Urban Adventure Quest, Sacramento

A few months ago, friends of ours told us about a smartphone-based challenge called Urban Adventure Quest they'd completed in Sacramento. It sounded like so much fun! I looked into it and ended up buying it as a gift for my inlaws to do with us over Trevor's spring break. It was so fabulous that I have to tell you all about it!

After paying, I received log-in information and instructions. We went to the designated start location (Capitol Avenue and 16th Street) and eagerly read the instructions for our first of 17 challenges. The timer started and we were off!

Each challenge took a bit of searching, counting, calculating, and/or puzzling, but none was so difficult for us to need a hint. But hints and support are available for anyone who needs either. There were also four bonus questions interspersed amongst the challenges.

Our group of five is very familiar with Sacramento, yet the challenges were still challenging. We didn't automatically know the answers most of the time, nor necessarily where exactly to find them! 

The challenges taught us a lot about a city we know well. I can only imagine how neat it would be to visit a new-to-me city as a tourist and complete an Urban Adventure Quest! 

Two Quest challenges took us inside the Capitol. While Trevor has seen the outside of the Capitol dozens of times and explored the Capitol grounds a handful of times, he'd never actually been inside. 

Last year, in conjunction with his Little Passports album, we started making a point to take Trevor to each Capitol building as we visit a new-to-him state. Obviously California isn't a new-to-him state, but I'm glad he's finally seen the inside of the Capitol building. It is quite different from the others he's seen, which in turn have been quite different from each other.

 

The Sacramento quest covered 2 miles, essentially down Capitol Avenue from 16th Street to 1st Street in Old Sacramento. We strolled at a leisurely pace. (Note Steve's knee brace and the walking stick he's using as a cane in the photo below. As a not-unrelated aside, did I mention that Steve and I started taking ice skating lessons two weeks ago?)

 

We completed the whole Quest, with all challenges and bonuses answered correctly, in exactly 2 hours, 4 minutes and 2 seconds. You can see how we rank compared to all those who have completed the Sacramento Quest by clicking here. We're Team deRosier. 

You might be saying, "This sounds great, but I do not live near Sacramento and have no plans to visit your lovely capital city." To this I say, "Check out the dozens of Urban Adventure Quest locations to find one near you!" If you're in the US, that is. If you're not in the US, come visit! Urban Adventure Quest is adding 10 new locations in 2016 on top of the many already available. 

Unfortunately, when I contacted Urban Adventure Quest to ask about whether they had an affiliate program (because I knew I'd be glowing about them on my blog!), I learned that they do not have nor want an affiliate program. Drat! But they were kind enough to send me a discount code to share with all of you! To get 25% off an Urban Adventure Quest, use the code CINDY25.

Let me know if you end up doing an Urban Adventure Quest! We're going to do at least one this summer and I hope to eventually do lots more!

Urban Adventure Quest, Salt Lake City

Steve, Trevor and I just got back from a fabulous vacation to Salt Lake City. We packed in an incredible amount of sightseeing. We took a hop-on-hop-off tour to learn the lay of the land and to get an overview of everything Salt Lake City has to offer. We did two scavenger hunts inside the Capitol and checked out the beautiful grounds. We explored Temple Square and admired the amazing views from the LDS buildings outside the Square. We visited the Clark Planetarium and saw an IMAX movie there. And we ate at two of the highest Yelp-rated restaurants in town. And that was just the first day! Seriously. We are hard-core tourists.

On our remaining days, we toured Mrs. Cavanaugh's chocolate factory, went to the Great Salt Lake (we waded up to our knees), visited the Ft. Douglas Military Museum, explored 'This is the Place' State Heritage Park, did three of the five TaleBlazer Games at the gorgeous Red Butte Garden, went to the Bonneville Salt Flats, and ate at many more of Salt Lake City's fantastic restaurants.

 

 

 

 

We also did our second Urban Adventure Quest. And it was just as awesome as the first one we'd done in Sacramento. In the spirit of full disclosure, the owner of Urban Adventure Quest gave me a free code to use for this Quest after I'd paid for and blogged about our first experience back in March. I assure you that didn't influence my opinion of the Quest. I highly recommend it, whether you pay full price, use the coupon code for my readers, or get it for free! (Sorry, no link for that one.)

Just like in Sacramento, we made our way to the starting point of the Urban Adventure Quest (in this case, the Union Pacific Depot, an easy walk from our hotel). We read the first of 19 challenges, the timer started, and we were off!

