GC1QZW2 Heaven & Earth (Multi-cache) in Washington, United States created by globalgirl

This cache has been archived.

globalgirl: Out on a little maintenance run to my old geosandbox today and stopped by this one on my way home. And a jolly good thing I did 'cuz the entire ammo box (w/ the precious abacus) is utterly gone! [:(] Ah well, I'd planned to archive it anyway as I'm slowly archiving some of my hides to reflect my diminished interest in geocaching - leastwise locally.

GC1QZW2 ▼

A cache by globalgirl Message this owner

Hidden : 5/19/2009

Difficulty:

Terrain:

Size: Size: small (small)

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Geocache Description:

Leave it to the Chinese to dream up
the first PC a mere thousand or so years ago...

Granted, it doesn't stream a video of your latest find to your Twitter followers, but hey - when it comes to numbers crunching, the abacus is heralded by many as the precursor to the modern day laptop. Even today rural merchants in many Asian nations still use the abacus for tallying up market purchases. Indeed, when I visited a kindergarten in a commune on the outskirts of Beijing, the little Chinese tykes (in addition to playing the voilin!) were busily clicking their merry abacus beads.

The user of an abacus is called an abacist - one who slides the beads of the abacus by hand. And I invite you to finger the numbers to find this cache via just such an ancient widget.

On a Chinese abacus there are two beads on each rod in the upper deck ("Heaven"), and five beads on each rod in the bottom deck ("Earth"). Each "Heaven" bead is worth 5, and each lower "Earth" bead is worth 1. The beads are counted by moving them up or down towards the central beam.

Study the image above carefully as the beads on the 2 abacuses are already set to display the first waypoint of this multi cache. Note for example, that the ubiquitous N degrees for our little corner of the Planet are depicted on the left side of the abacus as 4 "Earth" beads against the central beam, and the 7 is depicted by sliding a single "Heaven" bead (worth 5) and two "Earth" beads towards the beam. Likewise for all the other digits that make up the North and West coordinates for waypoint 1.

Now it's your turn - when was the last time you moved "Heaven and Earth" to find a cache? Time to head out to the posted coordinates and finger your way to the final cache. Waypoint 1 is a lock 'n lock inside an ammo box (to best protect the precious beads) and the final is a small container tucked nearby.

Do be sure to watch for muggles as you fiddle with heaven and earth at the first waypoint. And likewise the final will no doubt be crawling w/ muggles, so do be discreet while searching/grabbing/returning the joy to its hiding place.

Special thanks to Dayspring for beta testing the beads!

Additional Hints (Decrypt)

qvtvgny ebbg sbe 15 qvtvg svany = 1

Decryption Key

A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M
-------------------------
N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z

(letter above equals below, and vice versa)