Medallion Hunt 2008

Every January St Paul puts on a Winter Carnival. Along with the Winter Carnival comes a Medallion Hunt. Early winter, or sometime or another, the St Paul newspaper hides a hockey puck-esque medallion in a park in Ramsey County. For 12 days of the Winter Carnival, the newspaper prints a new clue as to the location of said medallion. Not only would we have the pride of finding the medallion, but the booty is quite nice.

This afternoon Molly and I, along with her dog Rinna, set off to two different parks to see if we could spot the medallion. Park #1 was a bust -- or at least we think it was a bust. We got out, walked around a little bit, but weren't to impressed with out surroundings. Molly wasn't 100% sure about this park and my research pointed elsewhere, so we hopped back into the car and headed to Park #2.

Now, Molly didn't believe Park #2 existed. She couldn't locate it in her sweet streets and maps book but all my research told me we had to go. We did find it (my directions were right on!) but didn't get out of my car, as Park #2 was quite small. We decided to head back to Molly's for some lunch and more researching. After some pizza and wings, we decided our clues and research pointed to Park #2. Since we didn't get out the first time, we decided to go back.

We pulled into the parking lot and joined one other car. What we thought was probably other medallion hunters turned out to be what we figured were two kids getting it on! It was pretty funny -- and we felt a little wrong for being there -- but we saw the guy on top of the girl undo his pants and rip his shirt off. At first we thought they'd stop when they heard the obnoxious beep when I lock my car, but they kept on keeping on... it was quite funny. Poor kids probably had to go to the park and have sex in their car to hide it from their parents.

So we left the kids to their business and started our search. Our research hasn't quite pinpointed the exact location of the medallion, so we were there to scope out the area and if luck had it our way, we'd find the medallion. Well, we walked around, Rinna grabbing every stick in site. We can across a tree with some weird trunk and decided to get a little closer. I always tend to dig around through the crap... so I got down on my knees and started messing through the leaves and twigs at the bottom of the tree. I saw something. It looked black and had a knob or something at the end. We decided it was coming out... what if it was the medallion?! I kicked it a little and then went for the grab. I pulled it out and Molly and I both jumped. We thought I had pulled out a dead bird from the trunk of this tree. Turns out it was just Easy the Robin, a beanie baby, super glued to this pipe thing. We figure we may have come across a geo-cashing item, but who knows. What we do know is this bird-on-a-pipe is not the medallion.

We hunted around the park a little longer, watched our lovers drive away, spotted some fellow medallion hunters, and decided to call it a day. Probably one of the more exciting medallion hunting days. Nathan and Jack would have had more fun today than when we dragged them with us last year in the -20* weather, especially with my sweet find! Sorry boys.

With tomorrow's clue comes another night of hunting -- maybe tomorrow will be our night. Or, as the last four years have come to pass, maybe we're at the completely wrong park.

Tomorrow will be clue 9 of 12. Stay tuned for the Medallion Hunt 2008 outcome soon...