Fantastic Hunt

(Say the title a few times fast - never gets old.)

How funny is it that Leon's shirt was promoting Polygamy and he
was on a team with two women? Also funny that a random guy
asked us if we were from Utah. (One of my sister wives, pictured here, answered him.)


Yesterday marked the third year that Team Velvet Unitard (polygamists pictured above) attacked the Post Hunt. And yesterday is the closest we have ever come to solving the end game.

Two-thirds of my team live together in DC proper (since they are married, they find this arrangement rather convenient), so they took the bus to Freedom Plaza, slightly cloudy-headed from their experience at Savor the night before. I was coming in from the 'burbs so I took the metro. And upon stepping out of Metro Center Station and rounding the corner onto the street, I texted my team to let them know I was close. (Here is where you will receive a public service announcement about texting and walking: Don't. I managed to miss three steps in front of me and took a pretty spectacular tumble and landed in a painful heap.) A woman walking by (and stifling giggles) asked me if I was okay, and I told her, "No...I really hurt my ankle" and she kept walking quickly toward the Post Hunt stage. (I don't blame her. The Hunt is cut throat.)

Whore.

So, we had a bit of a rough start which convinced us that it was a good omen for our performance in the Hunt. (If I didn't play little games like this with myself, I'd have no reason to get out of bed in the morning.)

While we were getting our instructions at the Main Stage from Gene Weingarten, Dave Barry and Tom Schroeder, Amanda was following the #posthunt on Twitter. One of the especially prescient tweets she came across stated "dorks #posthunt" - a tweet she read while realizing we were surrounded by at least ten people in t-shirts emblazoned with computer coding jokes. (I know what you're thinking -- that probably every last computer-coding t-shirt wearer made it to the Hunt without falling on his face. And to that, I say, "Touche.")

Nerdo.

When the Hunt began, it was apparent that Leon ate his Wheaties (registered trademark) that morning. Within moments, he had figured out the computer keyboard puzzle, then he and Amanda quickly figured out the government agency fill-in-the-blank puzzle. Then we went to the vanity puzzle. We knew that the answer had something to do with the missing mirror, but could not get an answer that we knew was right. (The puzzle at the Post Office seems to be the tough one every year.)

At the Navy Memorial, Amanda took about ten seconds to solve the scratcher puzzle. (And at this point, I was wondering how they were going to gently let me down and tell me they "didn't have a need for my services" next year...).

I somewhat redeemed myself at the Newseum puzzle by understanding that the password we were given to text should be turned upside-down (since an acrobat had provided the puzzle). There were several more steps (literally -- we walked more than a mile to the next clue) in this answer that we solved with a great team effort.

With twenty minutes before we needed to be back at the Freedom Plaza stage to get the final clue, we filled in our grid and came up with a picture of....an outhouse. (We love the Post Hunt creators, even though for the third year in a row we got shy about asking to get a photo taken with Dave Barry.)

We were back at Freedom Plaza for the end game and this year, we split up to follow two different potential thoughts we had on the clue. Mine was a dead end, but Amanda and Leon came up with the next answer on their route, before they eventually hit a dead end (and we found out there were already winners, so they came back to meet me at the main stage).

As the Hunt creators went through the puzzles, it was encouraging to review how well we did this year, and it is always funny to see the winners being presented with a big, ceremonial check. Seeing this reminded Amanda that she owes me money from our last dilettante activity, so she told me that she would pay me with a large, ceremonial check.

Which is fine, really, as my account is at a very large bank.

Still icing and elevating my ankle,
Brutalism

UPDATE: Forgot to mention that Safe House was filming near the site of the Post Hunt. Amanda thought it may be a clue. Or that the Post Hunt staff had ordered craft services for the dedicated Hunters. Alas, neither was true.