Throughout its history, the United States Postal Service has made many changes to try to make mail delivery more efficient. Some of these involve standardizing the way addresses are written, so that sorting letters can be done more quickly. Zip Codes are the best known examples of this; it's much easier for the sorters to decide which bin to put a letter in if it has a zip code than if it just has the name of some small town that they've never heard of. In addition, there are 2-letter abbreviations for the U.S. states and territories, like AK for Alaska and GU for Guam. There are also standard abbreviations for types of roads and geographical features that commonly occur in addresses, like VLY for Valley and STRA for Stravenue.
Unfortunately, many people are unaware of these, so mail sorters still have to deal with nonstandard abbreviations, like CR, which could mean Creek or Crescent or Crossing. This slows down everyone's mail, and adds to the cost of postage.
To increase awareness of the preferred forms for addresses, the U.S. Postmaster General recently went on a 15-state speaking tour, starting in Virginia (VA) and ending in Delaware (DE). He arranged his tour so that the last letter of the 2-letter abbreviation for each state that he spoke in was the same as the first letter of the abbreviation for the next state. For example, if he spoke in Vermont (VT) he could have gone to either Tennessee (TN) or Texas (TX) next.
This cache is based on the Postmaster General's tour. I've assigned a digit to each of the 50 states, as shown on the map below. Write down the digits of the states that he visited, in the order that he visited them, and you'll have the 15 digits of the cache coordinates.
In case you have trouble with the picture, here's a plain-text version of the abbreviations and numbers:
AK O HI O ME 7 NJ 6 SD 3
AL O IA 8 MI 6 NM 8 TN 2
AR O ID 1 MN 1 NV 2 TX 5
AZ 6 IL 8 MO 1 NY 7 UT 3
CA 7 IN 1 MS 3 OH 5 VA 4
CO 9 KS 4 MT 1 OK 9 VT 4
CT 3 KY 5 NC 9 OR 2 WA 9
DE 2 LA 4 ND O PA 6 WI 6
FL 9 MA 5 NE 3 RI 4 WV 7
GA 8 MD 7 NH 2 SC 8 WY 5
If you think you've figured out the coordinates, you can check them with certitude:
You can also see who else has solved the puzzle. Note: You can remain anonymous if you want to; incorrect guesses are always anonymous. (Puzzle makers, you can create your own certitude links here.)
Or you can check your coordinates here: Geochecker.com.
The cache is a camo'd match container, with only a logsheet and a pencil.
Congratulations to V4-Squad for FTF!