For our 15th anniversary Jess and I took a hot-air balloon ride. Sarah watched the girls for us and we drove out to Rancho Murieta (a tiny town southeast of Sacramento) and stayed the night at a hotel before getting up at, ugh, 5am to get ready and out the door for our dawn departure time.
It was fun and I’d do it again. I’d probably ask the pilot for a recommendation on time of year though because apparently summer can be a bit less exciting. When the air is hotter your balloon has fewer options for maneuverability (which is achieved by moving up or down into different thermoclines which have different wind directions). We found that out by getting “stuck” below 1000 feet, the air at that altitude was part of a heat bubble sitting over the valley and we couldn’t ascend through it. So we didn’t go very far, very fast, or very high, but it was fun regardless. Which is all preferable to going too far, too fast, or too high–so there’s that.
We landed in a field and then the balloon minions dragged us over to the road, over a fence, and into someone’s yard where they could safely tear down the balloon without needing to carry it hundreds of feet to the truck.
Once the balloon was packed up in the truck we got back to the van, then back to the hotel, had breakfast, and then headed home.
As Jess’ parents happen to live directly in the path of totality, the girls’ Spring Break was the week prior, and the eclipse was on a Monday we decided the conditions were just about perfect for us to head out and hope to enjoy the show.
I booked flights on Southwest months ago as soon as the booking window opened. So on Wednesday April 3 we headed off to San Jose and flew through Denver to Little Rock. Despite seeming to have plenty of time we ended up barely making our flight and they closed the jetway door after letting Jess on as the last passenger. But we made it.
We picked up our rental car and headed off to the house, stopping at Chick-fil-A for dinner along the way.
On Thursday, Corinne and I did a little exploring of the property and found what I presume are cow skulls scattered around the edge of the neighbor’s land for….some reason….
Corinne had had a fever and cough for the 3 days before our trip, but was surprisingly fine for the plane rides. Then her cough became pretty much constant. We had told the girls we’d go bowling on the trip and figured we better do that on Thursday before the area got busy with other umbraphiles. So, we went into town for bowling, just as we started the 10th frame Jess’ phone appointment with a doctor for Corinne called, so she went off to somewhere quiet to take that call. I bowled her 10th frame for her: I bowled 4 strikes out of 6 throws! 2 almost-Turkeys in a row!
Well, the doctor diagnosed Corinne’s cough as croup and prescribed a steroid. This timing was convenient since we were in town already. Heather and Corinne went back to the house with Papa and Bubbie while Jess and I went to the pharmacy for the prescription and a humidifier. Conveniently the prescription was filled in about 5 minutes and we were on our way.
And that was the last time we left the house until it was time to come home. Our plan had to be hunker down on the assumption that everything was going to be crazy busy. We have no idea if that happened though since we never ventured out into it.
On Friday, Cameron & Nichole and kids (+ dog) came up to visit for the weekend too. The girls were enamored of their little kids.
Along with using a humidifier, and taking the steroid Corinne was advised to get some cool night air to soothe her lungs. So on Friday night I bundled her up in layers of blankets and we went and sat on the porch. She was cozy.
On Saturday there was hanging about the house. Corinne did a lot of sleeping as she recovered. Heather played a lot of Stardew Valley. We had s’mores out on the porch that evening.
Sunday was Cal’s 2nd birthday, so there was cake and presents. The dog was nonplussed about the whole thing. Heather played more Stardew Valley.
Monday was finally Eclipse Day, but nothing to see until the afternoon. The girls continued to be enamored of the little ones (I’m realizing the infant isn’t in any of these pictures so far, but there was also an infant).
And then, finally, it was time! Sunday had been overcast all day and a storm front was forecast to move in Monday evening, but luckily Monday afternoon was just some wispy clouds. They could have been anywhere else in the sky, but we weren’t that lucky.
I set up the camcorder to record us figuring future us might care about seeing the people there rather than the sun, but I really do wish I had grabbed it and swung it around the area and shown the sky. Oh well. Next time. In 2045. Here’s how the five minutes around totality went for us:
And after 3 minutes and 25 seconds of totality–it was over. It was pretty cool. We could see what was presumably Venus and at least one star. Looking up at the sun was like someone had taken a hole punch and just punched a hole through the sky where the sun was supposed to be. Just a jet black “hole” surrounded by a ring of fire.
