Post by dmikester on Jan 3, 2018 14:34:03 GMT -5
So this is something very different from the usual thing here, but it's something I discovered last year and highly enjoy, and I thought it might interest some of you. It's a bit hard to explain, so bear with me.
Basically, you're going on a cross-country road trip through the United States using the most recent US Atlas, and have to follow vague instructions and answer questions along the way in the contest booklet. For example, it may say "Turn left on multilane highway, then go east at the first unincorporated town." Then it could have a question such as, "Do you see the Winchester Mystery House?" and give you multiple choice answers to choose from. It's immensely challenging and it requires a lot of patience and very careful attention paid to its instructions, and it often tries to trick you with its directions and with its multiple choice answers so that you could easily choose the wrong thing. While it often frustrates me to no end, it's also super fun when you confidently get something right, and you pass through so many crazily named towns and areas which leads to fun research and learning about new places.
Again, this is quite different than what we usually discuss here, and there aren't puzzles in this per se, but I at least find it really rewarding and it's for sure something you could do with a group (I do it with my dad). It's also been running for, get ready, 55 years! They also do trivia competitions using the most recent Almanac, which I also highly enjoy taking part in, and a smaller version of the Massacre over the summer. Below is the link with more info; you can still enter this year's competition until Valentine's Day:
home.earthlink.net/~oldmaltese/Massacre.html
Basically, you're going on a cross-country road trip through the United States using the most recent US Atlas, and have to follow vague instructions and answer questions along the way in the contest booklet. For example, it may say "Turn left on multilane highway, then go east at the first unincorporated town." Then it could have a question such as, "Do you see the Winchester Mystery House?" and give you multiple choice answers to choose from. It's immensely challenging and it requires a lot of patience and very careful attention paid to its instructions, and it often tries to trick you with its directions and with its multiple choice answers so that you could easily choose the wrong thing. While it often frustrates me to no end, it's also super fun when you confidently get something right, and you pass through so many crazily named towns and areas which leads to fun research and learning about new places.
Again, this is quite different than what we usually discuss here, and there aren't puzzles in this per se, but I at least find it really rewarding and it's for sure something you could do with a group (I do it with my dad). It's also been running for, get ready, 55 years! They also do trivia competitions using the most recent Almanac, which I also highly enjoy taking part in, and a smaller version of the Massacre over the summer. Below is the link with more info; you can still enter this year's competition until Valentine's Day:
home.earthlink.net/~oldmaltese/Massacre.html