.
Randy’s well thumbed copy of The Thrill of the Chase
The Fenn Diagrams 