Dead End

     As it turns out, the answer to the riddle was incredibly simple. Actually, it was impossibly simple. Go ahead, google the letters "DED END DRV WTNY TEX". Apparently the only reason it was weird looking was to save space. And I had been stressing about it. How embarrassing. That said, it was still expecting me to drive to texas. seriously, it takes almost en entire day to drive there in good traffic. I decided to take my sweet time. I spent a day in Arizona, three in New Mexico, one in El Paso, and finally I arrived in Texas on the twentieth. My leg was mostly healed by now, but the cut on my back cracked whenever i bent down, so it hurt like a sonofabitch. I waited as long as I felt like I could before finally heading to Dead End Drive. Seriously, the most Ominous road name I have ever heard.
     It was a short road,a sort of dirt cul de sac with four houses ringing it. Past the back of the dead end was a thick patch of trees, and behind that, beautiful lake whitney. I decided to scope it out in daylight, using my backpack to go inconspicuously. I parked up the river bank a couple of miles, threw on some mountain-ey clothes, and my backpack. I hiked up the shore, savoring some views and such. When I got to the actual dead-end, I feigned a rest, settled down against a tree and "relaxed". I spent about twenty minutes running my eyes across everything I could see. I thought that what i was looking for would be near the houses, because of the address, but I couldn't seem to find anything. I spent about an hour looking around, not finding anything. I had come too late in the day, because the sun was headed down, so I decided to try again the next day.
     The next day, I made sure to go early in the morning, to make sure I had a full day to search. I went to a local sports shop and bought an inexpensive collapsible fishing rod, then went to the shore again. I spent all day fishing and searching. I'd cast out a bait and scramble around the trees and rocks nearby. It was probably about two thirty when I finally found it.
     There were two runoffs on either side of the actual dead end, turning the shore into a nice even curve. The runoffs were washed out, mostly sand and piles of rocks. It was one of these piles where I noticed what I needed: the number thirteen etched onto the side of a boulder. It was small, anyone could have missed it, but I got lucky. It seems amazing to me how much of this depended on me getting lucky, but I've been pretty good so far. Well, i've done alright.
     I tried to push the boulder over, but that thing was incredibly heavy. I ended up having to lever it over using a branch from one of the trees. I sifted through the sand, and found a circular shape. I scooped around it and revealed the lid of a five-gallon paint bucket, buried in the sand. I pried it open and found another container inside, The word Otter was on the outside of the smaller box. I turns out that otter makes waterproof containers, which is a good thing, because it looked like the bucket had been cracked by the rock. A shallow layer of water was sitting in the bottom of the bucket, with thick algae growing in it.
     I pulled in my line, gathered my gear, and headed back to my camp for the night.