True Story Treasure Hunt — September-October 2025

TCTreasure

INTRODUCTION ☑️

To set the pins, our story begins
Way out west in California—
Ransom case or wild goose chase?
Don't say we didn't warn ya!

Frame by frame, get into the game;
Lace up your shoes, let's bowl!
There's nothing like a perfect strike—
Just wind up and let 'er roll!

Due to profanity and inurbanity,
This hunt is rated R—
So go top shelf and mix yourself
A beverage at the bar!

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FRAME #1 ☑️

The Little Lebowski lost his house key
Crossing all over creation,
So start your jalopy and go find a copy— Or crack the combination!

Under steel canopy minus all majesty—
Incisively Coen-esque—a
Split to score will unlock the door;
Que la paz prevalezca.

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FRAME #2 ☑️

Before hegemony, the way of Kapemni—
Where waters mirror the sky—
Spread over the land with a gentle hand,
Reflecting a spirit most high.

It's an attitude espoused by The Dude,
But it's not for everybody;
To live it by heart—down to a fine art—
Necessitates careful study.

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FRAME #3 ☑️

Pilot your beater to Crane Jackson's Theatre,
The venue for Marty's performance—
"A Dance of Life" through pain and strife—
At an establishment in accordance.

Thither, the thirty stand stony and sturdy,
Keeping watch over the stage,
Where Billy's sad story—lost in purgatory—
Springs forth from the playbill page!

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FRAME #4 ☑️

Hatch the plot in a smoldering spot
Where, as the going says—
A melody sung in the mother tongue—
¿Parla usted ingles?

A nonplussed Dude abode the feud
With trademark nonchalancin’—
Taking up tools against nihilist fools
And dickering over his Johnson!

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FRAME #5 ☑️

Follow the rail to a trenchant trail
Alongside a sinuous stream—
On winding river, a sylvan sliver,
Like a Busby Berkeley dream.

A silver spangle reflects the right angle
For sarsaparillas with The Stranger;
The furrow features aquatic creatures—
What are you, a fuckin' park ranger?

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FRAME #6 ☑️

Loop around on your way outta town
To fashion a figure eight—
Completing a circuit while you work it
By sneaking through the gate!

Nearby, neighbors, fleet in their labors,
Put in the kilowatt-hours;
A cosmic current, as it weren’t—
Like a world of solar powers.

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FRAME #7 ☑️

As you forge a trail to the gorge,
En route to the key of the valley,
Make the rounds to find the grounds,
While winding toward the finale.

 Red Scare snitch, real son of a bitch,
And chronicler of crimes,
The scandal baron was a major Karen—
In the parlance of our times.

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FRAME #8 ☑️

Swoop the loop to get the scoop
And solve the Duder's case—
Look for a hook where pi marks nook
And cut to the end of the chase!

Impudent, imprudent, a sub-par student—
But a powerful adversary—
Devoid of expression, he dodges the question:
"Is this your homework, Larry?"

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FRAME #9 ☑️

Run 'round the ball, once and for all,
To solve this investigation;
Keep your mind limber: take to the timber
And have another caucasian.

Scruffy with fuzz, the park is abuzz,
So bowlers, please be advised:
By the hair of their chin, those therein
Will be pleasantly surprised.

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FRAME #10 ☑️

To find evidence, apply common sense
And a properly sharpened utensil;
For a mess of potage from furtive frottage,
Use a trusty number-two pencil.

Our final outing might have you shouting,
"This is a private residence, man!"
So sneak to a seat across the street,
And sort out the rest of our plan...

Connect the dots to correlate plots,
And chart a course for the end—
To crack the cache and scatter the ash
In the name of our fallen friend.

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ROLL-OFF!

At the Introduction of this production,
We'd picked out a spot on the track—
But shit hit the fan as our story began,
And we had to circle back...

So off we did ride to set up our hide,
Following the Grand Rounds—
Keeping eyes peeled to winnow the field,
In search of suitable grounds.

Heading west on our Möbius quest,
We sought retreat from a storm—
A narrow berth, for what it's worth;
Not much room to swarm.

