Saturday, January 16, 2016

Urban Adventure Quest

Last summer, we found a groupon for an Urban Adventure Quest in downtown Denver.  We had so much fun that some of our girls asked to do it again, even though we already knew all of the clues.  Chris had this brilliant idea to see if Salt Lake had a similar scavenger hunt.  We were in luck as the company has created scavenger hunts in major cities nation wide.  It is a great opportunity to learn things about a city and see things that you would not normally notice.

Kristen read the initial intro and thought that it was directing us to start at the Capitol building.  So we packed up and drove up to the Capitol.  As we got set to go, the first clue suggested that we start close to the Rio Grande train station.  That was only a block or two from our hotel, so we loaded back in to the car and headed back to the Gateway parking center where we then paid to park. 


The clues led us to ice sculptures, the art museum, and temple square.



Then back up to the Capitol building, except this time we hiked the hill up there!  One of the extra clues we were given to solve along the way (as if climbing uphill for three blocks wasn't enough to keep us busy!) looked something like this:

=@*#     !%     #@$     %#*#$     ~!+&     {^     _#*@?

My girls looked at it and were completely lost.  "How are we supposed to figure that out?"  I will admit, I have a bit of proficiency at puzzles such as this, and within 30 seconds said, "What is the state _____  ___  Utah?"  From that, Misha guessed at the last two words.  The answer, I might add, is very specific, but I won't give it to you in case you decide to do it.

"What?  How the heck did you figure that out?"  They weren't really interested in knowing how I did it, but I will admit there was satisfaction in amazing my daughters.  And then Chris and I took off up the hill with our girls trailing behind.






We did have to pass on one set of clues since the sidewalks in the park were not completely shoveled and we couldn't find all of the clues hidden beneath the snow.

We finished back down across from the City Creek Center and then headed to the food court for some lunch.  A great way to get in some exercise while having fun at the same time.