DPL Series: The Geocachers Guide to the Galaxy ?

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Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western Spiral arm of the Galaxy lies a small unregarded yellow sun.

Orbiting this at a distance of roughly ninety-eight million miles is an utterly insignificant little blue-green planet whose ape-descended life forms are so amazingly primitive that they still think that smartphones are a pretty neat idea.

This planet has a problem which is this: most of the people living on it are unhappy for pretty much of the time. Many solutions were suggested for this problem but most of these were largely concerned with the searching for minuscule capsules containing even smaller spools of paper to sign, under lamppost skirts and rock piles, which is odd because on the whole it wasn't the minuscule capsules that were unhappy.

And so the problem remained; lots of the people were mean and most of them were miserable, even the ones with smartphones.

Many were increasingly of the opinion that they'd all made a big mistake in coming down from the trees in the first place. And some said that even the trees had been a bad move and that no one should ever have left the oceans.

And then, one Thursday, nearly two thousand years after one man had been tied to a tree for saying how great it would be to be nice to people for a change, a girl sitting on her own in a local coffee shop stopped looking at her smartphone and suddenly realized what it was that had been going wrong all this time, and she finally knew how the world could be a good and happy place. This time is was right, it would work, and no one would have to get nailed to anything.

Sadly, however, when she attempted to use her phone again to spread the idea, she accidentally opened a session of Angry Birds instead and the idea was lost forever.

This is not a geocache about her.

This geocache is about a book called the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. A wholly remarkable book. In fact, it was probably the most remarkable book ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor.

Not only is it a wholly remarkable book, it is also a highly successful one-more popular than the Terran Roasting Omnibus, better selling than Five-Thousand-Fifty-Three Facial Expressions To Make In Zero Gravity, and more controversial than Oolon Coluphid's trilogy of philosophical blockbusters, Too Many Micros, Dumpsters And Other Geocache Hiding Mistakes, and What Are Bison Tubes Made From Anyway?

In many of the more relaxed civilizations on the Outer Eastern Rim of the Galaxy, the Hitchhiker’s Guide has already supplanted the great Encyclopedia Galactica as the standard repository for all knowledge and wisdom, for through it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it scores over the older, more pedestrian work in two important respects.

First, it is slightly cheaper; and second, it has the words DON’T PANIC inscribed in friendly letters on its cover.

The latest copy of the Hitchhiker’s Guide may be found on display at one of 56.387 billion media and knowledge repositories across the Milky Way Galaxy.

The closest knowledge repository to you may be found by starting at the coordinates above.. To locate and access the actual guide, you will need to pass some rudimentary tests to verify that you are, in fact, an intelligent lifeform and not some sort of potted plant, malicious mouse, or an incredibly paranoid android.

1. Locate the round historic marker near the GZ. Take the marker's three digit number and add 69 and assign this value to A.

Proceed *A* degrees (phasing through the solid matter, where necessary, of course) for approximately 20 feet.

2. Proceed 322 degrees for approximately 25 feet and locate the holographically projected (but vintagely displayed and framed) image of the space anomaly commonly known as a nebula. After gazing at the wonderment of this amazing natural phenomenon (scheduled for demolition shortly, by the Vogon Destructor Fleet, in order to make room for a Canadian Tire outlet), Refer to the question on the rear of the image projector. Count the number of letters in your one word answer (see the hint for help) and then subtract the value also specified to obtain the value for B.

3. Proceed at 166 degrees for approximately 46 feet. Locate the place of exothermic combustion mantling. In the middle of the mantling area, you will find a multi-sided shield of infinite improbability (used, quite logically, in all and none of the improbability drives in the universe, all at once). The value for C shall be the number of "points" on the shield.

4. Near this location you will find a chronological measurement device. The value for D shall equal the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything subtracted from the numeric value displayed the back of the device. If you do not know the answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything, please refer to the hint.

5. Sitting atop the place of exothermic combustion mantling, the latest edition of the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy is on display!

The combination required to access the guide are the combined values of DCB.

Once you have optionally perused the Guide, you should, less optionally, locate the pulp-based logging analog and imprint your identity to show your appreciation for the 6,832,191 sentient beings responsible for maintaining the guide and providing free reading facilities across the galaxy, such as this one, where it and other useful and entertaining knowledge may be found every day.

This cache series would not be possible without the enthusiastic and supportive help of the staff at the Denver Public Library! To celebrate the series, DPL has released a passport program! The first 200 geocachers to legitimately log the series, record the secret codes found within their geocaches, and turn in the completed passports will receive a special, limited-edition Denver Public Library Geocoin!

More information can be found on the DPL web site. Happy Caching!

Additional Waypoints

P06F3KG - N39° 43.625' W104° 59.942'
N 39° 43.625 W 104° 59.930
Parking behind the library. There is also street parking. If street parking is open, take it instead (the parking behind the library may be difficult for larger vehicles without improbability drive)