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What is the \\\"KEY\\\"?
How much is the treasure worth?
Is the coin worth anything?
Why is there a vesting period?
\",\"settings\":{\"styles\":{\"text\":\"left\",\"align\":\"flex-start\",\"justify\":\"flex-start\",\"position\":\"2/3/12/8\",\"m-element-margin\":\"0 0 16px 0\"}}},\"KKBSr1t8O\":{\"type\":\"GridSocialIcons\",\"links\":[{\"svg\":\"\",\"icon\":\"instagram\",\"link\":\"https://www.instagram.com/legendhasit.awesome/\"}],\"settings\":{\"styles\":{\"align\":\"center\",\"justify\":\"center\",\"position\":\"2/10/4/12\",\"icon-size\":\"69px\",\"icon-color\":\"#10A9FF\",\"icon-spacing\":\"space-around\",\"icon-direction\":\"row\",\"icon-color-hover\":\"#33ccff\",\"m-element-margin\":\"0 0 16px 0\",\"space-between-icons\":\"20px\"},\"useBrandColors\":false}},\"LmAY4IbjT\":{\"type\":\"GridTextBox\",\"content\":\"As brothers, we really got into Forrest Fenn's hidden treasure along with our families. When it was found (not by us) we were heartbroken and surprised at how quickly we missed the \\\"thrill of the chase\\\". It was then that we realized we could do something amazing for everyone who felt like us: people who want something more or something different from the day-to-day grind; people who are looking for opportunities to explore and solve puzzles.
And thus, Legend Has It was born during a world-wide pandemic via late night video chats between SoCal and the mountains of New Mexico. We are starting our hunts in North America with Europe soon to follow (we're looking at you, Corona virus), but we plan to expand all over. So let's tip our hats to Forrest Fenn and continue the \\\"thrill of the chase\\\".
Growing up in a small farming community means you need to get creative. We didn’t have much for entertainment, so we often lived in our imaginations while exploring the desert and river bottoms. This left me with a deeply ingrained sense for adventure and love for the outdoors to this day. The wilderness has become my personal refuge. A place where I can be at peace and reset. In fact, it had a big role in helping me while living in a large city in the Netherlands and studying for my masters degree in aerospace engineering. I often found myself having anxiety/panic attacks and the only thing that helped was hopping on my bike and riding along the canals to the quiet farms. It wasn't until a few years later we discovered I'd been suffering from chronic mild/moderate depression likely since a young teenager. Today its under control, but my drive to explore the outdoors will never be. It's part of who I am.
My favorite adventure of all time started when I met my wife. We have three fantastic children together who we adore and take along with us on our family adventures. The current chapter in our lives has taken us to California where I’m putting my master’s degree to good use.
In conversation I can talk your ear off about wilderness survival or the latest in space flight. My wife thinks I'm an interesting combination of a hick and a nerd, but with how many nights I've spent looking up at the stars I think the two go hand-in-hand.
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andy
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Step two
Follow us on Instagram!
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P.O. Box 1694
Tijeras, New Mexico
87059
Start deciphering the clues and planning out your journey.
What we do
Step two
Step one
If you are the first participant to photograph the key, sending us the picture will unlock the treasure!
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Step three
Hi, Nate here. I am a proud father of 4 and am married to my dream-come-true. I grew up amid potato farms and loved it, yet somehow found myself in DC multiple times as I decided grad school was fun enough to do twice. I am a passionate mathematician/statistician and have worked on fascinating projects including machine learning (who hasn't done that nowadays?), cryptography, ethical hacking, quantum computing and cryptocurrencies. But while I love working on hard problems, I learned an important truth about myself: a desk job isn't my thing.
My wife joked that I should apply to be an overqualified bicycle tour guide in Italy, where we had lived for some time. It shouldn't have surprised her when I did. Not long earlier I had returned from a 3 week bicycle trip with a buddy where we followed the Rhine river from its head in Switzerland to its end at the North Sea in the Netherlands. We were too cheap for hotels and too adventurous for silly things like maps. Living \\\"homeless\\\" but with a destination proved to be an action-packed adventure full of memorable experiences: from nearly dying in Switzerland to sleeping in a brothel while lost and hypothermic.
I collect slide rules and my favorite game is Go; I wish I had opportunities to play it more (why does everyone want to play Chess with me?). When I grow up I want to live on a catamaran, to be a free-diver and an astronaut and to drive a jeep so my oldest son will think I'm cool.
