A Warrented Delivery

Submitted by: Cinemagoat

The Challenge: Deliver a gift from Warren to Durham

Please visit my cousin… she makes excellent soup! I have a gift for you to deliver to her.

Tristan’s Note: We met Cinemagoat a few days ago when we were in the fantastic artist’s co-op Made in Warren, she helped us to select a nice present for a friend and we got to chatting about what we are doing this year. Well it turns out that we are cruising right by her cousin’s place on our way to stay with family so what better excuse to sneak in a quest!!! It’s nice when new friends can get involved! If you want to check out her personal artwork go here www.cinemagoat.com

Wombat’s Ruling: Very sweet idea! Tristan - you look like adorkable in that photo. (Sorry, Wombats are known for being brutally honest). Let’s say this relatively leisurely quest is worth 200 experience points and 3 hours charity.

Update: 10/24/2018

We did it! After a couple of tries with no one home, we finally caught someone (sadly not our deliveree) at home and left the package with our card. Here we are on her front porch, trying not to seem like creepers:

We hope she likes it Cinemagoat, let us know if she did! Also we would like to highlight our first guest artist! Cinemagoat gave us the title image art for this quest and it is hilarious and perfect and we appreciate it so much! Again you can find her quirky, intelligent, and beautiful artwork at www.cinemagoat.com

Wombat’s Judgement: Wow, that was quick! Full points!

If One's Fire and One's Ice, I'm Like Lukewarm Water

Submitted By: The Mountain Trolls

The Quest: Recuperating With The Ice Man

The Challenge: Hot Spring Snowman!

Find snow (we've got plenty here on Mt. Hood!). Take that snow to a genuine Oregon hot spring. Build a snowman and take well-deserved soak. Pictures with snowman are mandatory. Half credit for just finding the snow and building the snowman. The mountain trolls would be happy to quest with you, should you accept this challenge!

Tristan's Note: I'm kind of skeptical about this winter activity in the summer time, but ok! If it means we get to soak in a hot spring then we are in! Also I think this one will actually be relatively complicated Wombat, its got a time sensitive element to it so lot's of xp?

Challenge Accepted!

Wombat's Ruling: This sounds tricky and potentially grueling. 800 exp, 9 hours charity. (Wow, 9 hours!) Have fun storming the castle!

Update 7/8/2018: Well this was it folks, our most difficult and complex quest to date, and also undeniably one of the most fun! Thank you for the massive xp value rating on this one Wombat, it was deserved.

Ok so here we go! We visited The Mountain Trolls in their Oregon based cave way back at the start of July. It was not actually a cave, but an absolutely gorgeous home set in forests and directly situated along the Pacific Crest Trail. Also since they are going to be pictured in the photos I should probably reveal that the Trolls aren't actually trolls, and if they are they are very good looking ones. They are two fantastic people called Eric and Liz who did a damn fine job of hosting us for many days and allowing me to win at table tennis...

The first part of our quest was to drive up to the Timberline Lodge, which a lot of you will recognize as the hotel from 'The Shining'. It's such a cool place, constructed on an epic scale out of local timber back in the 30's as part of the CCC work program.

Anyway, it was an elevation gain of roughly 5000ft in 30 minutes along winding mountain roads, so by the time we got out of the truck Zora and I were both suffering from altitude sickness. It passed for me relatively quickly but Z had to do the rest of this leg whilst looking quite green. She's a trooper.

After checking out the architecture and having a drink of water we set off to hike up to the snow line. This is the oldest ski resort in North America, and the only one to have snow sports year round. 

The views on the way up were incredible! You can see a vast swathe of the state from all the way up there. Plus there were beautiful wild flowers and some pretty hardy bugs buzzing away, making the most of the beautiful weather we were lucky enough to have.

We stopped briefly before reaching our goal to appreciate the novelty of being able to make snow angels in July. It was bizarre and wonderful!

Our target was the last gondola station on the way up, where the snow line was, and where we could get some nicer powder, rather than the glacier ice that was still present further down. We packed our cooler with as much as it would hold, took a couple of victory selfies, and gratefully started to head back down.

There was a vague idea that we would take the snow to Bagby Hot Springs on the same day, but that seemed like entirely too much effort. We had done a 2.5 mile hike with 1000 ft of elevation gain already, and we were tuckered out. So instead we retreated to the cave and put our snow into the freezer.

The next day we headed South about 2 hours to the trail head of the hot springs. The countryside in this area is gorgeous. Lot's of steep, wooded valleys with shallow clear rivers burbling along in the sunshine. It was nice to have Eric do all the driving, it gave us both time to look out the window and appreciate the environment without worrying. 

