In the midst of this summer’s Pokémon Go craze, what are Rich and I wandering around town looking for? Not Pokémon, but architectural treasures!

We first found out about Montrose’s Architectural Treasure Hunt at last year’s Blueberry Festival. The hunt had officially begun in June, but we had all of an hour (while mom was waiting probably not-so-patiently in the car) to run around town examining houses and storefronts for architectural elements that matched the closeup photos on the clue brochure. Out of 35 clues we found all but nine before the deadline, and we found a few later at home using Google Street View, but we were still bummed that we had to leave without finding everything.

This year, thanks to Lisa at the Susquehanna County Historical Society, who sent us a PDF of the clue brochure, we were able to get an earlier start. Google Street View was our friend again; we found eight of the elements without even leaving home. Today we set out to find the rest!

Dad was working today and couldn’t come with us, and I’m sure we could have used his help. We walked this year’s search area—the length of Church Street between Pickett and Maple Streets—four times, eventually accumulating the answers to all but four clues. And they’re driving us nuts!

As we found some of the elements that had initially eluded us, we noticed how much we were influenced by our preconceptions of shape and scale, and even color, and how different a small piece can look when it’s isolated in a closeup rather than viewed in the context of the whole. It’s a fun challenge that becomes an exercise in perception (not to mention persistence!) once you fully commit to it.

Does anyone know what these could be, or where they could be?!

By the way, Rich gets full credit for the title PokéMontrose Go!