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This is how The St. Valentine's Day Massacre works:
 We'll send you the giant 11x15 136-page 2021 Rand McNally Road Atlas
and the St. Valentine's Day Massacre book of instructions.
You'll start at the Statue of Liberty and travel (vicariously, by map) across the continent to the Golden Gate Bridge.
Entries are accepted continuously until Valentine's Day, February 14. (The completion deadline for everyone is March 8.)
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What has Jeopardy! champion Ken Jennings written about the St. Valentine's Day Massacre? Click:
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Note: Entries for the 2021 St. Valentine's Day Massacre closed on Valentine's Day.
Scroll to the bottom regarding
receiving advance information next December for the 2022 competition.
Meanwhile,
please check out our Almaniac trivia contest, going on right now, and our next map rally, the Independence Day Fireworks, coming up in July.
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2021 Massacre competitors:
We have informed everybody by mail [either in a postcard or, for those to whom we have mailed packages recently, in the
instruction book itself] of these three changes:
• Page 7: Leg 1’s Instruction 31: just after the third comma, please insert: ‘then go west upon principal highway at Catawba,’ [ Why? to cease using rule b. ]
• Page 23: Leg 4’s Instruction 27: add: ‘, then be on or go to main Minnesota map when you see town whose name comprises more than 11 letters.’ [ Why? to be at the intended place. ]
• Page 38: Leg 8’s Special Instruction B: change the first bulleted condition to: ‘traveling always upon at least one highway whose number includes a digit 5;’ [ Why? It is okay to be upon a highway without a digit 5 if you’re also upon a highway with a digit 5.]
We apologize for these changes; we hope that you’re enjoying the trip!
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Google Street View
You will have noticed that occasionally during the rally we provide a link to a Google Street View photo taken along the course.
These photos don’t affect the Massacre course or questions in any way and may safely be ignored if you aren’t interested in them.
But click on any of these if you are interested in seeing what's 'really' there [and -- this is remarkable -- after clicking on an image you can rotate the picture to look around,
and travel up or down the road, as with any Google Street View photo].
As for us, we weren’t watching the road; we were enjoying the scenery, especially the trees and clouds.
in Leg 1:
Wharton State Forest
in New Jersey
Delaware / Maryland state boundary
Cucumber
in West Virginia
in Leg 2:
Welcome
in North Carolina
in Leg 3:
Enigma
in Georgia
approaching Murray
in Kentucky
approaching Napoleon
in Indiana
in Leg 5:
Haack’s nest
in Cylinder, Iowa
approaching Tomato
in Arkansas
in Leg 6:
wayside, U.S. 65
in Arkansas
Back Gate
in Arkansas
in Leg 7:
Deer
in Oklahoma
Very Large Array
in New Mexico
in Leg 8:
Luther Pass
in California
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By following the Massacre's auto rally kind of instructions, at your kitchen table or wherever you want, an hour or two at a time whenever you want,
we travel on a continuous course over mountains and plains, from page to page in the atlas, from the Golden Gate Bridge to the Statue of Liberty.
2021 has been declared the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables by the United Nations, and we're going to celebrate by visiting Cucumber
[West Virginia], Spuds [Florida], Beanblossom [Indiana], Cherry [Minnesota], Tomato [Arkansas], Corn [Oklahoma], and Strawberry [Arizona] on our
way across the continent.
Along the coast-to-coast course you'll get help from Farmer Misenheimer in West Virginia, Clerk Clark in South Carolina,
Portia & Pete in Georgia, Ole Morken in Minnesota, Rolly Schweinezüchter in Iowa, Eikao Tsirotom in Oklahoma, and (yes!) The Old Maltese.
For 2020 we *saw the C sights* across the continent, from the Cascades to Cody, Clay County, Cape Girardeau,
Cash, and Carrying Place [Ontario] to the big City.
In 2019 we saluted Ernies, such as 16-tonner
Tennessee Ernie Ford and over-the-top comedian Ernie Kovacs, both of whom were born exactly 100 years ago. We celebrated by visiting Ernie’s Restaurants in Virginia, South Carolina, Missouri, and California. And Burning Man in Nevada!
In 2018 we honored classic American writers, in their namesake places: Hawthorne, California; Thoreau, New Mexico; Whitman, Nebraska; Dickinson, North Dakota; Wilder, Minnesota; Irving, Illinois; Fitzgerald, Georgia; and Wharton, New Jersey.
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Along the way, we ask questions to see if you are on the correct course. Here's the very first question from the 2020 event, and the instructions it's between.
2. Go right on California 128.
Question: How many of these towns do you see?
Albion; Geyserville
3. Go north on California 29 at Calistoga.
[We turned off California 1 near Albion, which (B.R. 2/a) immediately we saw behind us (SEE def.: within 1/4 map inch),
then we saw Geyserville as well on our way to Calistoga for #3.]
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You have until the 8th of March to send in your answers. Then custom-designed trophies go to at least the top 10%: those who've done the best in avoiding the Massacre's bushwhackers and snares.
And local champion certificates go to the best from each state, province, and country.
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To receive a St. Valentine's Day Massacre brochure in the mail next December, in advance of the 2022 competition, just send The Old Maltese an email request mentioning the Massacre, with your street mailing address, or mail a note to us at:
St. Valentine's Day Massacre
P.O. Box 53
La Cañada, California 91012
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