This is a puzzle cache originally created by Fugads. The story below is entirely fictional. No geocachers were subjected to Monopoly in the making of this puzzle.
"Do any of you need a refill on your drinks?"
The group of four geocachers looked up from their game, thoughts momentarily interrupted by the waitress's question. A monopoly board was laid out in front of them, and they had already been there for 3 hours, much longer than the rest of the geocachers who came to the TVG Game Night event. Fatigue was beginning to show, but they were so far into the game that none of them were about to give up and go just yet.
"I'll have another diet coke," Ol'Fogie said, then made a roll of the dice, a seven. The others politely shook their heads as the waitress took the empty glass. "Dang, it, looks like I'll have to pay another monster rent, this time for your Marvin." Geologynut smirked as he handed him over the play money.
"Don't worry, it's all going to my geocaching gas budget," Geologynut replied. "I'll need it to even have a chance at competing with you for any of these FTF opportunities that have been coming up. There seems to be no bounds to how far you'll drive for that magical blank log." He scooped up the dice and rolled a four.
"What goes around comes around doesn't it Geologynut," Black●Dot chimed in, as Geologynut pushed his car figurine forward. "New York Ave. Kind of cool how Oak Ridge also has a New York Ave. Hey, I wonder if you could come up with some kind of cool puzzle cache in town that used a Monopoly theme?" He collected the money from Geologynut and then rolled the dice, an eleven. He shifted the thimble forward. "Looks like I owe you something for this stop Quarter-Master".
"A mere pittance my friend. So how would a puzzle cache using Monopoly work?" questioned Quarter-Master as he took his turn and rolled a snake eyes. "Oh crumbs," he muttered and handed over some colored money to Ol'Fogie after trotting his dog figuring two measly spaces. "You better role an eight, Ol'Fogie, so I can get that back."
"Maybe the puzzle cache could involve visiting a certain number of houses or hotels on various streets, and then tallying up the amount of dollars such visits would cost in Monopoly," Ol'Fogie suggested, and then groaned as he rolled an eight. Luckily he had a decent pile of money in front of him and began counting out a bunch of bills to pay Quarter-Master.
"That would be really hard to work out," added Geologynut, rolling a ten. "I mean, there are a limited number of values on these properties and getting them to add up to some meaningful coords would be tough. And you might need to add up to tens of thousands to get to someplace decent for hiding a cache."
Black●Dot took the dice and rolled out a five. "Blast, now I'm almost broke," he lamented as he shelled out several bills to Geologynut. "Well, it might take a considerable amount of effort, but there is probably a way to do it."
"The thing is," added Quarter-Master, snatching up the dice and rolling an eight, "I'm not sure that many geocachers would be be interested in it. Seems like not many cachers around here even bother for the puzzles. That's why we make most of our caches traditional, even if they involve a field puzzle." He paid his rent and handed the dice to Ol'Fogie.
"Well, that's a self-fulfilling prophecy; if no one creates interesting puzzle caches, then there are less good puzzles for people to try and like. And we all know that geocachers mainly create the kinds of caches that they like best." He paused as the waitress handed him his refill, and took a long swig before making a dramatic toss of the dice onto the table. They almost rolled right off, but stopped just shy of the edge and underneath a napkin. "Please be anything but snake eyes". Black●Dot made an abracadabra motion with his hands and pulled off the napkin. Snake eyes! "Oh man, there goes the game..."
Enjoy and happy hunting!
Ol'Fogie
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