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Step four
The \\\"key\\\" is how you prove to us that you have successfully solved the clues and arrived in the correct location to claim the treasure. The key is nothing more than an object in a photograph that has been obscured. Your task is to arrive at the same place we were, take an identical photograph with the object (\\\"key\\\") clearly visible, and send it to us. Once we've verified the key is correct, the treasure is unlocked and sent directly to you!
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P.O. Box 1694
Tijeras, New Mexico
87059
Image you are provided
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We're hiding treasure across North America and Europe for anyone to find.
The game is afoot!
\\\"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it.\\\"
-- Ferris Bueller
Life should be full of adventure.
This is ours.
We share a legend that contains clues leading to the key.
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What you do
Stinging Nettle
Urtica Dioica. Nettle. Stinging Nettle. Ever heard of it? Well, today is your lucky day. Let’s back up. Does your mind ever wander while you are hiking to those ‘what if’ scenarios? What if I fall and break my ankle? What could I use to as a makeshift brace and bandage? What if I somehow get lost and have to survive? What type of plants could I eat to survive? Are there any fish around?
Well, today is your lucky day! If there is stinging nettle in your area, you are set. The amount of protein in stinging nettle is amazing! More than meat or nuts. It has a bunch of other health benefits as well. Click here to learn more from WebMD. However, please consult with your doctor for medical treatment. As amazing as nettle is, it doesn’t have a medical degree and cannot give you a diagnosis or treatment plan. However, it can be brewed into a tea, chewed on raw (after a trick we will share below), added to salad, sauteed, or (our family favorite) made into a pesto sauce. Our kids love it. It was our daughter’s requested birthday meal last year!
Typically, we avoid things that poke us and draw blood. Stinging nettle will get you, even through gloves if they’re very thin. The best way to harvest it is with a very thick pair of work gloves. Bring a bag, a knife or scissors, and a pair of gloves. Then harvest away. Springtime nettle tastes the best. If it is older, then you may end up with a strong graininess in your food. However, if you are making tea, that should not be a major factor. Tea is simple. Boil some water, seep the leaves. Done. For other recipes, after you harvest the leaves, you will want to cook them with a little bit of water until they are nicely wilted. Drain them and you should be ready to cook with them, no gloves required. As they cook, their ability to sting goes away. Check out Getty Stewart for some great stinging nettle recipes.
Typically, we follow a basic pesto recipe, just substituting nettle for basil. We have enjoyed making pesto with pine nuts, but it also works well with walnuts when you are on a stricter budget. You can seep the leaves into a tea for as long as you like. Our norm is about 5 minutes. The longer you go the darker the water gets.
My wife had a colleague in the Netherlands who would brew a big pot of nettle tea at the beginning of the week, then drink it throughout the week at her leisure, chilled or warmed. It was in the Netherlands that we first learned about the benefits of stinging nettle. We used to walk along the paths around our home in the spring and harvest some nettle. Free and delicious. Now, we hike along the local trails in Southern California in the Spring and enjoy harvesting it with our kids. Unfortunately, poison oak seems to enjoy the same growing area and makes harvesting a bit trickier. That is a plant for another post.
But, what if you are in the wilderness, trying to survive and don’t have time to sit around and make pesto or tea? Here’s the trick: using your gloves (make-shift ones if necessary), take a leaf and roll it up in a ball. Roll it between your fingers and work it all around. This will break off the nettles, leaving you with a harmless leaf ready to be popped into your mouth. Just inspect if first to make sure you really did get the pokers off.
There you go. A super source of protein, no preparation needed. Ready to help you survive. Or waiting for you to harvest along the trails, make into pesto, freeze into ice cube trays and use whenever your kids want some stinging nettle pasta.
Enjoy your adventure today!
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There are a lot of physical health benefits to outdoor sports and exploring. It’s pretty obvious that hiking can help your endurance, leg strength, lungs, etc. There’s even a lot of talk about getting Vitamin D from the sun. But today, we are going to talk about another major benefit that is intwined with outdoor adventures: mental health.
Disclaimer: none of our team members are certified mental health professionals, the following is from our personal experiences. Please seek help from a qualified health professional if you suspect you are dealing with any health problems, emotional or otherwise.
As brothers, we grew up in a small farming community. We often spent our free time exploring the desert and river bottoms. While pursuing our different graduate programs, we both ended up in major metropolitan areas. We also both ended up suffering from an occasional panic attack. For me (Andy), I could escape the stress and anxiety by hopping on my bike and riding along the canals and countryside of the Netherlands. My wife even jokingly kicked me out for a weekend to go on a bike trip to find some wilderness, build a shelter, and feel grounded again. That was a major moment for me. I came home more rejuvenated and energized than I had felt throughout my entire graduate program. For me, exploring outdoors is more than a hobby, it is my personal refuge. My place to unplug. A place to recenter. A place to stop the cacophony of crazy coming at us from news, social media, work, relatives (that’s right, Nate, I just said that), etc.
