Cluehoo...

My friend/co-worker popped into my office one day asking if I may be interested in something that could potentially be totally lame.  Was I silly enough to do this with her?  There was a Groupon and it was only $20 for two people and you go on some sort of Scavenger Hunt in Laguna Beach.  Um of course I was interested!!  We each promptly bought one, her and her hubs, and at the time was going to be me and another co-worker friend.  She talked another co-worker and his girlfriend, and I of course asked my sister in law who is usually down for these sorts of random adventures.  After a lot of attempting to match up our schedules, losing some people and gaining another co-worker (a cute one *wink*) we were set for Mother's Day.

We're told it lasts from 3-5 hours and we figured we'll start in the morning and be done in time for Mama Day activities.  10:30 am was go time.

The day arrived and it was an absolutely, beautiful warm sunny day.  D and I arrived a bit early and found an incredible consignment shop.  D put an item on hold and I planned to purchase a darling Buddha if he was there when we got back.  We wandered around trying to find the address that was on the email and laughing at the fact that we were already not doing a very good job of "hunting".  I of course snapped a photo while we were waiting.

Colby arrived first. (*blush*) We introduced ourselves then shortly after Janna and her hubs and Max and Michelle joined us.  The Scavenger Hunt is all done via an app on the iPhone.  We read the 1st clue and found our starting point.  This is where we get our "Adventure Kit."

We then decide we are going to split into two teams, per the suggestion of the Cluehoo dude on the email.  As we were all reading thru the kit and laughing and chatting as we put on our "badges", assigned leaders - Janna was ours -  and chose the motivator to wear the "secret wristband" - guess who that was :). The guy came out to greet us.  Herr was his name and he was very European.  He told us to have fun and enjoy ourselves and to call him if we get stuck.

This was the last shot of all of us together, then of course the usual Jami/Danelle selfie:

We were off!

Our 1st clue had us fill up  bag of water.  Um ok.  Luckily we didn't carry it too long and we used it at our next location.  This had something to do with the Fire Station and some sort of flashy fire hydrant.  I think we crossed the street 4 or 5 times laughing and trying to figure it out.  The people at the restaurant watching us must have thought we were insane.  Anyway we finally find our fire hydrant and we're supposed to fill it with water.   The clue says something about when it's full we'll get our clue.  As we all watched Colby pour the water in and watch it come out the bottom he had the brilliant idea to plug the holes and sure enough up pops our clue - a fire truck.

Now it's a bit fuzzy since I didn't take notes, but basically the clues would lead us somewhere and it gave cute little hints as to what you would see.  You had the option to do these extra challenges at times.  It said it could take 5-7 minutes.  When our first challenge was nothing more than sort of showing us something, we opted not to do them in the future since we realized this Scavenger Hunt was going to take a while.  So our next part was a pretty long walk through a residential area.  It really was gorgeous.  The app mentioned something about you don't have to duck at the Legions.  We were pretty confused until we passed this:

Funny.

Then it lead us to a tiny little church.  It talks about how this is one of the smallest chapels in the area.  Along the way the app would give fun little tidbits of history.  We found another clue here that led us back towards PCH.

So our next stop lands us at a  Plumbing place that isn't currently open.  It tells us to find the ClueHoo meter which we do and we have to use our fancy token to activate it.  Trick is the token is in this plastic contraption with little silver beads that you have to maneuver it just right to get the coin out.  This is also about the time that Janna is on a mission to find a restroom to no avail.  The little note on the website about plenty of places to use a restroom is a lie.  We all take a stab at trying to get the token out.  This is becoming ridiculous. 

Then Janna gets the bright idea to use to little sticks to hold the beads at bay.  We're pretty sure that's not how we were supposed to do it but it worked. 

Yay!!!!  So now we enter the token:

And we're supposed to each watch a side while Colby watches the stop watch and at certain times we write down the letter.  Well, D goofed a bit here and we were looking at the wrong colors.  We had a little bit of an issue trying to get the last clue and D and I had a typical sister pissy moment but moved quickly passed when we figured out it was the jumbled version of water. Not sewer as I was dead set on.  Teamwork. 

We now had another destination.  But first a photo op.  I do need to learn not to hold the camera in front of my face, but I didn't want to keep everyone waiting while I tried to figure it out.  Still cool tho!







Next stop was the Riviera Hotel.  They had a bathroom!  Thank Jeebus.  We then were directed to go down to the beach.  It was a gorgeous walk with a lot of stairs (so got our work out in!) and we started wandering around the confused people laying out on the beach probably wandering what the hell these tourist looking people were doing down here.  Rad mural by the way:

 We also got an obligatory beach shot (and I apparently need an even tan):

Our next stop was a little shop that sold sea shell like goodies.  Now here is where it was kind of funny and unfortunately also when Janna's phone decided to start having issues.  So at this stop it tells us to stand where there's the peace love sign and look up in the sky.  In the back of the little kiosk was this:

The wristband wearer - that would be me - had to swipe the wrist band which then activated this weather vane thing.  The letters would flash and D would shout them out to Janna who was punching them into the app.  This is also where I took one of my favorite pictures because it kind of summed up how we looked most of the day! Ha ha!  I love it!

After this one we did waste a lot of time having to call the guy because the app and Janna's phone just were not cooperating.  We finally got our next location which was an ice cream shop.  We were not sure if we went in but found this thing:

It told us our clue was Clueberry.  It seemed we went in, so we did.  I waltzed up to the ice cream guy and asked "Do you guys do something with the Cluehoo?"  He smiled - what's the clue?  "Clueberry!" I said excitedly.  He then told us we all get a free ice cream cone!!  Yes!!!!  We had been trekking around for a while now and were all getting hungry.  I got myself a Kona Coffee cone.  Soooo yummy!

We figured we were done now because we were all starting getting to the "over it" point  and really wanted some alcohol and since the phone wasn't really working it was getting longer but we did manage to find another destination where we got a photo of ourselves from this secret camera (or so we thought):

But by this point we were done as was Janna's phone so we called the dude again and he said we just had one more stop so he came out and greeted us and led us to a cafe where they gave us free drinks (we all opted for waters) and a little magnet that D and I promptly made into something similar to our race medals of course.  Don't think I don't have it hanging right along side my race medals!







We met up with the other group who had a bad start but did a different adventure.  The only similarities were the ice cream and photo.  They finished about a half hour before us but we blame the phone.  Later we saw our pictures from the hidden camera and theirs was great - ours was hilarious because Colby and D weren't even in it, Janna is looking the opposite way and I look like I'm yelling at something and pointing to the camera.  It totally summed us up.  Too funny.  We laughed and shared stories and of course drinks and food.   Hell yes we celebrate with some snacks and a cocktail!



All in all it was a really fun day!  I love doing stuff like this because its something different and unique!  Our little group was totally fun.  I got to know Colby a bit which was nice (cuz, um cutie!)  It was also very cool to hang with Miss Janna outside of work and realize I have a fellow geeky adventurer.  I'm really familiar with Laguna but this little trip got me to see some sights I didn't even know were there.  We also realized Laguna has some awesome plant life and succulents!  We could not have asked for better weather.  It was such a fun adventure!  I actually may do another one of these with my mom since I know she would get a kick out of it.

We all took a group shot with Michelle's auto timer before we parted ways:



If you have the time (it was a bit long) and want a fun silly little adventure around Laguna, Cluehoo gets two thumbs up from me!