We brought some games with us and over the course of the visit played a couple games of Wyrmspan, a game of Kodama, and a game of Ex Libris. I also played some Exploding Kittens and Cobra Paw with the girls. And Corinne and I completed the Minecraft puzzle she got for her birthday.
Cameron and Nichole headed home that evening and the next morning we were off to the airport.
Which was not without its own adventure though. About 45 minutes into the drive Corinne threw up all over herself (she had also thrown up Monday night at dinner time, but after getting cleaned up felt fine and ate dinner). She also felt nauseated Thursday morning and stayed home from school, was okay during the day, and was nauseated again that evening (she’s been okay the last couple days). No idea what that was all about.
We were on the highway in bumper-to-bumper traffic heading into Little Rock with no resources beyond our luggage, so we got off the highway and found the closest gas station (which was not exactly nearby). I bought a roll of paper towels and filled up a water bottle and cleaned up the car as best I could while Jess worked with Corinne to get her out of her clothes (to the dumpster they went) and get clean clothes out of the luggage.
I figured we’d be paying a cleaning fee, but when I dropped off the car and told them what had happened the response was “Yah, that happens sometimes. We have a guy who details them, thanks for cleaning up as much as you did.” So I said, “Okay, just make sure they clean down in the seat-belt buckle well or come summer someone’s going to leave the car in the sun for a few hours and then they will not be happy.” And that was that (maybe we’ll get a cleaning fee later, who knows).
With Corinne Dramamined for the flights home we proceeded back across the country via Las Vegas and then we were home that evening.
I stumbled upon r/ConstructedAdventures on Reddit a few months ago and I was excited to find an entire community of people who enjoy building treasure hunts. The main person behind the subreddit actually makes a living professionally building and running personalized treasure hunts / adventures for people.
I’ve been building small treasure hunts for the girls’ birthdays, but I became inspired to try something grander using some of the techniques discussed in that group.
It just so happened that, after Mollie’s wedding, Erin and I would both be back home during our birthdays for the first time probably since high school and this year was Erin’s 40th birthday. So I thought it would be fun to build a birthday adventure for Erin which would take her around our hometown. So I spent the intervening months planning, designing, building, testing, and redesigning a nostalgia tour for her and her children to revisit her childhood and let her tell her kids why the places on the adventure mattered.
It all began with a slideshow. When visiting Mom & Dad a slideshow of our childhood is always a hit with the grandchildren. At the end of the slideshow I inserted 3 custom-made slides1:
Background is a still from a home video of Erin stuck in a hamper.
Pictures are of locations in the house where the item is hidden.
It was fun seeing a room full of people watching the slides process what they were seeing and realize something unusual was afoot. And then they were off to find the items. To the attic to find the chest and to the chimney cleanout in the basement to find the key for the lock2,3:
An old chest with an old lock and key hidden in an old house. What could be more fun?
Inside the chest were a map of the town and three small chests, each locked4. One with a letter-combination lock, one with a number-combination lock, and one with a key lock.
After toasting the recipe and chilling the map the path to the public library was revealed5,6:
In the library a worn copy of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone contained a bookmark, which led to Anne of Green Gables with a bookmark leading to Watership Down with a bookmark leading to To Kill a Mockingbird. A final bookmark in To Kill a Mockingbird instructed her to look under the shelf and find a UV flashlight7.
When played over the bookmarks the flashlight revealed a message: “Report-card dinners and post-concert treats. Search the railings for that which you seek.” And on the map it revealed a path leading from the library to the now-closed Friendly’s restaurant at which our family regularly celebrated events.
Three clues were taped to the railings around the building (labeled “x of 3,” so they would know how many to find)8. One was an Ottendorf Cipher for future use. The second was a QR code of a URL which took her to a website I made with 5 songs to be played. These were songs which I believed were known to Erin and were popular during her high-school years.
She needed to identify the artist and title of each song and fill in the answer sheet (the third clue) to reveal her next destination9: “WWI Memorial Green Plaque”10
Red block to censor the URL.
The WWI Memorial Green was the location where the marching band would meet for the town’s annual Memorial Day parade before it moved to the WWII Memorial Green up the street.
She was directed to the plaque and here used the Ottendorf cipher to reveal the combination to one of her locked chests (the combination was “BAND”).
Inside the chest was her next clue:
At one point an old train car on an abandoned set of tracks was turned into an ice-cream shop and Erin worked there. Now she needed to return to those tracks and find the fake rock which was apparently rather convincing tucked under a small plant11.
