Celebrate 800 contests! Be a part of the fun!!

Have you ever wondered how Andrew and Paul pull this off week in and week out?

Well, to celebrate 800 contests complete, we are going to give you a chance to be a small part of the magic.

First, for the 801-810 series, we are going to be driven by you, our loyal players. Send us your suggestions for locations to include, and we will pick from those candidates each week. The player who suggests that week’s contest will not only get an automatic 2 points for the week, but, if they are interested, we’ll bring them along for the ride, backstage and behind the curtain.

The amount of involvement is up to that week’s player, but if you are chosen and interested, we’ll give you an admin userid to the site for the week, we’ll show you how we compose the weekly contest, hint and reveal posts, and, if you want, you can be the one to post that week (putting your name forever on the site for that post). Then, after the contest posts, you can watch the guesses come in and help us score the contest for that week. There may even be a unique token of our appreciation in it for you.

So, let’s hear those great ideas for contests. There will be a maximum of 2 entries per person unless we start to run out before 810. Post the locations (lat long coordinates if you have them, something else that will help us find the site if not) as comments to this post. If we can’t use a spot for some reason, we’ll discuss it with you separately and privately take any other suggestions you might have.

Contest #798 – Roman Odeum Of Nicopolis, Preveza, Greece

Large Roman settlements often contain 2 things, an “Agora”, or forum, and an “Odeum”, or amphitheater. Built in the mid first century by the Roman emperor Octavian (adopted son and anointed successor of Julius Caeser), this site near the entrance to the Ambracian Gulf which served as the capital city of the Epirus Vetus province contains both.

Roman odeum Nicopolis, Greece

Those who found the site before the hint were:

  • Martin de Bock
  • hhgygy
  • Paul Voestermans
  • Garfield
  • Zorro the Fox
  • Eloy Cano
  • Lighthouse
  • Phil Ower
  • Graham Hedley
  • Glenmorren

and after the hint:

  • Andy McConnell
  • Andreas Meister
  • Bas van Limpt

Contest #793 – Dragon Teeth, Remnants of the Siegfried Line, Schmithof, Aaachen, Germany

Westwall03.jpg

Designed to both bog down tanks, and channel them into pre-defined “kill zones”, these fortifications were part of the “Westwall” or “Siegfried Line” defensive infrastructure of World War 2 Germany. While formidable looking, Dragon Teeth were pretty easily overcome by bulldozers covering them with dirt, allowing the tanks to roll right over them. General George Patton is famously said to have said about the entire Siegfried line “Fixed fortifications are monuments to man’s stupidity.”

Those who bulldozed over obstacles and found the spot before the hint:

  • Graham Hedley
  • Garfield
  • Paul Voestermans
  • Eloy Cano
  • Lighthouse
  • Martin de Bock
  • Andreas Meister
  • hhgygy
  • Phil Ower

And after the hint:

  • Bas van Limpt

Contest #792 – Howland Island, Middle of nowhere, United States Minor Outlying Islands

Because of the politically derived eccentricities of the International Date Line, Howland island is the westernmost land situated east of the IDL. This puts this island and nearby Baker Island into a timezone by themselves that is 12 full hours *behind* UTC. This time zone is somethimes referred to as “Anywhere On Earth” or “AOW” — a reference to the fact that a date ends “anywhere on earth” when it ends on Howland Island (or Baker Island). The other implication of this is that when 2022 ended last Saturday at midnight on that island, it ended “anywhere on earth”.

In the mid 1930’s it was proposed to make the island a stopover for trans-pacific flights, and the US Works Progress Administration built a runway on which Amelia Erhart and Fred Noonan were scheduled to land on the day they disappeared. The navigational beacon in the picture above was built after their loss and is named the “Erhart Light”

The island remains uninhabited and is protected as a Wildlife Refuge since the 1970s.

Those who didn’t miss the island before the hint:

  • Paul Voestermans
  • Garfield
  • Martin de Bock
  • hhgygy
  • Graham Hedley
  • Eloy Cano
  • Lighthouse
  • CuriousJM
  • Andreas Meister
  • Phil Ower
  • Gillian B

and after the hint:

  • Ashwini Agrawal
  • Bas van Limpt