Verse 9

[Sawdusty]

In Stercox's photo of the umbrella fountain, that is original green picket fence!

[Egbert]

Nice work Stercox (and everyone else too)!  Sawdusty, you are being a huge help!   :app)

I still plan on taking my family to St. Augustine in a couple of months (probably mid-June).  Unfortunately, Siskel will not be able to make the trip.  I am reading and absorbing everything, though, to prepare.  I will put my 2 cents in when I think I have something to contribute.  It would be wonderful to meet any of you while I am there.

All of this assumes, of course, that the treasure will not be found before then!   ;)

Reading the verse, it seems to me that the exact location of the treasure is "behind bending branches and a green picket fence, at the base of a tall tree."  With so many people talking about different locations, things moving, trees not being there anymore, etc., it is difficult to figure out if there is an exact spot that phrase in quotes describes.  Sawdusty and Stercox (or anyone else) --- is there such a spot?

[Trohn]

Egbert-

Here is such a spot...

just inside of Magnolia Avenue.

http://family.webshots.com/photo/200402 ... 0493SRSlSE

And this corner is across the street from the Men's Rest Room
(not saying that that is what the verse means, but it is a fact)

And to get to this spot, without jumping the fence,
one would have to pass all of the approriate landmarks
(get to the end of the other side of the picket fence)
and then double back to the Magnolia street wall.


and here is the view from the planetarium looking at the fence corner
and the wall and magnolia and the bedning branches

http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/27 ... 0493QYfvXe

[Trohn]

Can someone tell us what the street name is that is perpendicular to Magnolia Street
(parallel to the picket fence that takes you into the park) ?

http://family.webshots.com/photo/283765 ... 0493UOGQqw

(and leads you to the old palm avenue

[Trohn]

"like moonlight in teardrops"

http://good-times.webshots.com/photo/21 ... 0493ZorICN

This wall, the material, the many many small tiny shells reflecting the sunlight,
I think this is what he is referring to with this mysterious phrase.

Teardrops being very very small oval salty drops and
the moonlight being the silvery reflections.

So, if this is the case, we have in the planetarium grounds, the inside NW corner
where the coquia wall meets the green picket fence...under the magnolia trees
and in besides the tall grass.

And the image six (like in Cleveland) does have the jewel imbedded in stone.

[boogieman]

Nice trohn.  Like that too.  Even in darkness!

[Sawdusty]

Don't think there is a name for the road running along the green picket fence. It is just takes you to the exit to the park. I like the picture of the planetarium and the tabby wall (man-made coquina) It is like a big moon rising over the wall. Be glad to have Egbert come to visit the Fountain, the more eyes the better! Hope to see you while you are here.

[stercox]

Hello Everyone!  Been off the board this week--had to get caught up at work.  Are we having fun yet?   I hope at this point that there are very few doubters that BP came to the FOY park and buried a ceramic pot 3 feet under the ground there. Reading through all the great ideas and thoughts here--the first thing that struck me is...

...the place to dig should be the east side of the planetarium entrance rather than the west side…but my pick for "most likely spot" is, at the moment, directly under her

...in my mind, be an ideal spot.  Standing at a very prominent spot in the park (PDL statue) and looking away, one sees a lone palm tree…I like either this statue or around the obelisk

...without losing this orientation, and you hit the green picket fence.  Turn around and that is your tall tree… And this location behind the fountain, has enough room between the base of the fountain and the east side of the tree, for a hole.

I'd put it right behind the wall to the left of the Ponce statue.

I like the tree on the right, but the one on the left would do as well…Could be that tree, or it could be Ponce...

...the owner of the park, his pet theories are at the Indian Statue, at the Seloy marker, or against the wall of the park near the planetarium

For me, I think it might be at the big magnolia tree just inside the picket fence near the planetarium.

...then I would look for the casque between the base of the tall tree and the low tabby wall…I would be near the base of the scraggly trees by the tabby wall…A first alternate would be just south of the fence position

Who said, "Great minds think alike"??    It seems the closer you get, the tougher it gets.  If we are persistent, smart and maybe a little lucky this one can be found--I am sure of it!  We have a lot going in our favor.  The park has not changed that much in nearly 25 years.  We have a definite P and V match up, with certainty.  We have identified much of the confirmers in the verse (save the last cryptic stanza).  We can dig there, albeit quietly.  We have Sawdusty to recon and check things out (when possible).  We have all your brilliant minds working on it.   This can be done!!  WE're due!  I have had many of the same ideas that you have had at some point or another in looking at this, some I dismissed--not because they are wrong--but because I thought I found something better at the time.   First if there are pictures that you feel need to be a part of the webshot album, email them to me and I will add them, so we have a centralized database of images for future reference.  Also, the best map of this park right now is probably the aerial view I created a couple days ago.  There is no better map.  I will also update that as new information comes to light.   Now to dig in...

[stercox]

Here is such a spot...So, if this is the case, we have in the planetarium grounds, the inside NW corner
where the coquia wall meets the green picket fence...under the magnolia trees
and in besides the tall grass.

