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Your online guide to the zaniness of the 1994 Tropic Hunt!
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When: 5/24/1994
Where: Coconut Grove
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| With this year\'s Hunt, GAMES magazine decides to get into the fray and help sponsor the Hunt. And who can blame them? I\'d been a avid reader of the magazine for a long time, and they\'re participation was great. \nCoconut Grove holds lots of events throughout the year, the Coconut Grove Art Festival being the most notable. So if the Grove can close everything down and be a host to hundreds of thousands, what\'s the matter with about 10-20 thousand people? \nNot much at all! And these thousands were entertained by the likes of seeing Coconut Grove be turned into a giant billiards table, running around a wire fence maze with comic strips on the sides, doing a special version of the square dance…and more… \nI got all the clues to this one, and I also got the final clue that told us what to do…the only problem was that everyone else seemed to get it as well, and the final puzzle site was just overwhelmed with people. Which is why the guy who won this year\'s Hunt rented a small boat to get where he needed to be…and then won… \nThis was probably the easiest Hunt ever. And the folks at Tropic Magazine certainly weren\'t going to let THAT happen again! |
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The Initial Puzzles
NOTE: The puzzle answers are hidden! In order to see them, you must highlight them with your mouse to reverse the text!
1. Ralph, a South Florida motorist, finds that he needs an average of three bullets per day for his commute to and from work. On Monday morning, he sees that he has only seven bullets; how many additional bullets will Ralph need to purchase to have an adequate supply for the five-day work week?
D - 365
L - five cases of buckshot, three grenades and a rocket launcher
I - 8
Answer: I
2. Which of the following phrases can the letters in "Florida State Legislature" be rearranged to spell?
E - "A distasteful gorilla tree"
F - "Total idle ferret gala is us"
K - "Flatulators Disagree Lite"
M - All of the above
Answer: M
3. What do people in the rest of the United States call "Palmetto bugs"?
N - "Spot"
P - "Geraldo"
S - "Cockroaches"
Answer: S
4. It's 9 a.m., and Bill, a Dade County Building inspector, must inspect 250 new homes before he can play golf. Given that Bill has developed a way to inspect 100 new homes per hour, what is the earliest tee time he can reserve?
H - 5 p.m.
I - 3:15 p.m.
J - 11:30 a.m.
Answer: J
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Main Puzzles (i.e. the puzzle sites)
NOTE: Puzzle answers and their descriptions are hidden! In order to see them, you must highlight them with your mouse to reverse the text!
Puzzle: The Radio Puzzle
Location: Main intersection in Coconut Grove
Description:
At the Grove's major intersection, four large signs with colored numbers had been set up at the compass points. Beneath each sign was written, "It's not LOVE, It's Body Heat."
Related puzzle photos and materials...
Puzzle Answer: 23
How to get the answer:
Hunters knew the official radio station for Hunt announcements was LOVE 94, which broadcasts at 93.9 FM. You had to figure out that you needed to tune your radio to another frequency, 98.6 (body temperature) to solve the puzzle. On 98.6, a loop played dave Barry calling a square dance tune. Here's one verse: FIRST TURN TO THE NUMBER THAT'S WRITTEN IN RED; AND PUT THAT NUMBER IN YOUR HEAD. NOW I WANT YOU ALL TO PLEASE; TURN TO YOUR LEFT, NINETY DEGREES
Puzzle: The Fence Puzzle
Location: Peacock Park
Description:
Hunters arrived at Peacock Park to discover a huge chainlink fence, hundreds of feet long and 10 feet high. Hunt along the fence were bigger-than-life-size panels from a bizarre cartoon. The panels were obviously connected: something about the beautiful widow of a murdered socialite, a rubber chicken, and a secret passion. But they were all mixed up.
Puzzle Answer: 15
How to get the answer:
Putting the panels in proper order was the first task. That accomplished, you had to realize that the cartoon was done in the same style as the one on the cover of Tropic. On the cover, the first letter of each text block and dialogue was highlighted in bold type. The bold letters spelled: HINT. The "hint" was designed to tell Hunters to take the first letters of all text boxes from the comic panels on the fence. The letters, arranged in proper order, spelled: IMAGINE AN AERIAL VIEW OF THIS FENCE. If you did this, you realized that from the air, the fence would spell out 45 / 3. The solution to the clue was 15.
Puzzle: The Flag Puzzle
Location: Coconut Grove Convention Center
Description:
(Puzzle Description & Answer courtesy of Mia Hess. THANKS MIA!)
It used the marine flag symbols on the Coconut Grove Convention Center along with some pictures to make rhombuses.
Related puzzle photos and materials...
