GC Bowling Mystery Cache

It has been over eight years since I played the memorable hand of poker chronicled in GC Poker. I figured that nothing like that would ever happen to me again, until a courier from Federal Express rang my doorbell one day recently. She handed me an ornate envelope, addressed in gold leaf and sealed with a wax medallion. Inside was a thick sheet of linen paper that carried eight lines of hand-written calligraphy. No browser font can do it justice, but it looked something like this:

I was on the next plane to Washington. When I arrived at my appointment the following day, I was escorted by a security guard to a long, narrow room that contained a single regulation bowling lane. The three men and one woman in the room nodded to me. They were ready to roll.

First up was a thin man. He rolled a ball with the most extreme hook I have ever seen. You probably won't believe this, but the ball was moving perpendicular to the boards when it reached the pins. It toppled the headpin and rolled into the gutter, leaving the other nine pins untouched. The man turned and grinned at me.

Welcome Mr. Lesdubois. My name's James Crutchfield. I'm sure you've read my paper on the economics of ocean resources in the most recent issue of the Transactions of the American Ocean Geography Consortium. The editors of TAOGC and the faculties of Georgetown and Cornell all agree that I have no peer in the field of oceanography. After you've seen the three hacks in this room in action, you'll no doubt agree that I have the same standing in the field of bowing. I can't imagine you've ever seen a nine pin leave quite like that!

Indeed, I hadn't. James turned, smoothly rolled a second ball, and picked up his spare.

Next up was a man with a bushy black beard. He rolled a sharp hook that veered to the left side of the lane, then straightened out and hugged the edge of the gutter. The ball popped the 7 pin into the air, which flipped end over end to the right, taking out the 10 pin and no others. The bearded man pointed at James, nodded his head vigorously, and spoke rapidly for ten seconds in a language I couldn't identify. Then he turned to me and spoke in a Russian accent.

I'm happy to meet you Mr. Lesdubois. I'm V.G. Kort. As I'm sure you realize now, Crutchfield there is full of himself. He is the only person I know who would be proud of publishing in TAOGC, which as everyone knows is a step down from self publishing on the Web. You can enjoy my most recent work in the far more respected Journal of Grandiose Conjectures. My meteorological and hydrophysical investigations in the Atlantic have established strong evidence for the existence of extra-terrestrial life. Put that together with my bowling and you'll conclude that Dr. Crutchfield—and I use that term loosely—doesn't deserve to be in the same room with me.

His back to the pins, V.G. threw a ball without looking and completed his spare.

The next bowler was the woman, who had bright red hair. She picked up an eight-pound ball and rolled it extremely slowly. The four bowlers exchanged rapid fire trash talk in the 30 seconds it took the ball to travel down the lane. The ball dealt a glancing blow to the headpin, which tipped over on its side, rotated three times, and nudged the 7 pin into the gutter. After bouncing off the headpin, the ball rolled and wobbled erratically until it ticked against the 10 pin, somehow knocking it over too. The three corner pins were gone; the other seven pins remained standing. The room fell silent. The woman faced me and spoke with a southern accent.

Thank you for coming, Mr. Lesdubois. My name's Tamara Britton. Crutchfield and Kort, bless their hearts, sure are impressed with their academic accomplishments. Land sakes, those papers they're so proud of have probably had a combined readership of 20 people. My four-part documentary on the Red Sea that aired on the Geography Channel last month was watched by millions. My viewers know that I'm the all-time greatest expert on the Red Sea, even counting Moses. And I reckon that I bowl a sight better than Moses too, seeing how he's dead and all.

Tamara laughed at her joke as she non-nonchalantly flipped a ball down the lane, easily taking out the rest of the pins.

The fourth bowler, who was at least seven feet tall, selected a 16-pound ball and took his stance. Before beginning his approach, though, he addressed everyone.

I'm going to take out the 5 pin, leaving the other nine standing.

The other three bowlers gasped audibly, as did I. The 5 pin, of course, sits in the center of the triangle formed by the other nine pins. It is impossible to hit the 5 pin without hitting at least one other pin first.

The tall man sidearmed his ball down the lane. The ball didn't even contact the boards until it was halfway to the pins. All ten pins exploded into the air. Incredibly, nine of them landed back on their starting spots. Only the 5 pin was missing. The tall man spoke calmly.

Greetings, Mr. Lesdubois. Peter Grose is my name. Journal papers are cute, and so are documentaries. Nothing against the other three—they do the best they can with their limited abilities—but you'll be hearing my name quite often in the future, as in the Grose Center for Petroleum Research. The GCPR is being funded by Exxon because they were so pleased with the conclusions I reached when studying the impact of spilled oil on the fisheries of Greenland. The fisheries were substantially improved, as it turns out. Perhaps we should try spilling petroleum on the others' bowling balls.

I didn't even bother watching as Peter wrapped up his spare.

The rest of the game passed in a blur. It was a mixture of incredible bowling and over-the-top braggadocio. It soon became apparent that none of the four were trying for a high score; instead, they were constantly trying to top one another with ridiculous shots.

No one ever rolled a strike, probably because strikes are kind of boring. As I've already told you, all four made spares in the first frame. When it was all over, though, there was only one clean game. The remaining three lines contained one mark, four marks, and seven marks. Three of the balls resulted in scores of zero, but they weren't ordinary misses. Each one was a different highly creative way of missing all the pins.

We all sat in silence for about a minute after the last pin fell. Finally James spoke.

Mr. Lesdubois, we asked you here because we want you to create a new puzzle cache called GC Bowling. In the listing, describe what you saw and heard today. Let the last two digits of my final score be AB; of V.G.'s, CD; of Tamara's, EF; and of Peter's, GH. Hide your final wherever you like, and publish posted coordinates that are DBCA feet south and HFGE feet west of the final.

When I sheepishly told the bowlers that I could remember very little about the scoring, V.G. reassured me.

That is not a problem, Mr. Lesdubois. I will post a puzzle on my geocaching.com profile page, the solution to which will be my line from today's game. The others will do the same.

I was about to ask the obvious question, but Tamara spoke first.

When you visit our profiles, you'll see that none of us have ever placed or even found a cache. We have more important things to do, like play Pokemon Go. We cache vicariously through people like you.

I asked the four of them for their geocaching names. Peter answered.

Ah, but that would make it too easy. Let's just say that we've left a trail of graham cracker crumbs. Now I'm afraid it's time for you to go. Thank you again for coming, and please do as we have asked.

And so I did.