Gold is for Suckers

So the Burnetts did not find the gold.  You can guess that by the title of this post.  They did, however, have an awesome vacation, finished off with more Yellowstone, hiking obscure trails, a visit to pleasant Heise Hot Springs in Idaho (marred only by the regret that they did not bring a DVD along of Napoleon Dynamite), a birthday party for Johana, and a long drive through southern Nebraska.  “Southern Nebraska: Nothing to See Here.  Move On.” 

There were some thrilling moments, however. Greg waded upstream through a wild river to treasure hunt while Mel gritted her teeth as she awaited his return.  Also, Mel stepped on a snake.  She strangely felt wronged that she did not realize it was happening until it was over.  Man.  Remembering horror movies after they happen is just not the same!

When one does not find Forrest Fenn’s treasure, one apparently goes through the following thoughts:

1. Forrest Fenn is an idiot.  He has no idea how to construct clues to limit all of the degrees of freedom to one point in space.  
2. Forrest Fenn is brilliant.  He does not want anyone to find his treasure.  He made the clues nonspecific on purpose so that we will hike the Rockies futilely while our descendents, apparently keen on wandering aimlessly and digging through sediment, find it a thousand years from now and then reflect on his brilliance.
3. We are idiots.  How could we, mere white-collared travelers with a whole week available to explore the Rockies, find the treasure when so far over 60,000 people have failed, a good number of those probably living near the treasure, able to hunt every day, and possessed with the knowledge and skills of forest rangers and other outdoorsy types?
4. We are brilliant.  By hunting for the treasure, we made our vacation more fun.  No one has found the treasure yet because they probably aren’t on the same wavelength that we happen to share with Forrest.  The pilot-writer-traveler-weirdo wavelength.  Besides, even a randomly placed object can eventually be found.  At work, Mel heard a colleague was out hunting and found an old, rusted gun in the forest.  He had it appraised, and it was a Winchester rifle from the late 1800’s.  It had just sat there, leaning against a tree, undiscovered, for more than 100 years.  So maybe it would be worthwhile to resume the hunt some day.

Not any time soon, though.  Mel wants our next vacation to be by the ocean somewhere.  She misses it.  Now they just have to find a missing shipwreck!

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