Offbeat Auburn, 21 April 2019

Adventures while walking about Auburn, Alabama and its environs...

21 April 2019

Puzzling Artifacts

In one of the video clips from my last post about trekking through Chewacla State Park I revisted a location where I had hidden a wooden plaque used in a past Puzzle Party of mine. After viewing that clip, my friend Tracy Cobbs (who attended nearly all of my Puzzle Parties) mentioned that I should write an Offbeat article in which I investigate how many such past Puzzle Party "artifacts" are still extant in and around Auburn.

This was a fabulous suggestion. I hosted Puzzle Parties in one form or fashion in Auburn from 2004 through 2017, and for most of them I sent participants scurrying about the city trying to find puzzles, placards, and stickers that I had hidden around town. Most of these artifacts were pretty temporary (small signs on rubberbands, stickers that barely lasted a week), but other such artifacts have managed to remain intact, more or less, and if a pedestrian in Auburn keeps his or her eyes peeled, then such treasures may be spotted here and there.

Below is a compilation of several video clips in which such artifacts are revisited. I start by replaying the one from my Chewacla excursion (that puzzle artifact was used for my 2010 Puzzle Party, Puzzle Marathon II). Most of the other stickers and plaques featured in the clips were part of my final three puzzle parties:

but the last clip actually features a fading remnant of an artifact that was used in the first puzzle hunt that required participants to run about town... way back in Fall of 2006.

I can think of a few more such artifacts that are probably still findable on the streets of Auburn, but I will save those investigations for a later Offbeat Auburn article...

Article Topics:
puzzle_parties

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