The Summit of Big Schloss

Over Memorial Day Weekend, Paul and I, along with our friends Mikael and Kate, headed into the great outdoors to go backpacking and take on the Big Schloss. This epic mountain, reaching lofty heights of 3000+ feet, spans the border of VA and WV.

The first day of our trek we hiked up the valley to the top of the ridge along the way viewing rare wildlife such as a big brown snake and a frog. After bypassing the “Mercedes of back country campsites” we set up camp close to a water source. Unfortunately everyone wanted to be near the water source so we had very close and cozy neighbors. Regardless, lots of rice, hotdogs, and smores were had by all (okay no hot dogs for me).

The second day was the big summit. We got an early start and set off for our summit bid when the sun was high in the sky. As we neared the summit we took bets as to how many people would already be there, I think Paul was the closest with a guess of 15. Even with the crowds of people, the summit was big enough for us all to claim a little piece of our own. The views of the valley far far below were bright and sunny if not alpine-esque.

The Washington Post Hunt 2008

Today Paul and I participated in the first ever Washington Post Hunt. The Hunt is a citywide brainteaser game created by the syndicated columnists Dave Barry and Gene Weingarten and the Washington Post editor Tom Shroder. These hunts have been going on in South Florida for the past 20 years and they finally brought one up to us.

The hunt is hard to explain, but the gist of it is that there are 5 puzzles out in the city, for which the answer to each is a number and each number is a clue to the final “end game” puzzle. Here’s an example from the Herald Hunt in 2006:

“Hunt staffers in golf attire handed out golf tees, notable only because they had the word “Fore!” printed on them. It was a “fore tee.” Looking on the clue list, Hunters saw that 40 was not a possible answer. But if they went to map coordinates 4-T, they discovered a leader board for a fictional Hunt golf tournament. The solution to the Puzzle was the score — 288 — of the only golfer with four Ts in his name: Eliott Tarantino.” For lots more example of past puzzles go to this website.

Sounds simple enough, right? Wrong. So there are five puzzles like that around the city, then comes the endgame which is an elaborate second hunt that ultimately delivers a message that tells you what you have to do to win the whole contest. The endgame always begins with the 5 clues obtained from the 5 puzzles, for which they make no sense by themselves until the final clue is delivered 3 hours after the start of the game at the main stage. After that you have 30 minutes to solve a whole new and RIDICULOUSLY hard new set of puzzles.

People actually do solve them. We did not. Our game started out with our Washington Post Weekly Magazine, in which we found our game map and figured out the first part of each of the 5 map coordinates we were going to need. At noon we were given the second part of each of the coordinates and the game began.

Today’s puzzles were:
• Figuring out how to find numbers in a puzzle involving the Carnegie Library Building and the “Second Glance” puzzle in the Post Magazine.
• Translating Chinese characters related to the China Town Gate and figuring out the associated number.
• Linking a live comedy show with the Weekend Comics from the newspaper and finding the hidden numbers.
• Eating a fortune cookie and deciphering the fortune, flavor and then figuring out the number based on those facts.
• Watching the Nationals Presidential Bobble Heads plus a Buck run a race every 5 minutes and figuring out the number based on the results.

So we headed into the endgame thinking we had 5 correct answers with 5 correct but random clues (in reality we had 3 correct answers and 3 correct clues) and awaited the final clue to bring them all together. That clue was a prop of two large crossed swords on the stage. Paul got that one right away “Cross Words”. So for the next 30 minutes we tried to figure out what it all meant. Ha! We accidentally got near another endgame clue but didn’t understand it since we were working with the wrong clues, although even if we had the correct clues I don’t think we would have figured out all the remaining requirements since I can’t even begin to explain how to solve the last puzzle, even after it’s been explained to us. To see what the whole day was about and see the actual puzzles you’ll have to go to the Hunt website.

In the end, it was a very fun day and we think the people who actually won, cheated.

Southwest Wisconsin in NOT Flat and Don’t Believe Anyone Who Tells You Otherwise.

So we are back in the DC grind now. More work, more politics, more primaries…will it ever end?
To finish up the mid-west road trip story…after leaving Wes and Patrick in Chicago we headed to Dekalb for Rinn and Peter’s wedding (I happen to be the lamest photographer in the world and didn’t take any pictures at the wedding although I could definitely hold my own now up there with those fancy schmancy wedding photographers since I just got my new professional, white, canon zoom lens).

The wedding was beautiful and it was great to see Rinn and Peter and catch up with our friend Sarah from Boston. Makes me really miss all the fun we had in Boston.

On Sunday morning we drove up to Platteville, WI to visit Paul’s mom Esther, and for the next 2 days we were pretty much on the bikes the entire time. You may think that Wisconsin is flat (I have made that claim a number of times) BUT southwest WI was far from being flattened by the glaciers back in the day. After 25 miles of riding on Sunday and 40 miles of riding on Monday I had put both hills and wind “ON NOTICE” (ala Colbert). Four days later those two items are staying on notice until my little legs have recovered!

On the bright side there was very little traffic to worry about since throughout those 65 miles I saw, and smelled, more farms and dairy cows than I ever need to see again. And who would have thought that we would have been able to bike all the way to the Mississippi River, rescue a small snake, not find any open places to eat lunch, and 40 miles later be all the way home again beating the downpour of rain by only 15 minutes!?

For more pics of our 5 day Midwest tour go to my smugmug page here!

Midwest Road Trip!

Well, I’m not traveling to some far off, exotic place at the moment, but I am in Chicago, which is quite nice!  Paul and I are in the Midwest for a long weekend to attend our friends, Rinn and Peter, wedding in Dekalb, IL.   Before the wedding we’re visiting some friends in Chicago and after the wedding we’ll head to Platteville, WI to visit Paul’s mom.  

Paul’s roommate from college, Wes, and his partner Patrick live near Wrigley field in Chicago and we got to spend Friday and Saturday morning with them.  Luckily the rain broke for the majority of the afternoon so we were able to explore a bit of downtown Chicago.  Of course we had to go to Millennium Park and see the famous Bean!

It looks like the spaceship from the “Flight of the Navigator” landed in the middle of Chicago and we are all just waiting for the weird mercury like stairs to form and the cute boy to come out. 

We also visited the Hershey’s store!  Yum!  Five pound Hershey bars…what a great place.  And then took a trip to the Signature lounge on the 96^th floor of the Hancock Building to have a cocktail overlooking the city.