The hot springs were a mile and a half down a beautiful trail, which was only spoiled by the fact that someone had covered loads of the trees in bloody glitter! It was probably some adorable child trying to attract fairies but Zora was not happy! (Zora edit: Nope. Let's be honest here, it was most likely a lot of people old enough to know better. Shameful.) Fortunately we were there to relax, and it's hard to dwell on anything when there are baths full of lovely hot mineral water ready for you to jump in. It was not the easiest hike in since we were carrying a cooler full of ice containing the smaller cooler full of snow, but we all took turns schlepping the load and we made it!

So here it is, the quest fulfilled, a snowman, next to hot springs, in July! He lasted long enough for us to bequeath him to the next group of soakers, who arrived as we were leaving. They were very tickled.

This was a brilliant quest, and a wonderful way to see so much of Oregon. Thank you both!

Wombat's Judgement: Wow, really hard work! This may be the most involved quest so far, and probably the best writeup. Therefore, in recognition of Zora's travails, and the quality writeup, I'm awarding 200 bonus exp, for a total 1,000 exp, 9 hours charity. Congratulations!

San Diego Zoo Selfie Sprint

Submitted by: Jenkins

The Quest: The Chronicling of Creature Contact

The Challenge: San Diego Zoo Selfies!

I want you and the fair maiden to visit the SD Zoo, and take selfies (across the fence, of course) with an Okapi, Fennec Fox, and Hippo, if they have such animals, and a 4th animal of your choosing that reminds you of me. Remember: selfies; I should see one or both of you with the animals. 

Tristan's Note: This is potentially the best quest ever. We didn't think that we would get to visit the zoo, and it is world renowned so that would such a shame. But this is the best!

Challenge Accepted!

Wombat's Ruling: This is too easy! Bah. Let's call this 200 exp, 3 hours charity (we've changed the rules, it's now 1 hour + 1 hour/100 exp, double what it was before). 

Alright, here we go. We went to the zoo on Friday, June 22nd, getting there at around midday, this was later than we had planned because it only gave us 8 hours (!?) to look around and give it the attention it deserves.

We started out taking the gondola from near the entrance to the far end of the park, using it to scope out the lay of the land and make a plan for where we were going to go. The first thing that struck us was just how enormous the zoo is! It goes on for miles, and it is so well maintained, with every enclosure offering a pretty decent space for the animals. It also struck us just how much merchandise was getting sold, this place is a cash cow!

When we landed we took a walk to see the polar bears, which looked pretty sweaty on a 100 degree day, but were very cool, and one was rolling around scratching its back, which was pretty adorable. 

We followed that up by heading towards the big cats and elephants. The cats were mostly sound asleep, the jaguar was awake and active though and put on quite a show for us! We got very lucky by visiting the elephants just as the oldest girl was going through her daily health checks. We got to see how respectful and professional their handlers were, and how majestic and intelligent Mary the elephant was. It was a really special experience.

We dawdled as much as possible, nerding out on the animals (apologies to the ones that I don't name check, there were many many). I can officially confirm that Zora is completing her descent into crazy bird lady status and spent as long in the aviaries as we did looking at the bigger mammals!

We saw giraffes and bears and orangutans and so many other things and it was wonderful. But most importantly here are your 4 requested selfies:

1: The Hippo

2: The Okapi

3: The Fennec Fox

4: Our choice for best representing Jenkins - The Mandrill! Now I know you are thinking that that is a strange choice, but hear us out. From far away they look kind of big and intimidating, but as you get closer you see that they are colorful both in their looks and their personalities, and beneath the big teeth and questionable hairstyle (not that you have that problem Jenkins) they spend quite a bit of their time being sweet to the other members of their group.

It's not the best series of selfies, but they are all there! We really had a fantastic day. Thank you so much for your generosity in purchasing the tickets for us, it is a memory that we will treasure for a very, very long time!

Quest complete Wombat?

Wombat's Judgement: Quest complete! Looks like a ton of fun! I also got to see them cleaning an elephant when I was there a few years ago, which was really cool.

The Original Tim's

Submitted by: Dani

The Quest: Take a pilgrimage to the Canadian Coffee Shrine

The Challenge: Find the first Tim Hortons Store and drink deep

Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to go to, get your picture taken in, and buy a beverage from Tim Hortons store #1 here in Hamilton. Bonus points if we get to visit with you.

Zora's note: CHALLENGE ACCEPTED!!!! Anyone who has ever been within any distance of Canada or the Canadian border with me knows that I am obsessed and pine after Tim's when I am away. This is the best.

