25 teams faced a bitter cold wind to run the 2004 Tombstone Trail. The event started in Cannon Falls, MN and ended in Red Wing. Contestants had to chose from among 29 Goodhue County cemeteries to solve a word puzzle. A set of questions at the cemeteries provided a tiebreaker for those who solved the puzzle.
Nine teams completely solved the word puzzle, though two were penalized for taking more than the allowed 3 hours. The puzzle was constructed in such a way that the more cemeteries you visited, the easier it was to solve. The puzzle, if you're interested, was "Ninja Turtles eat Godfathers Pizza". That's 30 letters, but we gave them the first one as an example. The other 29 letters were each found at one cemetery.
Goodhue County is one of our favorite counties for the event, because it has some really old and remote cemeteries, which are quite fun in the dark. A few years ago, one of the neighbors hung a ghost behind a huge tree in one of these old, remote cemeteries. You couldn't see it as you entered the cemetery, but it was the kind of thing that freaked you out when you caught it in the corner of your eye.
Well, the neighbor has retired and his son now runs the family farm. When I told the son what a prankster his father was, he took it upon himself (unknown to me) to set up an elaborate system of things to drop from trees and pull along the ground with ropes. With an accomplice (maybe his wife, who I also met this year), he ambushed our contestants as they wandered by, getting great reactions from many who described the fun.
Relatively inexperienced teams took home a lot of trophies this year, as Breon and Jessica Nagy, running for the first time with the aid of teammates Mark and Mary Utecht, won the event and finished first in class AA by solving the puzzle and collecting 16 tiebreaker points, using a strategy of a self-imposed time limit in each cemetery. If they couldn't find the tiebreaker, they moved on.
Second in AA were Ben Dickut and Joe Grzesiak, also relative newcomers with an experienced co-pilot (Emily Burton-Weinman), with 7 tiebreaker points. Third in AA went to the Terese and Jon Helberg family, who tied with Nagy's with 16 tiebreakers, but suffered a time penalty for being a couple minutes late.
Second overall and first in class B went to Erik Dahl, running for the 2nd time, and Michael Wray, running for the first time, with 12 tiebreakers. Their strategy seemed to be to use their youthful vigor to run through the cemeteries and get the answers quickly. Max and Judy Hinkley, et al, were 2nd with 3 tiebreakers. Chris Willems and Bruce Fossell somehow missed one letter in the puzzle to take home 3rd in class B.
Experience paid off in class A as Kerry and Karen Freund took top honors and 3rd overall with teammates Beryl Ann Burton and Bruce Weinman. The four have over 100 years of Tombstone Trail experience between them, and used the "wiser is better than faster" method to find 11 tiebreakers for the win. Second in class were John Knauss and Brianne Schmidt.
Lance and Troy Stevens, running for the 2nd time, were 3rd in A, and were the first to report being assaulted by paint ball shooters. We believe we know who the assailants were and are turning the incident over to the Goodhue County sheriff's office. Doug Atwill and John Wiersma missed a word in the puzzle for 4th.
In class C, David Appel and Jason Beck prevailed, while Brian Cody and Jason Egan took class D. Second in D were Karl Brogger and Werner Luke.
The best costume award went to the clown family of Stu and Renee Tanquist, many time winners of the award. The coveted "dead last" award, two bottles of premium Tombstone Hooch, went to Harry and Megan Beck. Fortunately, and with great foresight, we had replaced the moonshine with apple juice, or the kids in the back would've been bouncing off the car doors by the time Harry got home.
Thanks to all who came out to support the event, to precheckers Bob Carter and Pat Whitney, assistant rallymaster Rachel Larson, and to Rachel Fuss for registration and scoring.
Mark Larson
Rallymaster
You can see the event results here.
2003 report