Thereupon we commended Donny
With a view overlooking the valley—
Marking our coda with two oat sodas
For a fittingly fond finale.

So shrug, abide, and crawl inside
To put a cease to your searches;
And use your key to declare victory—
Or dial in the pivotal purchase!

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CLUE EXPLANATIONS

The Introduction is intended to suggest this hunt's bowling theme while also hinting at both the (intended) first bonus cache—which was (eventually) hidden at the Northtown Railyard Viewpoint on California St NE—and the primary cache on the west edge of Minneapolis, which was hidden inside a Grand Rounds park kiosk, and required bending, crouching, or crawling to access.
Frame #1 is intended to suggest searching for a Little Lebowski House Key bonus cache at Van Cleve Park under a steel pedestrian bridge with the words "No Kings" spray painted prominently across a beam; nearby, a building is emblazoned with the words "May peace prevail on Earth" in multiple languages (making it the world's largest "Peace Pole").
Frame #2 is intended to suggest searching for a bonus cache near the new "As Above, So Below" mural by Missy Whiteman and Elissa Cedarleaf Dahl, above Hidden Falls; the mural depicts the Dakota creation story.
Frame #3 is intended to suggest searching for a bonus cache at the Fountain Cave Historic Marker—just south of ADM's 30 massive concrete grain silos—on Sam Morgan Regional Trail in Saint Paul; in the movie, Crane Jackson's Theatre is located on Fountain Street.
Frame #4 is intended to suggest searching for a bonus cache just north of Saint Paul's Municipal Forest and historic fish hatchery at the end of Johnson Parkway; the cache was hidden among the city-provided bicycle tools next to a Saint Paul Grand Round kiosk.
Frame #5 is intended to suggest searching for a bonus cache on the trail along the daylit section of Trout Brook in Saint Paul, at a bench approximately in line with Iowa Avenue (In The Big Lebowski, The Stranger orders a Sioux City brand sarsaparilla).
Frame #6 is intended to suggest searching for a bonus cache at Saint Paul's Gateway Park (the privately-owned public space on Energy Park Drive at Raymond Avenue), while also describing the hunt's "figure eight" path along the Twin Cities' two Grand Round systems.
Frame #7 is intended to suggest searching—by way of gossip hound Walter Winchell—for a bonus cache at the Mississippi River Gorge overlook along the Winchell Trail on Minneapolis' West River Parkway, while also hinting at the larger pattern of following the Grand Rounds Scenic Byway to find The Dude—and the key to the city of Pasadena (which is itself known as "The Key of the Valley").
Frame #8 is intended to suggest searching on the Lake Nokomis Grand Rounds loop for a bonus cache at the base of a tree across the street from Fat Lorenzo's Pizza and Gelato; "pi marks nook" anagrams to "Nokomis Park." Larry Sellers' homework suggests searching for the primary cache on land west of the Mississippi River, and gives hunters the secret combination (1-8-0-3) to this hunt's cache box—which required either the proper combination or a Little Lebowski House Key to unlock.
Frame #9 is intended to suggest searching for a bonus cache at Beard's Plaisance on Lake Harriet, in the corner of the tennis courts (i.e. "Run 'round the ball"), while reminding hunters to stick to the Grand Rounds in search of El Duderino.
Frame #10 is intended to suggest searching for the final bonus cache across the street from the Lake of the Isles Pencil, then extrapolating the primary cache's location based on the prior eleven hides.
The Roll-Off clue explains our ill-fated attempt to make the drop at the old Northtown Railway Viewpoint bridge for the Introduction, while outlining the hunt's route and directing hunters to the primary cache's hiding spot inside the kiosk at the Valley View overlook on Theodore Wirth Parkway, a location that shares a name with Donny—or Theodore Donald Kerabatsos. Once the finder crawled beneath the wall of the kiosk to enter, they could use a Little Lebowski House Key from a bonus cache find, or the year of the Louisiana Purchase as the combination, to unlock the case containing the cache.

TC Treasure