Downtown Salt Lake City is very pedestrian-friendly. I love the LOOK, complete with eyeballs, painted in all the crosswalks.

With only three people on our team this time (and none wearing a knee brace or using a walking stick as a cane), we were optimistic that we'd have a great score and finish even higher than our decent Sacramento showing. But alas, we misread a clue early on ("Which one is NOT...") and made not one, but two, incorrect guesses on a question. Just like in the Amazing Race... #readyourclue. Sigh. Ten points off our score. But we were optimistic that we could complete the rest without a mistake. Onward! 

You might notice there aren't any other people in the photos I've shared so far. We started the Quest around 8:45 am on a Saturday. While it was a pleasant 75°F, it was also raining. We were the only ones standing out in the open, hunched over a cell phone, holding a hat over a notepad trying to solve puzzles. Whenever possible, we moved to an overhang to read and answer clues.

The Salt Lake City Quest takes you to from the Union Pacific Depot to Temple Square. 

From there you go to the State Capitol. It's a pretty short walk, but the walk to the Capitol is uphill all the way. Then once you get there, you're faced with a bunch of steps to climb! But it's well worth it. Utah has one of the most beautiful Capitol buildings I've ever seen.

The next stop was City Creek Park. We hadn't explored it at all during our previous days in Salt Lake City (we did the Urban Adventure Quest on our third day there), so we had to take some time check it out and pose by the "Human" paver.

 

The Quest finished up back at Temple Square. It was 2.5 miles total and we finished in 2:51:22. Other than our early mistake, we got all the questions correct, for a total of 590 points. Not bad! In fact, if you're curious to see where we fall on the all-time Leader Board, check it out here. We're deRosierFamily.

After exerting our muscles and brains for nearly 3 hours (while trying our best not to get soaked), we were more than ready for lunch. We'd heard great things about the Lion House Pantry. It's in the historic home of Brigham Young and features cafeteria-style homestyle cooking.

It was incredible. I had a turkey pot pie that was to die for. Steve had a beef and barley stew and Trevor had ribs. Each of our meals came with the Lion House's famous rolls. Oh my gosh. So delicious!

If you're local to Salt Lake City or will be traveling there, I highly recommend setting aside 3-4 hours to do the Urban Adventure Quest. If you're not going to be in Salt Lake City anytime soon, check out the other locations. There are 46 so far. We've got our eyes on several of the California ones, plus I'll definitely be doing the Phoenix one when I'm there for the CHA Mega Show in January!

Family Fun in the South, Part 3: Nashville

This is my third post about our recent travels through Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. Click for the first and second posts from the trip. Because I blog about educational travel, I was given complimentary admission tickets, media rates, and similar benefits for some of the places we visited. Many attractions we toured are free to everyone, and we paid full price for everything else. This has no bearing on my reviews; I only share what I honestly recommend.

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Family Fun in Nashville

 

We started our final full day in Nashville with an Urban Adventure Quest. Actually, we started our morning by me pushing Steve and Trevor out the door way too early because I was stressed out about having time to do everything on the schedule, which meant we arrived at the Capitol to tour it 45 minutes before it opened. Oops. Sorry, guys.

Not wanting to stand around doing nothing, we flipped our scheduled events to begin the day with the Quest, which began by the Country Music Hall of Fame. This turned out to be a great decision for a number of reasons, the main one being that Quests are MUCH easier to do when there aren't crowds around. By starting before 8:30, we were able to solve a bunch of questions without people in the way. Look how empty Broadway is. Another hour or two later and people were spilling off the sidewalks because it was so crowded.  

I love Nashville's diagonal crosswalks, particularly when they are empty. 

We had the Walk of Fame all to ourselves, which was crucial for efficiently solving one of the questions. 

An Urban Adventure Quest is one of our absolute favorite things to do in a new-to-us city (and in cities closer to home, too). Nashville was our 16th Quest, having previously solved them in Sacramento, Salt Lake City, Santa Fe, Albuquerque, San Jose, San Francisco, Phoenix, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Portland, Indianapolis, Austin, Boise, Chicago, and New Orleans. We love working together to solve the questions, just like a mini Amazing Race!

