PokéMontrose Go?—The Exciting Conclusion

There was no way Rich or I would be satisfied leaving four of the Architectural Treasure Hunt clues a mystery. We were still confused by the mention of three “bonus clues” inside the museum-could they possibly be three of the clues on the brochure? (Which, in our minds, would not technically make them bonus clues, but it would account for most of the items we were unable to find along Church Street.)

One evening I checked the website of the Susquehanna County Historical Society to see if they had posted an update about the hunt. They had! And it said, Don’t forget there are three items hidden within the museum to find!

The woman at the historical society who had originally sent me the brochure was happy to clear up the confusion (and to let me know that we weren’t the only ones confused by their choice of words). By e-mail she confirmed that yes indeed, three clues on the brochure were hidden inside the museum. Our plans for this morning were thus settled.

When we walked into the museum we interrupted a meeting (I don’t think any of the participants minded). They were so excited to see that we were working on the Treasure Hunt. One woman even said “It’s our version of Pokémon!” (She apparently didn’t make the leap to PokéMontrose.)

A quick stroll around the museum gave us all the information we needed on three of the items. They were not at all what we expected! The one that looks like a bedpost is actually a small finial on top of a grandfather clock. The bowl with dragon heads for “handles” is a tiny salt dip about two inches across. And the wrought iron curlique is part of a weather vane.

Another lady was searching around the museum at the same time. We tried some clever misdirection. I don’t know how convincing Rich’s “hey, I think this is it!” from the opposite side of the room was, but it was funny!

That left one remaining clue to find on Church Street. It was the one we had suspected all along to be outside, but where was it and how had we missed it?! We walked the length of the street again, finding nothing until we reached the one building that we thought had to contain the missing feature … but we still couldn’t find it!

We scrutinized the structure and eventually went a little way into the adjacent driveway (which according to the directions we shouldn’t need to do). There it was!!! It was hiding very well. But could it actually be seen from the sidewalk? Why, yes it could – but only by walking a good distance down the sidewalk until it began to curve, and looking back at the building. That very tricky clue was one of our favorites. Once we found the damned thing, that is.

We submitted our completed brochures to the ladies at the museum, who were even more excited now that we had found everything.

Earlier in the morning we’d promised ourselves that if and only if we found all the items, we’d treat ourselves to some goodies from Chocolates by Leopold. We ended up with a pound box of assorted dark chocolates, plus other goodies like gummy watermelons and chocolate covered dried cherries. Very high-quality chocolate! We were impressed.

Lunch at McCormack’s at the Inn was a real treat too. It’s so cool that they have chicken spiedies on the menu! (A few times, years ago, we drove all the way up to Binghamton just to get spiedies at Lupos.) We were both tempted by the burgers and the spiedies; Rich ended up with the spiedie sandwich. I decided I wasn’t quite hungry enough for a burger so ordered the chicken salad instead, which was also awesome since it was made with cranberries and rosemary. Great combination! The fries and homemade chips were also excellent. We each had a pint of Guinness to round out the meal. (Tip: bring half of the chicken salad sandwich and half of the chips home, put them in the fridge chips and all, and have a great sandwich and phenomenal, slightly chewy, rosemary-infused chips the next day!)

You might think this was the end to the day’s adventures. We did too, until it occurred to us that we would be driving past a geocache that was published just a few days ago. It was a puzzle cache that we had already solved, and while we didn’t have the coordinates with us, we had a good idea where it was. Rich’s log below gives all the details. Long story short, we didn’t find it. We found something, but it turns out it wasn’t related to the cache at all. We also found an old PDH bench mark disk on a bridge nearby.