Tropicalbats 6000 Contest

Well now yes, that did not take long at all. But thanks for not spelling out how to get to the answer so others can work through it to get there.

Congratulations to igwt79!!! Certainly a super quick solve and if you send along your mailing info and you'll have a shiny new 1972 Lincoln heading your way. Well done indeed.

The second prize contest stays open all day, so have at it even though the answer itself is known.

Awesome! Thanks everyone, and especially TB for the extremely well thought out and super fun contest and mystery story chock full of clues... Once I read the story, I could not stop reading over and over until solving the mystery puzzle and getting my hands on the answer! Thanks also for the very generous 1st prize! I have nothing like it and I am thrilled!

(I'll go back now and edit my second post to fix some typos since I am ineligible to win second prize, and rightfully so,... I am certain someone else will regale us with a most humorous, entertaining or otherwise clever response... I am looking forward to that!)



Serendipity that I was awake and online when TB posted... my shepherd/husky mix has anxiety/psychological issues for which she is on meds, but the meds no longer work and she tends to knock things over and jump on my bed at night just to ensure I get no rest... she's going on 13 years old now and the poor thing can't get any rest herself it seems. Several visits and calls to the vet, but no cure found yet.

PM Sent... Thanks again TB!

I won't guess Lincoln, Nebraska because it isn't a small town.

My guess is Pennytown, Missouri. On a cold day?

Thanks for running the contest, Tropicalbats! It was good fun. =)

Thanks for the fun! Continued prayers for our neighbors in Bat Cave and other communities in Western NC.

Philidelphia

SPOILER ALERT - This is the solution to the puzzle. If you haven't figured it out, and don't want to know how to get to the answer, then skip this one.

First, there is a lot of random information in the story, on purpose. But the question is simple, where is the store? The first leap is to note that the two customers' names are Mr. Long and Mr. Latit. Those are just abbreviations for Longitude and Latitude, telling you how the location is hidden in the story.

Next, since Lat and Long can be reported several ways, and most commonly now as decimal degrees, the second paragraph uses the words "degrees", "minutes" and "seconds". This is how you know which format the coordinates are in.

After that it is just a matter of looking at the years of the coins each of the customers bought. Mr. Latit(ude) bought coins from 1935, 1927 and 1905. Mr. Long(itude) bought from 1982, 1917 and 1913.

Therefore the coordinates of the store are 35 degrees 27 minutes 05 seconds north latitude, and 82 degrees 17 minutes and 13 seconds west longitude. The north and west aren't stipulated, but it's the only way you end up in the US. You can plug this into any of a number of websites to get the actual location of these coordinates, which is Bat Cave, NC. It's the town, not the cave itself, which is up on the hill and not right in town. The cave is a protected site for hibernating bats, and hence the name of the town, although White Nose Syndrome has killed off much of the cave's bat population.

The response noting that the customers had a lot of "tude" was a very clever reference to the solve.

There were a lot of red herrings, but the big one was the name of the store keeper Albus Doubledie, to distract from the answer by introducing a Harry Potter reference.

Good to know folks enjoyed the puzzle! 1st prize went out in the mail today and 2nd will go out on Monday.