Escape..

Several months ago I’d seen stories about something called an escape room. The way I understood it worked is you are placed in a room with some sort of theme that you have 60 minutes to get out of. You solve puzzles and use your brain to get out. You have to work as a team to figure it out. This sounded to me like something that would be really be fun to do. There were several of these in the area we’d be staying at in Fort Lauderdale, so we thought we’d give it a shot. We signed up for the Crime Scene Quest at “Escape the Quest”.

We (minus Donna who didn’t want to go) got there and were told how it would work. We would have to get through three rooms in the hour and figure out the actual killer of a woman. We had three lifelines – a hint, a clue, and a time check. We were not allowed to bring in our phones or any timepiece. You are given a walkie talkie to communicate with the staff. With a certain level of excitement, we entered the first room. I don’t want to give away too much, but there were a lot of things to examine and a lot of visual distractions. We burned our hint and clue just to get out of the first room. We got to the second room and never could figure our way out of it. I was totally dejected. I couldn’t believe I wasn’t smart enough to help us figure this out. We ended up going to hamburger place called Circus Freak – it had circus posters and burgers with circus type names. I had the “Two Headed Man” which was a hamburger with a hot dog on top. The burgers were excellent. I slowly started to cheer up. We picked up Donna and went to Wednesday night services at 6th Street church of Christ again. Being with fellow Christians helped me too, but it was just ridiculous to get that upset over something like I did.

The next day, Donna and I went over to Sixth Street again. They have a program on Thursday to help feed and provide clothes for the homeless. Being a warm weather area, there are a number of homeless there. The preacher there did a devotional talking of love with the 15 or so there. I really enjoyed doing this. I talked with several of the people that showed up. They were all really appreciative. Donna and I talked and I convinced her to go with us so we could give the Escape Room another shot. I hoped with the six of us that we could do better.

We went back and attempted the one called “House of Pain”. We used our hint/clue much more effectively this time. I don’t want to give anything away, but once I opened that last door and we got out with plenty of time to spare, I was ecstatic. I wasn’t totally stupid after all. We were so excited that we went ahead and did the final Escape Room there called “Stay of Execution”. Almost immediately though, we had some trepidation. The young lady pulled out five pair of handcuffs and cuffed five of us together. Donna started to look really nervous so I had her get on the end so that she’d have a free hand. Then the young lady took Jonathan and led him away by himself. After a few minutes, she let us in. We looked around the room and found a couple of useful items (I don’t want to give anything away). I have to tell about one part though. There was what appeared to be a light switch in the first room with a question mark over it. I had to press it of course which immediately produced a scream that I recognized as Jonathan. Turned out, we had to get him out of the Electric Chair and get ourselves out (of the handcuffs and the rooms) before the hour ended. Josh of course, used any excuse to press that button and make Jonathan scream even convincing Donna to do it once. Again, we managed (using the hint and clue) to get out well before the time allotted. We celebrated with a trip to Longhorn Steakhouse.

We spent the evening packing. Kentucky was to play UCLA at 9:00 Eastern. We thought they’d win, but they played terribly. Marcus Lee was knocked out early and UCLA took the lead. Kentucky could never quite catch up and were saddled with their first loss of the year. We all went to bed a bit disappointed.

We got up the next morning to leave. I’d hope to make one last walk on the beach, but it was pouring rain so we couldn’t. We said goodbye to Josh and Shelby as they headed to the airport to fly back. We got to Macon that night and then finished an uneventful drive back home on Saturday.

The trip had been a lot of fun. I’m not sure when we’ll go back since UK doesn’t appear to being the HoopHall classic next year. They play in Las Vegas next year, but I’m not so sure I want to do that.