Coit Tower in San Francisco. Not only did I know the place, I happened to be at my girlfriend's house which is only an hour away. Surprised, I looked at the clue:
Seek out this tower by wire and,
discover the clever pig that marks
the spotlight, and the reward below.
Not knowing what to expect, I headed out to San Francisco with my girlfriend. The first part of the clue was easy: the tower was Coit Tower and the wire talked about the cable cars in San Francisco. Inside the tower, there are murals that line the first level of the tower. Looking around at the murals, there was one depicting a slaughterhouse with pigs. Thinking this may be the "clever pig", we searched around it and didn't find anything. Also, in the center of the mural was a small window. Circling to the outside of the winder, we couldn't see anything near the window or anything that pointed to "the spotlight." After calling my father for any help he could think of, his experience with crossword puzzles and a witty mind thought that "clever pig" could be refering to the name Cunningham: clever = cunning and pig = ham. Using this as a springboard, we looked for the name Cunningham in the murals, written or even being the name of one of the painters. Drawing another blank, we looked at maps to see if there were any streets named Cunningham and going to the top of the tower to see if we could see any pigs from the top. Nothing... After about an hour of not knowing where to look, we walked around the tower looking around any lights that we could find. She went one way and I went the other. I took a set of stairs down from the tower to a walkway that was lined with small lights. Searching those I didn't find anything and was beginning to give up hope. I turned around to go back up the stairs and saw names on all of the steps of the stairs. I was shocked! Maybe the name could be here. I looked at every step and didn't find anything. I found another set of stairs with more names and came up empty again. I finally came to this set of stairs leading to the front of the tower:
We had taken the bus up to the tower because it is located on the top of Telegraph Hill. It is quite a steep walk to get to it by foot. If we had walked, we would have seen those stairs from the very beginning. Checking the stairs I found this name:
After seeing the names on the first set of stairs, I knew I was on the right track, finding this name sealed it. I could barely remember the clue when I found that step, but I stopped and looked for any "spotlights" near:
I was confused at first because I didn't know where an Isis could hide around there. Then I looked between the grate of the light and the wall and found a small bag with a silver coin:
It was an amazing find. I ran around the entire tower to find my girlfriend. She was confused when I was running at her full speed. I told her I found it and showed her where it was hiding. The best part about the search besides finding the coin was that it was Fleet Week in San Francisco. It is a yearly airshow that features the Blue Angels, the US Navy's elite flying group. They were practicing for the air show that weekend and were doing passes on the tower and over the bay. It was like my own personal victory dance in the sky.
Not knowing what to do with the coin, we went to the local Shaper Image shop in San Francisco. I showed it to one of the sales associates and asked her what to do with the coin. None of the workers even knew there was something like that going on. One of them was actually surprised and excited about the idea. After going home I emailed Shaper Image and SW and was told I won an Isis. All because of many coincidences and luck.
Hope you get it soon.