Over the Moon by TC Treasure was one of the hunts released on March 20th for the 2022 Masquerade Tribute. The hunt was successfully solved, with proxy found and treasures claimed on March 27 (2022), by Matt Littlefield, Ed Brodie, and other teammates: Matthew Koskie, Steven Sanftner, and Mike Nowak. It was the second hunt of the 2022 Tribute’s Six Hunts for Charity to be solved. As of this writing, one remains to be solved.
Also, just as of this writing, I’m thrilled to announce the treasure hunting community has raised over $4,000 in the event! The monies are donated to four different charities: St Jude’s Hospital, The Humane Society, Autism Research, and TheSamFund (more on the charities here).
Cheers all around! To the creators, the winners, the donors, and to all those who help make this special event happen! It certainly is a community effort. Thank you.
I was so excited that TC Treasure was part of the 2022 Masquerade Tribute. The heart and skill TC Treasure puts into all of his hunts (which are year round!! Check them out) is exceptional! The 2022 Tribute was honored to have him on board! Those who took up the challenge of the hunt – Over the Moon – certainly appreciated the creativity of not only the puzzle, but of the prizes as well. This can be seen in the following six questions! Enjoy!
Six Questions on OVER THE MOON:
Congrats on a successful Treasure Hunt – to both TC TREASURE (the creator of the hunt), and to the Finders! First, let’s hear from TC TREASURE:
- 1Q) What inspired the theme for your treasure hunt and how did you go about creating the clues and deciding on the location of the hidden treasure proxy?
TC TREASURE Answers:
Thank you so much, Jenny—and congrats yourself, on 10 years of Mysterious Writings!
For this hunt, I actually began with the title. In fact, I first made a mental note regarding the phrase “over the moon” back in January of 2021, when I used the phrase in an answer to one of your Six Questions! I thought it sounded like a good name for a hunt—with a lot of different potential meanings and interpretations—so I sort of kept it in my back pocket; then, when you invited me to get involved with this year’s Masquerade Tribute, I figured it was the perfect time to figure out how that theme might best unfold.
So I enlisted past TC Treasure finders Josh Ellingson and Craig Heinen to the “writing room” and explained how I might like to use the phrase as a theme—probably something to do with the “Hey Diddle Diddle” nursery rhyme. We began brainstorming ideas and researching potential locations; one rabbit hole led to another and, as often occurs, the perfect hiding spot emerged: What if we hid it in the same park that contains the Apollo 8 command module?
We bandied back and forth on the idea for about a week before committing to the spot, then set to work on designing the rest of the hunt; I made a mid-March trip to Chicago to hide the cache on Jackson Park’s Wooded Island, and the rest of the story belongs to the finders!
Visit the site of TC TREASURE for download:
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So let’s hear from two of the finders: Matt Littlefield and Ed Brodie!
- 2Q) How did you get started in armchair treasure hunting, and what do you enjoy most about the hobby?
Matt answers: The solve we had for Rex’s Adventure would have been my first real armchair experience. I’ve always been more of the ‘boots on the ground’ type. As I have been looking for more hunts recently armchair is definitely coming more into play.
Ed answers: I started as a BOTG hunter, we are blessed to have so many annual hunts here in Minnesota.
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- 3Q) Would you have any advice for those new to the ventures?
Matt: Stay on it. Its takes awhile to get in the groove. The answers won’t come to you instantly but once you get in the rhythm-nothing can stop you!
Ed: Keep trying, I didn’t find my first treasure for several years.
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- 4Q) How did you get together as a team to work on discovering the OVER THE MOON treasure?
Matt: I have been working with Ed for about 3 years now and he is the first person I met when I really started to get into hunting.
We all know each other through the local hunting scene here in Twin Cities. We talk during hunts and even when there is nothing really going on. There is always some combo of us looking for something.
Ed: I asked a few friends of they would like to join and we all teamed up.
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- 5Q) Will you share some of the main clues leading you to the treasure, and how the team solved them? Was there any ‘aha’ moment?
Matt: We knew we were looking for a place with a connection to Phoenix, and US Army Corps of engineers. We had a bunch of theories for both. Then the whole space theme got us to the Apollo missions.
I had the ‘aha’ moment driving home from work. While don’t recommend driving and hunting…I was doing some voice googles on the ride home. I was focused on finding an Apollo 8 shuttle link to a location. Then I started thinking “where is that shuttle now??”. My results pointed me in the direction of Chicago. I noticed Jackson park connected to the museum, and a closer look revealed a Phoenix Garden. I knew at that moment I had found our location.
Ed: Matt brought the solve to a close with his discovery of the Phoenix garden in Chicagos Jackson park. From there we saw everything else we needed to make the drive at 3 AM the next morning. Everyone had a part in the solve/find
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- 6Q) What did you all enjoy most about OVER THE MOON?
Matt: It was my first real road trip find. I’ve never driven more than an hour to find something. So driving six was definitely the test. When you are so sure of something you just want to get there. Just making the decision to go took two very excruciating hours!
Ed: The solve and the find.
The winners claimed a prize package valued at over $500, containing:
- A limited-edition bronze medallion containing space-flown material from Apollo 11-17
- An antique aluminum coin made with space-flown material from Apollo 8
- A small, brass astronaut figure
- Two keepsake boxes with “Over The Moon” hunt insignia
- One 1oz. silver Shire Post Mint Super Moon coin
- Five 1″ Shire Post Mint Moon coins (silver, copper, brass, iron, niobium)
- 18 Polished moonstones
- Two personalized boxes of Moon Pies (with the finders’ photo on the front)
- Two poster-sized prints of the “Over The Moon” artwork
- A 250-piece puzzle of the “Over The Moon” artwork
- Five Masquerade Tribute token cards
- Two TC Treasure tokens
- Two Mysterious Writings tokens
Congratulations again to Matt, Ed, Mike, Steven, and Matthew!
Visit TC TREASURE for list of their UPCOMING TREASURE HUNTS!