Inside the fake rock was the key to the second small chest. Inside that chest was the next clue:
Included with the clue was some cash to buy lunch at the Cromwell Diner. The only place in town open 24/7 where you might grab a late night meal while hanging out with friends. Also included was the cipher for the last chest that could only be solved by using the Cromwell Diner menu.
In the final chest was the next clue which led to an ice cream shop we both worked at which was known at the time as “Johnny Cool Ice Cream,” but is now known as “Scoops and Sprinkles.” Some cash for ice cream was also provided as well as a clue sheet requiring the menu board to solve12.
The menu board clue revealed the word “SANDBOX” which was a classic treasure-hunt location in our yard for the treasure hunts Mom made for some of our birthdays when we were kids.
The final event was hidden in the sandbox in a Zip-Loc bag (with the edge exposed so that it didn’t turn into a massive excavation project). This bag contained the final clue and some maps of the house. On the maps several Xs had been marked, but only some of them actually contained presents. The red herrings could be eliminated by applying a flame causing them to disappear13:
Once the false marks had been removed all that was left was to collect the presents!
The Secrets
I designed the slides myself using GIMP. And ordered them printed and mounted from Slides From Digital.
The chests inside were small, unfinished wood chests from which I removed the useless little clasps and screwed in bent eye-screws that would allow a lock to be attached. Not very polished looking, but functional.
The heat-revealed writing is lemon juice, my own preparation: 1 tablespoon heated in the microwave for 90 seconds at 20% power, which makes it a little less runny and causes the writing to reveal faster when toasted. Written using a #0 brush using a light table.
The cold-revealed writing is a Frixion pen, first made to disappear by heating it up (see below).
I really, really wanted this location to reveal just a QR code by pouring water out onto the concrete using a hydrophobic spray. But I couldn’t get a stencil to give me a sharp enough result and I had to abandon the idea due to time constraints. I tried a cardboard stencil (cut with an Xacto knife) but it immediately began to warp when the spray hit it, so it didn’t stay flat even with tape. Then I tried an acrylic sheet (drilled and cut with a coping saw). but it was too brittle and thick and I couldn’t get clean enough cuts and the spray couldn’t effectively settle into the holes. A thin, non-brittle plastic sheet might work though.
With more time I would have fancied up the webpage a little more, but I burned all my extra time on the stencils.
Chumbawamba – Tubthumping
Dexter Freebish – Leaving Town
Dixie Chicks – Goodbye Earl
Bare Naked Ladies – One Week
Semisonic – Closing Time
I intended to pre-fill space 20 with a ‘q’ since I had no Qs in the song titles, but I apparently forgot. The group, however, was smart enough to figure out the missing letter.
I made a last minute font and styling change to this clue sheet and didn’t review it enough times and messed up two of the letters. But she figured it out all the same. The image here has been corrected.
Ink that disappears is accomplished via the Frixion pens previously mentioned. When heated they become invisible.
After our science-y adventures we finally reached Craters of the Moon National Monument. I can vaguely remember going here as a kid at some point. And I think we recreated that trip almost in its entirety.
I can remember hiking up Inferno Cone and the deceptiveness of the climb. When you think you’re just about at the top you find out the trail just levels out for a moment and the angle hides the rest of the cone. Heather and I went to the top….
While Jess and Corinne waited at the bottom:
We saw the snow at the bottom of Snow Cone:
And look, pictorial evidence that I was on this trip!
That evening we had dinner at another Culver’s, this one in Twin Falls:
And we pushed on to Elko, NV and found a hotel with a pool for the girls to do some swimming. The next day it was all the way home and the Great Road Trip of 2018 was finally over.
As one drives west across Idaho from Idaho Falls on highway 20 there is a whole lot of nothing until, bam, EBR-I and Idaho National Laboratory. EBR-I is open to the public and we decided, what the heck, we likely will never be by here again. EBR-I is Experimental Breeding Reactor One and was able to power its own facilities as a nuclear power plant.
Here is the floor where fuel rods were stored:
We didn’t spend much time there (Corinne and Heather were not exactly interested) so it was on to Arco for lunch at Pickle’s Place.
Across the street from Pickle’s Place is the Arco Science Park. Might as well let the girls burn off some energy. They have a torpedo and a submarine conning tower.
The conning tower from the USS Hawkbill, SSN-666:
Then we were ready for our main destination of the day, Craters of the Moon National Monument.
