775 Mile Journey in Search of a Dodge Journey

Let me begin with where this idea was born. About two weeks ago while watching television, Josh and I saw this commercial for the new Dodge Journey.

I had every intention of going on YouTube to discover the rules of the search, but I completely forgot. Luckily Josh remembered to look it up and, after screen capturing some of the clips from the initial commercial, determined that the Dodge Journey had to be somewhere in Northeast New York or Vermont. This opportunity to find a new car was too awesome to pass up, so we decided that we were going to drive to the area on September 24th to give it our best shot. In order to prepare, we bought an atlas of Vermont to try and give ourselves a search radius. We also came across an invaluable blog that was dedicated to solving video clues for the East search, so we scoured the comment board for ideas as well. What we eventually discovered was that Dodge made a mistake in offering a wide frame shot of the final location of the Journey in the East Search, and by using Google Earth, most people determined that it was on Mt. Independence in Vermont. This brought up many questions about the fairness of the search. Many figured that the Journey would either be found within five minutes of the contest starting, while others were hoping that Dodge was aware of the discovery and that they had a contingency plan for another location. Luckily, the latter is what occurred.
On the morning of Saturday, September 24, Josh and I departed from my parents house in Galilee, PA at 7:40am. We drove straight to Queensbury, NY, and found a Starbucks to setup shop in because I had a plan of sorts. Since everybody assumed the Journey was at Mt. Independence, we both figured it was pointless to go to such a congested area, especially since one needed to take a ferry from Ticonderoga, NY, to even get to that location in Vermont. By staying in Queensbury, this gave us a central location to Ticonderoga and Albany. Our reasoning was based upon the numerous inconsistencies and paradoxes within the original commercial because it shows the Dodge Journey driving in four completely different directions.
The first clue was launched at noon and gave us a starting radius of 500 miles from Albany, NY. This came as a bit of a shock because many were assuming a radius of only 100-200 miles. The bigger surprise was that the next four subsequent clues that would be released each hour until 4pm only narrowed the radius by 25 miles each, giving a radius of 375 miles on the final clue. (If you would like to watch the clues released by Dodge, which I would highly encourage, you can go to Dodge's YouTube Channel and scroll down to where it says, "And the clues that led to the Journey.") Considering we knew what the first four clues were going to be in terms of location, we felt it was best to sit in Starbucks until the final clue was released. We occupied our time with trying to determine a direction and checking on a live update blog, the live feed of the Dodge Journey, and Twitter. Once the final clue was released, and it oddly saying that the Journey was within 25 miles of the last clue, we determined that it would be best to drive to Vermont via Route 4 to avoid any congestion. We knew Dodge had put up a sign right before the turn onto Route 73 off of Route 74 east in Vermont, so we assumed that we had to just look for these signs.

As we got closer to Route 74, Josh thought it best that we try to take some back roads to search on because the West and Midwest locations had been remote. Also, the last clue spoke of a marathon, so we were trying to search an area that was 26.2 miles from Schroon Lake, NY. We soon began coming across numerous vehicles from out of state who were obviously taking part in the search. We drove down remote dirt roads and dead end roads leading to farms trying to determine where this barn was, as this image of our Google Maps route indicates.
Around 5pm on Dodge's Twitter we realized a bit of bad news. They said that the Journey really wasn't within 25 miles like the last clue video had stated, but within 375 miles. They also said that a slideshow would be played starting at 6pm to show landmarks on the way to the location. With this slightly demoralizing news, we decided to pull off the road and access the internet for the slideshow. My mom was watching at home and calling with tips of possible directions to drive in. After about a half hour of almost useless pictures, minus a handful of buildings, we decided that our best bet was to drive back on 74 west and take the turn onto 73 like the Journey in the 500 mile clue. This seemed to be everybody's idea because we soon found ourselves in a convoy of about 8 cars all driving frantically in the same direction. Any place there was a passing zone, cars went zooming by, or I passed the slow drivers in front of me. We began to see some of the buildings from the slideshow in Orwell, VT, which gave us hope that we were on the right track. Josh was on the phone with my mom and watching the slideshow to try and figure out which direction to go in. We made it to Brandon, VT, and pulled off the road, just like all of the other cars, because that was the last image given in the slideshow. Instead of waiting for it to continue, we made a wild guess and hopped on Route 7 south. This happened to be a very smart move and we actually found ourselves ahead of the clues in the slideshow. Josh's friend Dan was also trying to keep us updated to a direction, as were my parents. My dad discovered a barn behind a restaurant in Killington, VT, that seemed promising, but then the next slide indicated otherwise. I continued to drive as fast as I could without drawing attention down Route 4 towards Woodstock, VT, and Quechee. After some careful thinking, we felt it was best to get on Interstate 89 south, and got off in Lebanon, NH, so that we could pull into a parking lot and wait for the next clue. Unfortunately, this was at 9pm and Dodge wrote on the chalkboard in the live feed that the slideshow would continue at 9am the next morning. This was quite demoralizing because we had such high hopes that we were ahead of the crowd and on the right track. As much as we wished to continue, we knew that we had to be back in Hellertown for Josh to teach Sunday school in the morning.
On one last whim, though, since we didn't want to give up too easily, we realized on the blog that somebody had mentioned that there was a Journey's End Farm outside of Providence, RI. This was 204 miles from where we were currently, but it fit into the radius that Dodge had implemented, so we gave it a shot. Around 1am, we rolled slowly down a dead end road past this farm and saw a barn with lights on. After 3 drive-bys, we determined that the barn didn't seem to match the one from the live feed and we didn't have the nerve to trespass so early in the morning. I didn't think getting shot at while in search of a car was something I wanted to chance. With that in mind, we began the journey back to East Stroudsburg. We took I-95 south through Connecticut and around 3am, decided to pull off in a rest area for a 1 hour nap. I then drove the rest of the way home through the Bronx, across the George Washington Bridge, and through New Jersey before making it back to my apartment at 6:30am. All in all, it was a very fun excursion. We managed to travel through 8 different states all within the span of 23 hours, so not too shabby. For all you visual learners out there, a map of our entire route can be seen to the right so you can visualize how far we actually drove. Also, once I work out the technical difficulties, I will be posting a video of our entire excursion. On a final note, the Journey was found around 5pm on Sunday up on the northern coast of Maine.