We recently moved up to the city. I was dubious that it would significantly improve our quality of life: how different could it be?
Then we saw a flyer on a traffic pole advertising a scavanger hunt! We catiously texted and got a cryptic countdown until our first clue: go underground and make a call to a certain number from a honest-to-god payphone! After one busted payphone in Embarcadero Station we eventually succeeded in Civic Center and from there we were hooked.
Our trainings, as they were called, took us all over the city: Golden Gate Park, Ocean Beach, SOMA, the Mission. Our favorite training took us literally all over the city: the task was to track down a car using the livestream from its dashcam! We set off with vim and vigor sure to swiftly chase down our quarry. Two hours later we were no closer than when we had started. Our strategy had been to identify the car and then trace its path. And indeed we had some initial success getting within a single block of the car in Chinatown. Unfortunately foot traffic and unfortunate traffic light timing kept us at bay and indeed hampered us all throughout the city. Tired, hungry, and in desperate need of the bathroom we decided to return home. To add insult onto injury we watched from three blocks away as the livestream turn down our exact street and pass by our front door. Incensed we quickly took care of biological necessities and sped back out the door. This time our strategy had changed: we were going to predict where the car would go and beat it there! This proved much easier than anticipated as the livestream soon turned into car wash. With stunning precision I predicted that it would be there for a while and lo and behold I might be the second coming of Nostradamus.
We completed all of the trainings although some travel and a poorly-timed back injury led to some tight calls on the last few trainings. As our reward we went to the final assembly this week [you could go even if you didn’t solve them all, but I still felt like I earned it]. And it did not disappoint! Mingling in a crowd of like-minded puzzlers was magical: it really revealed the magic of San Francisco in a visceral sense. We all cheered as the organizers took a well deserved bow, solved one last puzzle, watched a movie about the event, and generally celebrated the wonderful weirdness around us.
And the best part: they’re doing it again next year!