Ole Grammy Tara has raised and trained some of the greatest special agents this world has ever known. Even though none of them have ever worn tights or a cape, they all could be considered super heroes for the good deeds they've done to thwart the villains of the world. Her organization, known as "the family", has secret operations based in Texas, Pennsylvania and Florida, and Grammy Tara runs the main headquarters from a secret base hidden in an unknown location in Michigan.
Even though Grammy Tara loves all of her super-agent "family", there is a special place in her heart reserved just for her youngest and newest field agents. Known as the "Wonder Pets", her youngest field troopers have already saved more lives then the rest of the family combined. The youngest agent, code-named "Li'l Monstah", was only two years old when he became a superhero. The next Wonder Pet, code-named "Cheetah", was only six when she began her training. The last of the trio is known as "Monkey", and she was the eldest one at age seven when she first became a superhero.
None of the Wonder Pets share the same specific set of skills, but all possess the greatest assortment of abilities Grammy Tara has ever seen. Monkey is a puzzle-solving savant, a travel enthusiast with unlimited knowledge of geography, as well as being a math genius with advanced understanding of participles, gerunds and modifiers. She also has advanced grasps of calculus, specifically vector, differential equations and quantam mechanics. Cheetah is perhaps the most artistic of the team. She is a talented ballet dancer and food critic, with honorary degrees from three of the world's most esteemed culinary institutions. She also is an expert of abstract algebra, trigonometry, applied mathematics, fluid dynamics, and all physical sciences. Both the girls are also high-level jiu-jitsu experts capable of crippling a villain with one single blow to the neck, face or knee.
The most talented and perhaps the most dangerous of all the Wonder Pets is Li'l Monstah. A miscreant genius, he is an expert in chaos theory who occasionally fantasizes about using magnets to pull the earth out of its natural orbit from the sun just so he can attempt to time travel. Li'l Monstah is also profficient in fibers and filaments of all types. When he turned two he was given a set of mathematical building blocks and parlayed that into the first of his five math degrees within a week's time. He is also unrivaled in working with an array of geometric shapes that focuses mainly on triangles, squares and parallelograms. Even though he is the youngest family member, he has proven the most capable driver of the Pets. Despite his insistance to drive with sunglasses on even at night, Li'l Monstah's smooth driving has saved the kids from many close calls in a pinch.
Regardless of their different abilities, the three super-heroes also have much in common. They are all incredibly religious, each speak several foreign languages that include French, Spanish, German, Italian and also several Southeastern dialects. They all have advanced deciphering abilities. Each is also a talented musician: Li'l Monstah rocks the bassoon, Cheetah the clarinet, and Monkey masters the flute.
Every member of the "family" could see right away what a unique and tremendous team the Wonder Pets are, espcially after they thwarted eight attempts at world domination from evil villians within their first month in the field. Yet the children are also humble, and they credit their mommy, daddy and most of all Grammy Tara for helping them know everything they ever needed to learn.
It isn't always easy being a superhero as young as each of the Pets are. Between all of their extra-currlicular activities and the countless hours they spend fighting crime, it seems the kids have zero hours set aside each week to be children. Whenever Li'l Monstah can't get his hand's on daddy's car keys, the team is forced to ride their two bikes and a trike to the crime scene. They also have this thing called school which drags them down.
"Everything I ever needed to know I learned in kindergarten," claims Cheetah. Even though Li'l Monstah has yet to reach that grade level, both he and Monkey are in complete agreement with Cheetah when it comes to the school situation.
If the Wonder Pets run into an emergency that requires their immediate attention, they sometimes rely on their daddy to drive them to the location.
"Even though he can be like an albatross around our neck, we love when daddy comes with us," claims Monkey. "He may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, but our daddy makes up for it with his pizazz."
Ever since the Pets joined the "family", it has seemed like the whole world has been out of danger.
"Of course, that isn't really true though," Grammy Tara reminds the children. "For every villain we thwart, there are three who spring up in his place."
It was for this reason that Grammy Tara decided to teach the Pets about the secret society known as geocaching.
Having a geocaching professional like Grammy Tara teach the children could not have had a greater benefit!
"Out there in space are three to four different satellites that synche up with a GPS system," explained Grammy Tara after she presented the pets with their first GPSr. "These satellites help you triangulate the exact position to where members of our secret society hid a geocache. When you find the cache, you can sign the log sheet with your real name or with the code name you are known by. Even though this is something that will make you better superheroes, I am teaching you this game as a fun way to spend your time when you aren't thwarting the latest sinister organization."
Even though both the girls were all ears, Li'l Monstah had become bored and wandered off to play on a nearby jungle gym before Grammy Tara had explained very much of it. As is the case with most geniuses, he becomes bored very easily. Then, he had read all about geocaching in a recent article in "The New Yorker" (to which he is a regular contributor under an assumed name). But once the girls were finished hearing all about this fun game, they quickly created a profile on the geocaching website, then lured their little brother with promises of ice cream cones to celebrate once they made their first find, and then they were off.
In no time at all the children arrived, escorted by their daddy, to the scene of their first find. Although Grammy Tara had intentionally started them out with an easier hide, the Pets exceeded expectations again by finding their first geocache in a matter of seconds. Just like that all three children were hooked on caching. Whenever someone mentioned the word geocaching, the children became excited and drooled in anticipation as if they were in an experiment being conducted by Pavlov.
Every chance they got, the Pets would utilize their GPS to lead them to the next cache find. They celebrated finding the three Billy Goats Gruff by enjoying the carnival rides at Old Town. Their next time they got to witness a massive turtle sunning itself along a nature trail near Ground Zero. To help teach them how to incorporate their new geocaching skills into their assortment of crime-fighting abilities, Grammy Tara had the children cache with other members of the "family". Among those who joined the children were secret agents "Alex", "Josh" and "Cousin Johnny", who next led them down a nature trail, over a narrow rickety bridge that spans a raging river with only a vine rope to assist with balance, and then up a hill to the find. After all the work the Pets were thrilled to not have to log a DNF!
Over the next several months, the children increased the dificulty of their finds. They began to crack the most challenging puzzles in existence, and even made the FTF honor roll for a Red Otter puzzle. They followed that by earning their names on the plaque for the next few months. Li'l Monstah became bored with geocaching, and often when the girls looked for a new hide he stayed behind to enjoy his latest hobby -- sudoku.
Red Otter, ePeterso2, harper117, antimony, and the "Wonder Pets" have all proven to be the most sinister of the Broward Chapter of the Puzzle-Headed Weenies. Although Hugo Nyow may have already crossed paths with Grammy Tara in his world travels, he will certainly need more difficult puzzles then this to deserve entrance in the "family".
You can check your answers for this puzzle on Geochecker.com.
Congrats to sff for the FTF (3 months, what took ya so long?)