Trohn,

This NW corner would be really suspect I think for two reasons:  (1) Not out of view of the goose pen (although admittedly--I could be making too much of BP's choice of wording hear vs see in the verse)  (2) That NW corner is where the electric comes into the park, its underground and exactly from that corner to the planetarium per the owner.  We had to find out about the underground lines before we dug near the planetarium.   Now if I remember right, the owner told us that they had trenched the area they were going to lay the power lines in--This was done a [few] years back, I believe well after 1980-81.  So the power lines were not there in BP's time--but they are now.  And there would be trenching in that area which would be really bad for us if the casque is there and disrupted.  Plus it would be ill advised to dig there now.  I do like the fact that you are finally up near the planetarium though.   ;)

Can someone tell us what the street name is that is perpendicular to Magnolia Street
(parallel to the picket fence that takes you into the park) ?

Like S'dusty said--this road is really an exit drive out of the park, it is on park property.  Everything behind the coquina wall running along Magnolia Avenue (which is most of Magnolia avenue) is on the park proper.  This wall on Magnolia avenue is the park's west boundry.

[stercox]

Perhaps the shape of the rock in the image is a design on the wall of the planetarium and further narrows down the search location to being in front of it.  The picture in the webshots album "P6 V9 St. Augustine" that is titled "Stars move by day" has one such design about 4/5 of the way up that could be interpruted to be the rock.  Perhaps you find the design and orient yourself so that you see a tree (palm?) in the distance that lines up as in the image.

2fast--

I thought about this on our second trip down.  I took a bunch of pictures of the outside walls and looked them over and over and really did not find anything conclusive.  You will be glad to know that the owner has also thought about this idea as well and we talked about it at the dig.  Which brings us to back to the utility of the rock--tree combo and how do we interpret this image.  Should we take it to mean we are looking for that tree pictured?  Or is it an artistic symbol of Florida?  Are we looking for an alignment of water, rock and tree??  I did have a theory that the fountain in front of the planetarium could be the source of the water.  But how does that all fit in?

[stercox]

One thing I noticed, the 'small marker'
(photo 117 of the FOY tour) looks exactly
(and the same angle) of the 'island rock' with palm tree.
(even the shadows match up)

We took that picture of the small marker trying to make it fit the rock--tree image, because the look of the small marker reminded us of the rock as well.  This is way out by the coast.  There was nothing in the verse that confirmed this area and we eventually, let it go.  As I understand it S'dusty has taken the more angled picture at the 11:00 position of this small marker with the tree--so we'll see what that looks like.  Again do we worry about the water?

[stercox]

Maybe you could follow the banner the conquistador is holding as if it were a path, and the jewel will be at the end of it....or perhaps where the bottom of the flagpole rests--use it as a pointer and the jewel will be roughly where it is in relation to that?

I too think that we are missing an important piece to the puzzle which (in my humble opinion) is hidden in the large rock of P6.

Shecrab & Fox--

I agree.   I have always thought that Ponce's position, the flag, that he is elevated (albeit on a horse), that the pole, the obelisk symbol lining up right where the obelisk is, the  image of the flag flailing out like the path does running south along the coastline toward the small marker just screams that there is a map here and the jewel is pictured where it will be found.  If that asumption is true--then the westside of the park is mapped out in the big rock.  Now I've always felt the big rock is subject to interpretation---like one of those psychological ink blot tests they give people---"And what do you see now?"--that's it---the "Rorschach Rock"!!     But on this third visit a new little theory started to be developed--mostly based on the owner's interpretation of the rock imagery.  It is possible that the big rock is a symbolic map of the park.  Meaning, there are images in there that symbolize the things in the buildings.  Examples would be the stone cross found in the Springhouse, or the head dress on the chief, or the silhouette of an indian grave, or the dome of the planetarium--all of which an argument can be made that these images are in the Rorschach Rock.   The images are loose and still subject to interpretation--but a symbolic map may be the ticket--and the jewel is the literal "X marks the spot".

[stercox]

I wonder if the place to dig should be the east side of the planetarium entrance rather than the west side. The verse says Near men with wind rose, not Near wind rose with men. Geese are loud critters; you might still hear them even if you were on the opposite side of the building from them. There's a tree over there, too, and it's still standing.

Forest--

After about the 100th root we hit with our shovels--obviously other thoughts start entering your mind--right after the one-- "We're not gonna find it"--you've been there--you know what I mean.  We did consider the other side.  I don't know if I agree that its under Bitsy--and I'm not sure we could dig there any more than we could dig near powerlines--maybe even more so.  But I do like the Magnolia tree on the east side--it does fit the verse nicely and is isolated due to its proximity to the planetarium vestibule.  [Did I say, I hate roots.]  I'm in the process of dumping my pre-conceived notions and taking a step back--maybe some counseling or hypnosis will help.      I really did like the west side because I felt the verse You can still hear the honking created an extraordinary line that when crossed moved you from seeing to hearing.  I will say that there are areas around that original oak tree that still fit my original theory but have not been dug yet.  And certainly eastside is a hot alternate!

[stercox]

Can the verse be used as a guided walk through the park (like in Houston)
and make one pass the goose pen to get to the final location??

I could never make it work either.

[stercox]

Can someone tell me if there is a green fence to the north and east of Ponce,
on the way to the obelisk but to the left??

There is a fence that possibly ran from the gift shop all the way down to the coast that was at least in part a picket fence.  It would have been green like the others.  Sawdusty checked this out and I think that Pine also saw this same fence on his trip.  It would nearly run the entire length of the North border of the park but is found in very heavy brush.  Sawdusty is going to verify this with the owner.  Do you remember it Pine??  If it gets confirmed--I'll add it to the aerial map.