National Park Mystery Spot 29 Revealed: A Hole in the Ground
You were given these clues to identify this month's mystery spot, which is located in a unit of the National Park System.
The transparent sphere that the gypsy holds near may help you make up your mind.
A pool that nature put in this place may put Tinker Bell thoughts in your head.
You can knuckle one to shoot at a cluster, or you can polish a chunk to a very nice luster.
If I march to the sea, will they name a tree after me?
"In a hole in the ground," wrote Tolkien, "there lived a hobbit."
You need to go down to go in.
The answer is Crystal Cave in California's Sequoia National Park.
Kudos to Eric, who was the first to identify the mystery spot. Also providing the correct answer to this puzzler were AC Phoenix, Anon 8:45, RoadRanger, richp39, jchappell740, and tomp2. A good showing.
Here is how the clues lead you to the answer.
Some people believe that crystal-gazing offers a means to see into the future or answer difficult questions. The stereotypical image of the crystal-gazer is a gypsy woman who stares into a large crystal ball (transparent sphere) and makes predictions or offers answers to specific questions.
A cave is a cavity in the earth that can be called a hole in the ground.
The Tinker Bell character in Peter Pan is a fairy. One of the feature attractions of Crystal Cave is Fairy Pool.
Crystal Cave was formed by the solution weathering of marble, a metamorphic (altered) form of limestone. Marble rock can be polished to a very nice luster, as in architectural applications. In the game of marbles, a player can knuckle a marble to shoot at a cluster of his opponent's marbles.
An iconic attraction of Sequoia National Park is General Sherman, a giant sequoia that is probably the most voluminous tree on the planet. This astonishingly large tree was named for Union General William Tecumseh Sherman, whose epic Atlanta-to-Savannah march to the sea during the Civil War gained him enduring fame (or notoriety, depending on your point of view).
You need to descend a steep path to get to the entrance of Crystal Cave. In other words, "you need to go down to go in."