Well, a new First has arrived, and so a new puzzle is here, even if it might not be the one you expected or were hoping for. Only the first is important. Or maybe the month is important. Or both. I'm sure you'll figure it out eventually.
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: I hid this one in the dark. I hope it's not too visible, and I hope it lasts long enough to be found, as I'm actually going to be out of town on the First. There is some dispute about the spelling on the last one (look it up, if you're interested); so, of course, I chose the version that worked for the puzzle. The other hosting site I use is still blocked; so hopefully people don't generate too many accesses to this one. Cache hide is lower as of 2/23/2018 (same coordinates). Hint has been updated in Certitude.
You can validate your puzzle solution with certitude.