Friday, August 27, 2010

Portland Scavenger Hunt

I recently got invited to a legendary scavenger hunt in Portland. Teams of four seek for fame by capturing the most points through copious drinking, raucous behavior, and insightful clue solving. The day was not only monumental, but proved to be a great lesson in how to organize an event that can entertain guests for an entire day and night.

The scavenger hunt started off with a short relay race which ended with someone from each team bobbing for beer cans in a kiddie pool. The bottom of each beer can had a type of alcohol written on the bottom of it. When you pull out a beer can, you read the bottom, and that's the alcohol that you're drinking the rest of the day. I was praying that we wouldn't pull out a peppermint schnapps or something awful like that. We ended up getting vodka.


Bobbing for Beers in a Kiddie Pool

The hunt was focused on finding 10 bars from a list of clues that were given out at the start. At each bar your team would order a round of their designated alcohol (from the bobbed beer can). One point was given for each team member that had a drink. Also, at each of the bars there was a list of things you could do there for bonus points. For example, at a bar called Jakes you could get 2 points for getting a stranger to thumb wrestle, 5 points for an arm wrestle, and 10 points for actually wrestling with a stranger. I lost an arm wrestling match to some 50-year old biker dude.

There was also a section for earning bonus points regardless of the location you were at. Points could be earned for asking inappropriate questions to strangers (e.g. where do you like to be touched), giving piggy back rides to strangers, kissing members of other teams, pulling weeds at a strangers house, and more. The entire scavenger hunt lasted six hours, at which point everyone met back together at a karaoke bar to have their scores tallied and to continue the party.

Our team scored somewhere in the middle, which is what we expected given that there were a few veteran teams that had the hunt down to a science. We definitely all had a great time. It was the kind of day that will generate stories among friends for years to come.