They've added a new feature to UAQ, which is the ability to pause in the middle of a Quest. Ordinarily, if you needed to stop for a meal or whatever, the clock kept running. Now, you can pause the game twice if you need to. This came in very handy. Remember how I said Nashville is hilly? And that we'd started our morning not-touring the Capitol before going to the Country Music Hall of Fame to start the Quest? The Quest takes you to the Capitol (at the top of a hill) then returns to the Country Music Hall of Fame. If we hadn't paused, we would have had to hoof it up Capitol Hill for a third time that day in order to tour the Capitol and our day's walking would have looked something like this:

So in the interest of not losing our hard-gained elevation, we pressed pause on the Quest and popped into the Capitol for a tour. 

  

Here's the view looking north from the Capitol. Hilly, to say the least. 

Then we looked for the Liberty Bell replica. This was as close as we could get. We've found that it's unusual for Capitols NOT to be under construction when we visit. 

The Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum is next to the Capitol, so that was our next destination. 

It was incredible. There were so many interesting artifacts and displays about various genres of music. 

I particularly enjoyed seeing the different versions of the Grammy award over its history. The video screen in the background shows artists accepting Grammys. 

This display showed how the Grammy award is made, which was really cool. 

The Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum has lots of hands-on exhibits. We each tried our hand at all the instruments, which was so much fun. 

  

After a thoroughly enjoyable visit to the Musicians Hall of Fame and Museum, we resumed the Urban Adventure Quest (downhill, thankfully) and finished with a good score. As usual, we saw and learned a lot we otherwise wouldn’t have. 

We had a very late lunch back at the Assembly Food Hall, then went next door to the National Museum of African American Music. I cannot properly describe how amazing this museum is. I've been to hundreds of museums and this easily ranks among the top ten. It's brand new, having just opened in Fall 2020. 

The "Rivers of Rhythms Pathways" extends down the center of the museum and focuses on the evolution of African American music. Five galleries, representing different eras of African American music, branch off to each side. 

The website recommends staying 90 minutes. This is not enough time. If you have any interest whatsoever in African American music, I would spent at least 2 hours. Allow more than that, just in case you love it as much as we did. In addition to looking and listening to the exhibits, there are lots of hands-on activities.

Trevor and I worked together in a studio to produce hip hop music, mixing the different components together until we had something we liked. 

Based on our choices, it identified our production style as New Jack Swing. 

This next exhibit was really interesting. Pull down on the handle and you see that Fats Domino's Ain't That a Shame (1955) was covered by Pat Boone a month later in an attempt to bring the song to a more 'mainstream' audience. No offense to Pat Boone, but I have a strong preference between the two versions and it's not his. 

The coolest feature in the whole museum was a digital music discovery experience. You pick an artist, then it shows you that artists' influencers, peers, and followers. Here, you can see that I am listening to Big Joe Turner, pictured in the center. His influencers, shown in the top left, include Count Basie and Ma Rainey. His peers, shown at the bottom, include Duke Ellington and Dinah Washington. His followers, listed on the right, include Ray Charles and Elvis Presley. You can click on any of them and keep going and going, listening to the music of each performer. Best of all, you can save your results to enjoy at home. 

We stayed at the museum right until closing. All three of us absolutely loved it. I can't say enough good things about the NMAAM. Go!

Our next destination was Goo Goo Chocolate Co. I cheated and took this picture early in the morning while it was light out and the streets were empty because I knew I wouldn't be able to get a good picture when we visited in the early evening. 

Before researching this trip, I hadn't known that the Goo Goo Cluster (affiliate link), was the United States' first combination candy bar. It was born in Nashville in 1912. In case you've never had them, let me assure you that Goo Goo Clusters, with their perfect balance of caramel, marshmallow, peanuts and milk chocolate, are absolutely delicious. 

The store, while not a factory per-se, shows all of the steps that go into making the Goo Goo Cluster. 

Even though this is not the location where the Goo Goo Cluster you buy at the store or from Amazon (hint hint) are made and packaged, plenty of candy is made here. They offer candy making classes...

  

... sell DELICIOUS goo goo milkshakes... 

... and have computer stations where you can design your own custom goo goo and then watch it being made!

You can even design your own custom goo goo from home and have it shipped to you. Check out all the options - it's so hard to choose! Here's my order. 

We packed so much into our time in Nashville, yet we hardly scratched the surface of what is there. Three days is not enough, but it gave us great idea of where we'll go next time we visit. There WILL be a next time! 

As disappointed as we were to say goodbye to Nashville, we were really excited for our next destination. I'll tell you all about it on Monday.