GC5XXPA America: Why I Love Her
Type: Multi | Size: Other | Difficulty: | Terrain:
By: aCacheologist @ | Hide Date: 06/20/2015 | Status: Disabled
Country: United States | State: Colorado
Coordinates: N39° 50.984 W104° 40.424 | Last updated: 08/30/2019 | Fav points: 0
               

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Puzzle geocache.  Must go to posted coordinates to solve puzzle.  Final stage is some distance from posted coordinates.

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This puzzle cache is a tribute to my favorite piece of art at Denver International Airport.

The City and County of Denver has a “one-percent for art” ordinance that allocates one percent of the design and construction budget for any public works project to fund public art installations, in order to make public spaces more appealing. 

Denver International Airport – the largest and most expensive building project in Denver’s history – has produced a number of memorable works.  Leo Tanguma’s vibrant and thought-provoking murals are alternately praised and vilified, and fuel many a conspiracy-theorist’s nightmares.  Luis Jiminez’s striking and intimidating “Mustang,” stationed outside the terminal along Pena Boulevard, is most famous for killing its’ creator.  My favorite, however, is Gary Sweeney’s modest, “America:  Why I Love Her.”

Gary Sweeney was a customer service agent for Continental Airlines back in the 1990s.  He had just spent a year travelling the country, revisiting many of the off-beat roadside attractions he remembered from family vacations of his youth and snapping black-and-white photos with a box camera.  He then created a wonderful celebration of the oddball tourist "traps" that dot the lonely byways of America.

You are looking for two large wooden maps of the USA in one of the halls of Jeppeson Terminal (the big tent-like building, if this is your first time at the airport).  The maps are on the 5^th floor, in one of the short hallways that connect the baggage area with the atrium.  The art (and therefore the cache) is NOT on the secure side of the security screening area. It is available to anybody, whether they have a ticket or not. If you are flying into DIA, you will be able to visit the cache AFTER you leave the secure area. Look for the following roadside attractions on the maps and then solve the puzzle to get the coordinates for the final:

A = Coon dog graveyard

B = Grandma Prisbey’s Bottle Village

C= Wonder Tower

D = Hippie Memorial

E = Bible bird show

F = World’s Largest Ball of Twine

G = Whiskey Museum

H = Museum of Questionable Medical Devices

I = World’s Largest Termite

J = Dan Blocker Memorial Head

K = House on the Rock

L = Birthplace of the Jackalope

 

The container is not at the airport, but some distance away.  The container is small.  Do this cache when you are arriving, not leaving.  The final is at these coordinates:

N (J+1) (E*4).C(G-1)(I+5)

W (B+50) (H-K).A(D-13)(F+L-2)

You can check your answers for this puzzle on http://www.geochecker.com/index.php?code=9298810d2e62f9a2cd76973ec7cab419&action=check&wp=47433558585041&name=416d65726963613a20205768792049204c6f766520486572&visitcount=1

To dig deeper into the wonder and mystery of America's roadside attractions, please click the "related web page" hyperlink near the top of this page (just below the ratings).

Additional Waypoints

10/22/2018 By WingsAndTales
I was able to get the info needed to get the correct solution and finally made my way up here to get the final today. TFTC

09/17/2018 By aCacheologist
I regret to inform you all that this geocache must be temporarily disabled. DIA has removed the art work temporarily, but this might mean a year or two. It will be back sometime in the future.

09/17/2018 By Pathfinder33
So we flew in from Seattle, and after reading the 2 previous cache logs we decided to give this one a look. Sure enough it appears all the maps have been taken down or covered as we didn’t find a single one in any of the corridors between the ticket counters and the atrium on level 5. Looks like this one will be down for quite a while.

09/08/2018 By prerules
Only one map is up. The other one won’t be up for 3 years. I would suggest that the CO update description to only need one map (the one with the Coon Dog) or to disable the cache until both maps are up.

09/03/2018 By SirenLorelei
Oh no! Seems that all the art has been stored away because there’s construction everywhere. Sadly, it seems it may be awhile before it returns. next time I’m flying out I’ll try again, but it seems it could take awhile. For now though, I’ve got to catch a shuttle!

08/30/2018 By benj59
Great cache idea! I got the coords a couple months ago. Although, at the time I was running out of time to get all the information so I just took a bunch of pictures knowing I would solve it later. Excellent idea for a puzzle based out of DIA.

Once I solved it I had to do a double take on where the final coords were going to lead me though. You’re not kidding about this not being close to the airport! In fact I checked coords again this morning just to make sure. I finally had a chance to get it today though.

I had a meeting downtown so I left my DTC office a little early thinking this could be a park and grab. Of course nothing is that easy downtown. Thankfully there is metered parking relatively close to the final.

The cache is in great shape and blends in perfectly with the environment. Awesome placement. A few muggles around but no one seemed to be paying too much attention to me.

Thanks for the hide aCacheologist. I appreciate you keeping this cache active for everyone to enjoy.

Find number 1960

Found America: Why I Love Her with Cachly app for iOS

Found at 11:08 AM