Well, the Where's Rhino? contest has come to a close. It has been a lot of fun, and has brought our life group closer together in the process. Many thanks to Tabi and everyone else who made this happen.
The week 5 rhino was the toughest of all. We thought week 2 was sly, and week 4 was cunning, but week 5 was a stealth master. I got word that he has spent the past 10 years training with a ninja clan somewhere in Tibet. It took 5 clues to pinpoint his position. Congratulations to Brent and Bonnie Pfeiler for finding this one! Brent and Bonnie are in our life group and attend the 9am service. That makes the final score 9am-3, 5pm-2.
Clue 1 - A poem and two blue lines.
Monday morning, the start of the final hunt. We've been foiled twice now and the 9am service is on the verge of being overtaken by the 5 o'clockers. It's up to us to find the rhino and secure a victory for the early risers!
The clue was put online around 10:30am. Two things stand out, #2, and the 2 blue lines. This is not a very revealing clue, not photo, nothing. I start with #2. What could that mean? It could be talking about week 2, this weeks second clue, or it could be something else entirely. I pulled up the first clue for week 2 and immediately cringe remembering the jab "Tree north", "Find that! neener neener neener". Not much to go on there, let's look at some other ideas. What if the #2 refers to some kind of district or something? Through searching in past weeks I had found the new Clark County Digital Atlas. It has everything you could ever want to know about the city. I navigate to the districts and boundaries section, hmmm... Cemetery Districts, Commissioner Districts, Fire Districts, Legislative Districts, School Districts, Sewer Districts, Water Districts, Neighborhoods, Zip codes. This is going to take forever. After going through them for a while, the one that looks the most promising is 
Election Districts. District 2 is very close to the church and right in the middle of the district is Orchard Highlands Park. I've gotta check that out. On the phone with Pwilly later in the day we had another idea. What if #2 meant um, you know, #2, and the blue lines were part of a picture? Let's keep that in mind for later.
After work, I headed over to Orchard Highlands Park. A sign said it was marked for future development, it was heavily wooded with trails running through it. I look around as much as I can in the dark, taking some mental photographs to compare against future clues. I also went by the Orchards campus since that was the second campus of the church. No blue lines there.
Clue 2 - A bible reference and a taunt.
Not exactly what I was expecting. Where are the pictures I have grown so fond of? At least the bible reference is something I can deal with. Off to http://www.biblegateway.com/ to lookup the verse.
Isaiah 64:7
No one calls on your name or strives to lay hold of you; for you have hidden your face from us and made us waste away because of our sins. (NIV)
Interesting choice. Nothing is really sticking out other then "hidden your face", and "waste away". I wonder if the version makes a difference. Let's try the NLT since that is what Pastor John uses.
Isaiah 64:7
Yet no one calls on your name or pleads with you for mercy. Therefore, you have turned away from us and turned us over to our sins. (NLT)
This time "mercy" is all that sticks out, not much help. Searching for mercy yielded 124 verses, waste yielded 106, and hidden 82. Googling for mercy in Vancouver, WA turned up the Mercy Corps, there is a restaurant called Hidden House, and was waste referring to Pastor Rick's garbage? I am at a total loss, none of these are really sounding like a place where rhinos would hang out.
Then the phrase "look around will ya?" jumps out at me. Yes, they are taunting us, but maybe it's more then that. Maybe the rhino wants us to see something in the verses surrounding Isaiah 64:7. Back to BibleGateway and this time I pull up the entire chapter 64. One verse in particular stands out; Isaiah 64:8. It is the verse about God being the potter and we are the clay. A fairly well known verse, and to me one with much more clue potential.
I briefly look up potters, pottery, and clay and make some notes for later. Then look to see if there are any streets named potter or clay. Potter St, Potter Ave, Clay St, Clay Ave, Nothing. Time to put it away for the day.
Clue 3 - Fly-fishing sons and C.C.Title8.
I was watching the website for the clue to be posted. Finally a link for clue three shows up, but when I clicked it I was taken to clue two. Checking the URL I notice that the URL is the same. It must be a simple cut & paste problem. I manually enter the URL in the expected format and there is clue three! Maybe I'll get a head start on this one until the link is corrected.
The numbers look like a good place to start this time. I google for 8.11.060. The first link that come up is to Clark County Code. Very promising. The numbers in the brackets must match up to the numbered bullets on the site.
(7) Any dog, whether licensed or not, which runs at large.
(17) Any animal which deposits excrement or other solid waste in any place not designated to receive such waste when such waste is not removed by the owner or other person having control over the animal.
Now the #2 in the first clue makes sense, they must have been talking about dog doo-doo. Pwilly calls in with the details on the text. "It's from the movie A River Runs Through It" he says. I pull up IMDb and sure enough the text in the clue is word-for-word the plot outline of the movie. We put the two pieces together and figure it must be a park with a river running through it. I hop on the Vancouver-Clark Parks and Recreation site we found last week and start going through all the parks that near a river. The two most obvious parks are Daybreak Park, and Lewisville Park, so during lunch I decide to drive over and check them out. Chrystal calls to tell me about the movie, and when I tell her I'm going to check out the parks, she said that she wanted to go to daybreak.
When I get to Daybreak, Chrystal has beaten me there. We check out both sides of the park, and see some fly-fishermen, but no sign with the county code, and no doggy bagging stations. "I'm headed over to Lewisville next" I tell Chrystal. "All right, tell me if you see anything there, I'm going home" she says. So I leave, taking what I think is a shortcut that took me all over northern Clark County. Finally I get on 503 and head south to the park. As I'm nearing the park I see something that makes my heart start pumping fast. Potter Road! I was right about clue two. I turn down the road to check it out. I get to the end, park and get out. Hey, there's a trail here, and it looks like it heads into the park. I walk down and end up near the baseball diamond. Right at the trail head there is a sign with the county code numbers 8.11.060 7 and 17. Very promising, but it doesn't match the one in the clue, the 7 and 17 on the clue were inside angle brackets <> while on this sign they were inside parentheses (). The colors were also wrong being that the sign was white with blue writing, not off-white with black.
