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Old Tyme Davis Mystery Cache

Hidden : 6/17/2009
Difficulty:
1.5 out of 5
Terrain:
1 out of 5

Size: Size:   micro (micro)

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Geocache Description:


THIS CACHE IS NOT AT THE STATED COORDINATES. YOU WILL NEED TO SOLVE A SIMPLE PUZZLE TO GET THE FINAL COORDINATES. DON'T CLOSE THE CACHE TOO TIGHTLY!

I've lived in Davis since the mid-90's. That's not long enough to make me an old-timer, but I do remember when the tomato cannery was still in operation. At harvest time the whole town would smell like tomato plants, and every freeway off-ramp would be decorated with piles of tomatoes spilled from the fleet of tomato trucks headed for the cannery. This cache's stated coordinates point to the tomato paste vat that's one of the few surviving remnants of the old cannery.

Old-timers also know the correct way to say certain Davis street names that newcomers invariably get wrong. If you have trouble with the puzzle, ask an old-timer!

There's an often-mispronounced street that rhymes with "toasty". Counting A as 1, B as 2 and so on, sum the value of the letters in that street's name. Multiply this value by the length of the name, divide by 1000 and subtract the result from the minutes of the West coordinate.

Another Davis street rhymes with "oval", but many people say it differently. Sum the value of the letters in this street's name in the same way. Append the digit 1 to the result and reverse it. Subtract this value from the thousandths of the North coordinate.

Let's make it easy. Here's an example. Suppose the street name turned out to be Alhambra. You'd sum 1+12+8+1+13+2+18+1, yielding 56. For the West coordinate offset you'd multiply that by the length, eight, yielding 448. So you'd subtract 0.448 from the West minutes. If this was for the North coordinate you'd append a 1 to 56 to derive 561 and reverse it to get 165. So you'd subtract 0.165 from the minutes of the North coordinate.

The cache itself should be an easy find once you work out the offset. Do watch out for muggles. It's on a busy street with cars, cyclists, and nearby residents, so use stealth.


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