Welcome to the Farewell to Finder’s Fest geo-art, brought to you by the Forest Minions! This series celebrates weird and unusual things throughout the Sunshine State. Please do not go to the posted locations. Rather, solve the challenging quiz found at the bottom of each page, for the final location. For the letterbox caches, please leave the stamp in the cache. They are not trade items. For the discerning traveler, we’ve included the GPS coordinates for these bizarre locations, when we were able to establish them.
Memorial to Southern Rock – Location 30.1818, -81.7391
On October 20, 1977, an airplane flying the group Lynyrd Skynrd from South Carolina crashed in a swamp near Gillsburg, Mississippi. Killed in the crash were lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines, vocalist Cassie Gaines, assistant manager Dean Kilpatrick, and the pilots Walter McCreary and William Gray. The crash was blamed on a miscalculation of fuel and mechanical problems that caused a rapid increase in fuel consumption. The plane had literally run out of fuel.
Ronnie Van Zant and the Gaines were buried in the Jacksonville Memory Gardens in Orange Park. The site is easily recognized by a large mausoleum etched with the band’s Freebird symbol. In the summer of 2000 someone vandalized the graves pulling out the casket of Ronnie Van Zant and dumping Steve Gaines ashes on the ground. As a result of the vandalism the Freebird musicians were moved to a secret resting place. Today you can still see the mausoleum and the other markers where fans still place flowers, but there is no one buried there.
Here is the super duper, way challenging, really hard trivia question, which, if solved properly, will lead you to the final coordinates:
Question: The Capitol building of this US state is covered in the equivalent of 5 million pennies worth of copper.
A: Mordor = N29° 29.260' W81° 48.197'
B: Hogwarts = N29° 29.250' W81° 48.197'
C: Arizona = N29° 29.240' W81° 48.197'