My favorite bit of nature is the mountains. Getting myself to the top of a peak, smelling the moss, seeing traces of animals, breathing the thin air, tasting some wild huckleberries: it doesn’t get much better than that. That is my perfect place. I can’t describe why, but it gives me strength to continue on through the day in and day out of this rodeo of life.
My wife’s taste in nature is totally opposite. She grew up in a very suburban area in California. Her perfect wilderness is the beach. She keeps telling me that as long as there is a sunset on the beach somewhere, things are going to work out and everything will be okay. She will stay and watch the sunset till the sky is completely dark, commenting every few moments how the sunset just got more beautiful. I usually am pretty ready to leave after about 5 minutes, but I stay. I stay because I can see that the sunset is recentering my wife and bringing her the same peace that I get in the mountains.
I have spent the last year working from home, as many others have. Some days, things are so busy that I don’t even leave our home. Too many of those days in a row starts to make me feel a bit stir crazy. However, when I prioritize my mental health and take time to go on a bike ride, hike, run, or simply walk with my daughter, life is better. My brain relaxes a bit. My stress levels go down. My optimism rises. Things are just better when I choose to be in nature.
What about you? How often do you choose to be in nature? Is it enough? Where is your happy place in nature? Are you a desert person? Mountains, plains, rivers, creeks, hills, caves? There is so much to be explored! Take the leap. Go outside. Find something new to explore. Try unplugging. How does being outside help your emotional state?
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My post content
Outdoor Exploring: in one day
Ready to get out? I mean: out, OUT. 2020 brought us a bunch of inside time and this worldwide realization: people don’t do well being stuck at home. We need to get out. We need to see the sun. Our mental health does better when our vision is unobscured by manmade things. We need to breath fresh air, feel the sun rays on our face, and find something new to appreciate. Now. What do you do?
Step One: choose where to go. Wanting to explore somewhere local? Think county parks, state parks, national protected wildernesses, or even a large park. Some of the best hid gems in your area may be at an obscure preserve or county park
<photo pond at grasslands>
Do you have a day you can dedicate to exploring? Check out any national parks or monuments in your area. Depending on your level of commitment (and comfort in a car), driving anywhere between 1-3 hours could work for a day trip. The Free Admittance National Park Days are great for daytrips! Plan to leave early and stay as late as it will be safe for you to drive home.
Step Two: Pick a day.
Yes. Pull out the calendar (or let’s be real, pop it up on your phone) and pick a day. Are you going local? Then tomorrow may be your day! Going farther out? Weekends are great for exploring, or take a day off work: you deserve it. I have a friend who hikes locally every morning at 7am. We go out with our kids a couple times a week (it varies by week, life happens). What is your situation? When can you go? Schedule it. Commit. Put it in the calendar.
Step Three: Pack your stuff.
Water. Always bring water. Going on a small local hike? Bring water. Hiking to the top of a peak? Bring water. Doing a day trip to a national park? Bring water. I think we got it. Bring water.
Don’t like holding a water bottle? Bring a backpack <<<recommendations>>>>
Hate stopping to pull your bottle out of a bag, or tired of the bottle leaking all over your stuff? Try a bladder. You have probably heard of Platypus or CamelPak. Some other great brands are <<<<>>>>>>.
**Pro tip: bladders are the way to go when hiking with kids. 1: they carry their own water! 2: they can get a drink whenever you want, instead of having to stop every 2.1 seconds for a drink break. 3. Did we mention that the kids carry their own water and snacks?
Snacks: You know you. Pack some healthy snacks to keep you body flowing with good fuel along the way. We rock the gluten free lifestyle and are diabetic aware. Some of our favorite hiking snacks include: Costco trail mix, dehydrated fruit, apples, oranges, and jerky. Think of your hiking snack/ meal as fuel for your body. How do you want to fuel your adventure?
Step Four: Tell your Friends.
Seriously. Tell a friend or family member where you are going. If they decide to join you, then tell someone else where you will be. It may seem silly and feel silly, but better safe than sorry.
Step Five: Adventure Time!
Do it. Go on a hike. Go on a nature walk. Go explore a new place. Go find new wonders at an old place. Need some help to find inspiration? Grab your camera or phone and take on a photo challenge. Find a bug, flower, rock, scene, vista, or whatever you like. The wonders of the world are often discovered through a camera lens. But be careful, sometimes the lens gets in the way of the moment.
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