After looking around briefly, I decide to head back up to my truck so that I can drive through the park and look for the sign. As I'm entering the park, I see another sign, this time the numbers were in angle brackets like the clue, but the colors are still wrong. I do a quick drive through and don't see a matching signs or dog stations. It has to be Lewisville because of Potter Rd, so maybe the sign was to point us to the dogwood shelter. I drive over to check it out and there is Chrystal talking with one of the rangers, What a rhino hunting junkie. "Weren't you going home?" I ask. "I was, but I couldn't help myself." she replied. She said that se showed the ranger the picture of the sign and he said that they didn't have any that color. Bummer. I do a quick check of the dogwood shelter. Nothing.
On my way out of the park I see the sign shelters and notice that there are only three with numbers, I1, I2, and I3. Thinking back to the first clue I decide to check out I2. As I drive up, the road is closed - perfect! Then 2 fly-fishermen walk down the trail to get into their truck. I must be in the right place! I'm running late getting back but I have to check it out. I run as fast as I can over to I2, look around quickly, but nothing. I better get back before I get into trouble.
Pwilly calls later and wants to go to the park but is at a job. I let him know that the park closes at dusk so he better hurry. As soon as he gets done, he takes off headed for Lewisville. After getting a flat doing 85 he decides there is no possible way he is going to make it there before closing.
Desperate times call for desperate measures. Pwilly gathers special forces members Steve and Michael and the three of them decide to sneak into the park at night thinking that the rhino might come out of hiding for a little exercise and they would be there to catch him. After thoroughly sweeping the park and narrowly escaping a run-in with a ranger they came away empty handed.
Clue 4 - Scrambled pictures.
When I get to work in Thursday, Kevin, a coworker I had told about the rhino hunt in week 4 called out "Hey rhino boy, I know where it's at!" "Where?" I ask him. "It's in Lewisville park" he says. We discussed the first three clues and realized we had come to very similar conclusions. I have meetings all morning, but manage to catch the clue when it was posted. During a break I walk over to talk to Kevin, and Jon, another co-worker had printed out the clue, cut it up and taped the pictures back together. There ended up being three pictures, the first was fairly obvious, a spike strip and a yellow arrow. The other two were a blue birdhouse and a sign reading "You are here".
"We're going out there" Kevin informs me. The fact that they live and work in Hillsboro was not stopping them, while I was stuck in meetings, Kevin and Jon were off to find the rhino.
As soon as I am able to break away I called up Kevin and asked how it was going. He said that they found the birdhouse and the sign, but weren't having too much luck. I told him that I was on my way out there, this rhino hunting thing is way too addicting. On my way there I talked to Pwilly who was also headed over. He informed me that fellow life group members Brent and Bonnie were already there hunting.
As I'm pulling up to the park I notice that it is crawling with people. A very different scene then I experienced Wednesday. Today's clue had made it pretty obvious that the rhino was somewhere in Lewisville Park. One of the people I see on the way in is someone I know. "James" I call out. James come over to my truck and informs me that he has been searching for the rhino like mad and had also tracked him to the park on Wednesday. We trade ideas and I am off to meet up with Pwilly, Brent and Bonnie. We look all over. Well #2 looked promising but yielded nothing. As we're looking around I take a closer look at the sign near the entrance. I had an idea, maybe they messed with the colors in the picture like they did last week. I pull out my print-out of clue 3 and compare it to the sign. The dirt spot on the sign exactly matched the one in the picture! We had found the sign! Unfortunately it didn't help us much, more looking around and nothing to show for it. Kevin and Jon had been on all of the nature trails and hadn't found anything either. Another day gone by with no rhino.
On the way out of the park Pwilly, Brent, Bonnie and I have a little meeting. We decided that since it was already Thursday and the rhino was to be found before the service on Saturday, Friday's clue would likely be a dead giveaway. Because of that we decided that Brent, having the day off, would get to the park early Friday and wait for me to call him when the clue was posted.
Clue 5 - The Log.
I get a call from Brent at 9am letting me know that he was in position. He says that it looks like there are a few other people trying to do the same thing we are. The intensity is increasing, this would be a close one.
James IMs me and lets me know that he doesn't think my life group should be able to find the rhino, and that I shouldn't be helping anyone find it. I politely disagreed with him, and let him know that our life group got together at day one and said we wanted to find team up to find the rhino. I told him that he should really join a life group and that I wouldn't have a problem if they were working together.
While James and I were going back and forth, the clue was posted. I immediately call Brent and describe the clue. "It's a log that's kinda sticking up next to a path that's covered with leaves". I IM James letting him know the clue was there - no response. Kevin IMs me and says "I know exactly where that log is, it's one of the few I didn't look under. It's on the nature trail up near Potter Road." I get another IM from James "This is Sara, James left". I relay the information to Brent, and within minutes he has the rhino in his hands! "Woo Hoo!" I hear him yell into the phone, "I've got it!" I've never heard Brent this excited before. As Brent is walking back down the trail, he can see car after car pulling into the park. "It's a good thing I didn't wait for the clue to get posted to drive out here, I never would have got it." Brent said. Just then the Tabi and the Living Hope video crew pull up. The hunt is over. The rhino has been found!