Scavenger Hunt Anyone?

This weekend, one of my friends got together a team to participate in the American Cancer Society Photo-Scavenger Hunt Fundraiser. There were about 6 teams participating in the fundraiser. We had 4 hours to find/accomplish a list of 70 items and document them with a digital camera. We had a short list of rules. Items that began with a verb we had to be "doing" and all others just had to be in the photo, with at least two team members. We were also instructed to stick close to State St., which is the main street (filled with restaurants, bars, and shops) connecting the UW-Madison campus with Capitol Square.

At first we thought "this is going to be a piece of cake. 4 hours? We can get this done in half that time." We were off to a strong start, finding a triangle in the parking lot just outside Logan's (the sports pub that co-sponsored the event). Ragstock proved to be a jackpot- rainbow suspenders, leg-warmers, wigs, ugly sweaters, and a big pink gorilla. We then moved on the the bookstore where we found Jesus, a judge, a dog in clothes, and cartoons. Next we popped into Hawk's which turned out to be an unexpected goldmine. We kissed Abe (someone had a tattoo of Abe Lincoln!), played a game, danced, played bartender, had a pink drink & a green-bottled beer, found a baby in a bar, and got fed by a stranger. We then moved on to a handstand on State Street, finding something with a tail and a ladder with a megaphone. After that we headed to the birthday bar (the Nitty Gritty) to track-down a birthday girl or boy, a bartender with flair, do a human pyramid, and arm-wrestle the biggest guy in the bar.

It was on our way to Bascom Hill to roll-down a hill that we realized we were two hours into it, and still had half of the items to check off of our list. And some were proving to be much more difficult than expected to find. So, one of our team members jumped in the lake at the terrace for a quick swim, and we picked up our pace to try to "get back in the game." We found an unusually small space, dog off a leash, did the BW3s Blazing Hot Wing Challenge (thanks Scottie!), cooked at a food stand, found a pink elephant, an arrest (fake), hand-puppets, a tutu, got a crowd at a bar to do a sing-along with us, popped some 'champagne', and got an umbrella in a drink.

Needless to say... WE WON! Well, how could we not with two scavenger hunt aficionados? The winners were actually divided up into two categories: the most combined points (points for cash & points for scavenger hunt items), and the team with the most scavenger hunt items. We were the winners in the second category, with 65 or 66 out of 70 items. Those purple reusable grocery bags we won will be a lasting tribute to the crazy & fun four hours we spent running around Madison on a 90 degree summer day. Overall, the scavenger hunt raised over $1000 in just 4 hours.

I've posted some of the highlights below (click on the picture, and then use the slideshow feature in Picasa). Just two things of note: 1) all these were taken with a small digital point and shoot, a Sony CyberShot (not my Nikon DSLR)-- too much running for a big camera! 2) In addition to the ones I took, photos posted from the event include those that my teammates & some good-natured strangers snapped-- they all deserve shout-outs.

Next time you have an opportunity to do a scavenger hunt, I say 'do it!'

American Cancer Society Photo-Scavenger Hunt Fundraiser