Wombat's Ruling: Man, this is just way too easy - she was probably going to do it anyway! Let's call it 300 exp, 1.5 hours charity. 

Update 08/31/2018: We made it! A couple of weeks ago we spent one night in a parking lot in Hamilton. During the <24 hours we spent crossing Ontario we jumped on the brief opportunity to spend a ton of money at Tim's, including the pilgrimage to store #1. It was actually pretty neat, there is a little museum upstairs :)

Wombat’s Judgement: Freakin Canadians… Full points.

Summit the mystical peak

Submitted by: Mother Dearest

The Quest: The Conjuring of the Stone

The Challenge:  Climb 'Enchanted Rock' in the Texas State Park. Described as a pink granite monolith - Summit 425 ft. A bit like a scaled down Ayers rock in Australia. Photographic evidence is required of a Welsh flag and the quester/s at the summit. 

Tristan's Note: Another mountain!? Ugh. Do you know how unfit we are at the moment? Well I guess it wouldn't be a challenge if we weren't lazy swine.

Challenge Accepted!

Wombat's Ruling: Quit whining, you rugged Welsh mountain man. (They have mountains in Wales, right?). 400 exp, 3 hours charity.

Update, 5/25/18:

We have climbed the rock! We had a great day trekking up and around the summit, then exploring the boulders strewn around it's base. And we had a trusty Welsh flag backpackers patch with us to complete the challenge.

Tris fell in love with a fluffy black squirrel (that's grounds for divorce right?) and a turkey vulture fell in love with him and spent considerable time posing for him on a dead tree. We also met Jared and Joelle who gave us some great suggestions on where else to go in the southwest. Quest Complete!

Photo evidence at the top complete with Welsh flag as required!

Jared and Joelle accidentally photobombed us, how all the best friendships are formed right?

A view from the top, unadulterated.

Poser.

Wombat's final judgement: Good work, you two! 400 exp and 3 hours charity awarded. Though next time I'd like to see a much larger Welsh flag (think Spanish explorer claiming this land for queen and country kind of thing).

Denude the Mudbugs!

Submitted by: MEH

The Quest: Peel the armor off three scores of fearsome clawed water monsters!

The Challenge: Determine who is the best in all the land at peeling crawfish

Eat a big ol' brew of in-season crawfish. You must research the best crawfish in new Orleans, order a bunch and then have a crawfish peeling contest. First to 30 wins, report on the winner and the time to completion, and report on what you think the best method of peeling is (there is much debate). As a reward for completion, I will reimburse you for your meal up to $40.

Tristan's Note: ACCEPTED!! Challenge, most definitely, accepted. And this may take the title of best challenge so far!

Wombat's Ruling: Let's call it 30 minutes of hard work, plus 90 minutes of research and shopping for 300 experience, 2 hours of charity required. Trayf!

Update from 05/04/18: Quest Complete! Find our video of the quest below (We aren't good at editing yet, but we will improve!). What do you think Wombat, good enough?

Wombat's judgement (5-15-18): Good job guys! Full points awarded. I know video editing on the road is hard, but next time try to get the video under about 2 minutes. Wombats are known to have very short attention spans!

Take advantage of Houston's generosity

Submitted by: MEH

The Quest: Attend a house of culture and delve into a bat swarm

The Challenge: Take a selfie at Miller Theater and a video of the bats at Waugh Bridge

If you manage to take your camper through Houston central, two of my favorite free attractions while living there were the Waugh bridge bat colony (a huge colony of bats flies out every night at dusk from their living quarters under the bridge, to feed on the insects in the bayou) and free shows at Miller outdoor theater which range from Opera to musical sing-alongs. I challenge you to attend one or both of these places. As proof, you must take a video of the bats flying out from the bridge, and report as to whether the colony is slowly recovering from Harvey, and/or post a selfie of yourselves at Miller Theater. Houston has a lot to offer if you're willing to park the camper somewhere and explore for the day!

Wombat's Ruling: This sounds too pleasant to be a quest! Let's call it 200 experience for each quest with 2 hours of charity for each quest.

Update 5/28/18

We turned up in Houston with just enough time to get to the bridge, find a place to park the rig, take a little stroll and set up to watch the bats emerge. We were there so late (because they were so cool!) that we has to turn our attention to where we were going to sleep that night (Walmart in the suburbs, ugh) and didn't have time to make it out to the Theater. 

