Don't Use Cross Words With Me! Mystery Cache

A few months back, we encountered a crossword puzzle in the newspaper, which literally left us scratching our heads; some of the answers just didn't seem to make any sense! Eventually, we managed to finally figure out what the puzzle author had done; it was evil!

Ever since we completed that crossword puzzle, we knew that we somehow had to find a way to incorporate the concept into a geocaching puzzle. After a lot of hard work (and a lot of struggling), we finally succeeded! Now, you too have the opportunity to share in the fun.

To determine the real cache coordinates, you must complete the crossword puzzle shown below. Some of the squares have been shaded yellow; those values will be plugged into the following formulas below, to complete the cache coordinates:

NOTE (4/23/2010): There is a mistake in the clue for 13 across; it should read "It equals 2.54 cm". Sorry for the mistake!!

To determine the final cache coordinates, you will need to use information from the completed crossword puzzle. The formulas below will tell you which squares in the crossword puzzle need to be used; the notation is (19D1), which indicates "19 down, square 1, while (18A3) indicates "18 across, square 3. When using letters from the crossword puzzle, you will need to first convert them to numbers (ie. A=0, B=1, ... J=9, K=0, ...).

Here are the formulas you will need to complete:

Once you have solved all of the formulas, you will plug the resulting values into the following pattern:

N AB CD.EFG W HIJ KL.MNO

You are looking for a file canister; you will want to bring your own pen or pencil! The difficulty rating relates to solving the puzzle; finding the cache should be a piece of cake! FTF prize is a shiny new $1 coin (courtesy of our friends LiefPhotos and Momiji_Fan). There is a little turn-out near the cache; please be sure to use it ... don't park along the road, since there is a lot of traffic in the area, and you don't want to block the bike lane. Due to the traffic in the area, please use stealth when retrieving this cache!

Good luck!