Puzzle Answer: 126
How to get the answer:
A key to the meaning of the flags was included in the Tropic magazine. I don't remember all of the answers right off hand but I do remember these:
1st flag = picture of 2 Goodyear blimps
2nd flag = picture of 2 miners
3rd flag = the word bad
4th flat = 1,1,1,1,1
The solution for this part was" Good years minus bad ones".
The next part of the puzzle included the pictures and flags to indicate dates in history. The good dates you added up and the bad dates you subtracted to get your answer number.
I can't remember the order of the dates but I can remember this much:
Picture of Michael Landon and a cartoon of someone with their pants down which equaled the year we landed on the Moon" (Landon Moon), 1969. a "good" year.
Picture of an oyster with a pearl and picture of Harpo Marx. Equated to year of Pearl Harbor, 1942, a "bad" year.
Flag that equaled a black box and a flag that equaled the word "Two, Too, To ", and a flag that equaled Doris Day, all of which which was to be interpreted as "Black Tuesday ", the day the stock market crashed in 1929, a "bad year". (This was actually a mistake. The day the stock market crashed was actually called Black Thursday.)
Cartoon of a pair of adult diapers on a person which matched an advertisement in the Tropic magazine for Depends and a flag that equaled a picture of Doris Day. This all stood for Independence Day (in Depends Day) in the year 1776, a good year.
The final answer was then:
(1969+1776) - (1942-1929) = minus 126
Puzzle: Pool Table
Location: All over Coconut Grove
Description:
Giant inflatable pool balls, 12 feet in diameter, were seemingly randomly scattered around Coconut Grove. The Hunt map in Tropic Magazine had borders that looked like a pool table, including bumpers and pockets. The tip of a cue stick pointed directly at the infield of the Peacock Park baseball diamond. Overlaying the map with the locations of the giant pool balls, the cue stick was aimed at the cue ball towards a corner pocket. However, the obvious balls did not line up with the cue ball/corner pocket.
Related puzzle photos and materials...
Puzzle Answer: 13
How to get the answer:
You had to find the missing ball by walking the Grove from the cue ball walking towards the corner pocket. Hidden away on a small tennis court at Oak Avenue, behind the Mayfair shopping mall, there was a 13-ball, directly on line to the corner pocket. The answer was 13.
Puzzle: The Tropic Hunt Vision Test
Location: South Bayshore Drive
Description:
Along South Bayshore, there was a banner advertising free Tropic Hunt vision tests. The test consisted of a card covered with an odd pattern of colored dots, called a stereogarm. If you focused about a foot behind the surface of the card, a three-dimensional image would appear. The image was of five complete bare feet, and one half of a bare foot.
Related puzzle photos and materials...
Puzzle Answer: 66
How to get the answer:
5 and a half feet = 66 inches. The correct answer was 66.
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The Clues
13. Won tube tree fort fife sicks (BLANK) ate.
15. Me and Uncle Lem told Bo he better not let Arn find out about what Vester did to them heifers.
23. Aunt Esther's knuckle broke when she punched the missile. Also, most of Cleveland was vaporized.
66. When we told you to "pasteurize" the milk, we did NOT mean "mix it with hay."
-125. For safety reasons, we are requesting that all passengers carry a live goat.
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The Final Puzzle
NOTE: The final puzzle description is hidden! In order to see them, you must highlight them with your mouse to reverse the text!
The Final Puzzle:
The final clue was broadcast at 4pm:
Choose your words carefully: Orange and white; blue; red and white; red; green.
Final puzzle photos and materials...
Solving the Hunt:
Who won (Congratulations!):
First Place Team
Dr. Ron Scelfo, Palm Beach Gardens
Andres Fraga, Hallandale
Michael Berger, Miami Beach
Second Place Team
Tom Streit, Jupiter
Andy Streit, Miami
Dan Streit, Miami
Third Place Team
Mindy Pollack, Webster, Texas
Mark Engelberg, Webster, Texas
Brian O'Neil, Houston, Texas
Robin Zinger, Delray Beach
Fourth Place Team
Carlos Hernandez, Coral Gables
Isabel Hernandez, Coral Gables
Tatianna Martinez, Miami
Christina Kitz, Coral Gables
Fifth Place Team
Sixto Ferro, Coral Gables
Carmen Carreras, Coral Gables
Otto Boudet, Miami
Rodolfo Terrada, Miami
Sixth Place Team
Jose Estevez, Miami
Hugo Boniche, Miami
Susy Hoyos, Miami
Sandy Falcon, Miami
Emilio Estevez, Miami Beach
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Articles/Ads
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Photos, articles, stories and other multimedia related to the hunt...
CLICK HERE TO BROWSE PHOTOS FOR 1994!
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