What your about to read is not the tale of a quitter, but a boy who has way to much free time on his hands.

I started off super optimistic with this challenge, it’s something that I love doing and finding an image by just using google maps is something that I have done before, so truly no big deal, little did I know, I would never look at Wendy’s, Shell, or the entire state of Florida the same ever again.

The Prompt is as follows:
OSINT - Finding Megan Again 100

We lost our dear Agent, Megan! Her last known location was seen here. Do you know which road this is? (The flag is the name of the road)

We are provided two images, one came out much later, but they are both the same road from different perspectives.

There were a few things to pick out of the image almost immediately. There was a Wendys Sign, Shell Gas Station, what looked like a Circle K (This was true, and confirmed by the second image)
Other than physical landmarks, there was
* Cars with no front plates and stickers for inspecction every year
* American Elm trees that are seen on the left and right of the image
* A hotel/motel that was extremely seculded
* An interstate sign with what looked like single digit, or in the 10 area
* A four lane roadway, with one lane on the other side
* Telephone Poles native to the southern hemisphere
* An Empty Lot (Left Side)
* A diesel bay for larger cargo vehicles (Evident by the pepsi truck seen on the far left)
* A yellow and white sign, almost resembling subway on the building across the way
* A buildig that looks like a youth or church camp.

The first day, I spent hours cross referencing shell gas stations that were in close proximity to Wendy’s. I gave up brute forcing one I finished my first 1000 wendys, so then I turned to the states where cars only needed to have a singular plate on the back end (Evident by the car on the left hand side). These states were

Southern Possible States: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Tennessee = ~2500+ Wendys and ~12000+ Shells

States that were impossible: Arizona, Delaware, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, West Virginia

This was my compiled list, so then I investigated the tree lead. I also looked at the trees, and deduced that they are American Elm, trees that grow (more often than in other places) down south. So my inital list shortened to just the Southern possible states list mentioned above. But due to the sheer number of Wendy’s and Shells I could find next to each other in the south, I slept on it to see what tomorrow would bring.

I woke up ready to go again, working on it at school and pathetically having to explain to friends why I was looking for a shell and a Wendy’s that were close to each other. On day 2, I got through 10/15 states, manually cross referencing,

Every. Single. Wendy’s.

No luck. 3000+ Wendy’s down in two days, and reading the names of over 5000 shells, I ran out of time, and ~16 Hours of research got me nowhere. I started to lose hope.

Day 3 was the most eventful, productive, and frustrating day. The 2nd part of the challenge was released and boy did I see A LOT. There was the building painted with the grinch in the windows on the left, no front license plates, interstate signs, a pump specifically for trucks, and a circle k, cars that all had tags for inspection. (The circle k thing was figured out in day 2, but everything else was new)

I got home at 3:30 MST, and said forget PatriotCTF, I want to get this challenge. I started working immediately. I first went through every single interstate using some tool called iExitapp, that showed you the proximity of one location from an exit. Anything below 0.08 seemed to be the sweet spot, but I searched every Wendy’s in 14 states that I thought it could be in, funny enough, they were all duds.

I started checking which states have yearly inspections, checked them all, all duds.

I looked at real estate for a building with painted grinch themed windows, thinking it was some kind of church or youth building for hours no luck. I took a sigh and was about to give up, but then, and just then, I realized that there was one state that remained, Florida. I made a joke in the Cx3 Discord (Which I encourage everyone to join) that "If Megan in Florida I stg" and an admin confirmed my intuition. Florida had a whopping 526 Wendys, and I started searching.

I used google earth, and the all wendys locations in the US website, cross refrenced, used everything in my power to find Megan, and when the final Wendys came around, I felt hopeless. It wasn't there. Defeated and sad, I didn't know what was wrong, what did I miss, what did I not see? Then it came to me, "What if it wasn't on the website?"

At Midnight when I got back, the hunt began, and lo-and behold, the website did not display it. I found it on Mango Road, a small sub county in Florida called Mango.

Wrap the flag, and voila:
SAH{Mango Road}

*I actually messed up the flag 3 times by putting Mango Rd, and it didnt accept, so an admin unlocked it for me lol