Special Notes that have nothing to do with the puzzle: So, we are finally cleaning up from the Baby Shower. Thanks so much to those who attended and thanks for all the wonderful gifts! They will go to good use. We did have one unintended leftover:
And we have one gift that we weren't able to determine the giver of:
Okay, the puzzle starts here:
I think historically the first puzzle of the year has been relatively easy, but looking back over the past year, it just seemed like this was the best time to launch this puzzle. So, this might be a little harder than a typical January KPC. Happy New Year!
Special Notes about the 2017 Puzzle Challenge: To be considered for Fastest Solver points, you must verify your solution with Certitude. Finders will receive Top Finder points when submitting Found It logs to the cache page. All "point" scoring is arbitrary, subject to change, at the discretion of the cache owner, and probably completely meaningless (unless you just want to be announced sooner at the celebration party, if there even is a celebration party). The real challenge is to see whether I will have enough time to create a puzzle each month this year! To maintain fairness, hints should not be offered by the cache owner or other solvers until the fifteenth of the month.
Special Notes about this month's cache: There is no public parking that I know of anywhere near the cache; so I've rated the terrain higher. Cachers with personal drivers (or maybe using some kind of limo service) will find the cache to be closer to 1/1.5 once the coordinates are known. There is no need to trade for the cache prizes. One of them is specially marked for the FTF. Please try to keep the cache well covered to protect it from the elements.
You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.