To the Highest Point in Fandango

One of the first things noticed on page 44 of the Fandango puzzle book is the road sign.  From the top to the bottom of the page are wooden arrows showing town names with the number of miles away.  They are made up of a variety of colors and directions.

With the border frame of this double image page including ‘To the Highest Point’, it would seem this sign was inspired by the popular road sign found in Barrow, Alaska.  Barrow is the northernmost city in the United States.  Anyone who has been there, and has seen the Barrow sign, would have caught the similarity with the one depicted in the Fandango book.  I have to thank a facebook friend for posting the Barrow sign image on his timeline.  I recognized the likeness immediately!

There are other instances of ‘highest points’ on this page too.  The image is of course showing the driver going up Cadillac Mountain; the highest point on Mount Desert Island and the first place to see the sunrise on the East Coast in the fall and winter seasons.

The one road sign showing NEPAL 10,107 is another.  Mount Everest is the Earth’s highest mountain and found in Nepal.  Then, the only two signs pointing towards the west add to 407 (Portland 98 and Montreal 309), which is the elevation for Kebo Mountain on the island; the highest point for that particular mountain.

The bottom border phrase includes Yakity-Yak.  This too can be considered a ‘highest point’ because it is the name of a number one song.  It hit the top of the charts in 1958.

This leads to something I mentioned on the tweleve forum a while ago.  Throughout the book, both from the border phrases and in the story, there seems to be other number one song titles or titles implied.  With the musical connections found both visual and verbal, it would seem this may hint to a important method for solving the puzzle or finding the Master Riddle.  I will have to do a post on song titles in the border and story which hit the ‘highest point’ in the future.

It certainly could be merely all for fun to find the ‘highest point’ references in the book.  It is fun.  You actually feel like you have solved something by finding a ‘highest point’ reference.  Lol.  Until the treasure is found, the reason remains unknown.

To look at the signs again, though.  It has been mentioned how taking the first letter in common colored road signs spell words.  The white colored signs provide BOOK (without Nepal which isn’t pointing anyway).  The blue colored signs spell RED and the red colored signs spell YELLOW.  Because red and yellow make orange, it is tempting to look back on page 30 and feel that the only ORANGE BOOK might provide a clue towards the puzzle.

The orange book is called In the Lake of the Woods by Tim O’Brien.  Not to go into the story much, but the love of the main character goes missing.  I feel Love could be considered an example of a highest point and so it makes me wonder if this is a reference to the lost ‘Golden Key’.  We know the Sea-King Neptune fell in love with the Wind and wanted to give her a token of his affection; the Golden Key.  This is what needs found in Fandango and I wish you the best of luck!