The Waugh Bridge bats had a colony of 300,000+ but unfortunately Hurricane Harvey caused the river under their bridge to flood. It came up so high that it trapped the bats in the crevices they live in, and even though some local residents braved the flood water (and bat bites!) to scoop out and rescue some of the bats, unfortunately a lot of them didn't make it (there are still bat bones in the bridge, grim!). So between drowning and probably some of the colony deciding that the bridge was cursed, the colony is thought to be about half of what it once was. It was still amazing and huge to us. I think they're starting the recovery process. Plus that hunting hawk doesn't seem to be too good at his job, so hunting pressure isn't as high as it could be...

Wombat's Ruling: Very cool! I was hoping for something a bit different (see below), but full points for the bat quest nonetheless (200 exp, 2 hours charity). 

Survive the familial onslaught...and then feed them

Submitted by: Mother Dearest

The Quest: Rendez Vous avec la famille faim

The Challenge: 

Cook the evening meal for us parents and siblings at a place called 'Yummy Mud Puddle' near Burnsville, NC.

Tristan's note: Mum, that sounds like you are taking advantage of our concept... but a loophole is a loophole, and if it earns me experience points then I'll do it! Do you have any requests for the type of meal that you would like me to cook? The fancier it is the more xp I might get!

Challenge Accepted!

Wombat's Ruling: Yes mum, abuse the system for all it is worth! You can finally make him clean his room! As for experience, let's call it 600 (<1 day, Moderate difficulty) and 4 hours charity. I'll award bonus points once you upload a menu, pictures of the food, and testimonials from the guests. 

All things sour are not spoiled

Submitted by: Bromogida

The Quest: Braving The Bitter Brew

The Challenge: Drink sour beer!

To be specific, drink sour beer in Portland, OR at Cascade Brewery... changed our lives! If you have no clue, don't worry, the staff will make excellent recommendations to try. Most of their beers you can't get anywhere but in their brewery, so enjoy!

Tristan's Note: Luckily neither of us have ever had a sour beer that we liked, so this will legitimately be a challenge. Mind you if anyone out there wants to challenge us to drink more beer we could do that too. Great quest, we will provide photographic evidence once the challenge is complete!

Challenge Accepted!!!

Wombat's Ruling: Like all marsupials, I adore sour beer, and I think that getting drunk at a high-end brewery barely counts as a challenge. You must try at least a few different sour beers (I don't know what size they come in, so let's say 3 to start with - I don't want to be the cause of alcohol poisoning), and then take pictures of your faces as you drink them AND write brief descriptions of each so we know which ones are the best. This is 300 exp, 2 hours charity (< 1 hr, and I'm being generous by giving this a Moderate "Sweat Factor"). 

Update 8/1/18:

We went, we saw, we tasted... And I have to say we weren't wild about any of it. Tristan and I just aren't sour beer folks. On the upside you get to enjoy our tasting faces!

There was also an exciting development, we had our first guest quester! Everyone welcome Eric! He'll be getting his own character on the website soon. This too can be your fate if you accept any of the quests (either with us or without us!)!

So after looking at the pretty extensive menu (see photo for descriptions), we selected three samples of Cascade's finest. 

1. Midnight Bramble -Tristan

2. Peche Fume 2016 -Eric

3. Vanilla Bourbon Peach -Zora

Ok, first round, drinking our own picks. Note the trepidation on my face.

Ok, a bit of a shock to the system the first sip of sour beer. Maybe it gets better?

Bottoms up! Round 2:

Oof. Maybe not. Third times a charm?

Oooh, that's a no. Looks like you're having a hard time swallowing there, Tris. 

Sooooo yeahhhhh.... No real winners there, but here are our conclusions: While we aren't 100% sure our waitress gave me the vanilla peach and Eric the Peche to start with, whatever they were were both pretty bad. However, my pick, the vanilla bourbon peach, was basically bile. No better way to put that unfortunately. You can track its progression down the line by whomever looks the most ill. The Peche was only mildly less toxic. 

Tristan's however, wasn't all that bad. Since it was red and very raspberry flavored, the sourness made more sense. In a small dose like that, we'd even venture to say it was good...ish. We agreed it would have made a better cider minus the sour. 

We'll keep on believing people who tell us that there are good sour beers out there, but we definitely aren't converts yet. Thanks for the quest Bromogida, it certainly was a challenge!

Wombat's Judgement: That's too bad, wombats think sour beers are fantastic... oh well. Zora's face in the first picture seems to say it all. Full points!

For whom the mountain tolls

Submitted by: Kirstie

The Quest: The Sonorous Ascent of Stone Hitting 

The Challenge: Climb to the top of bell rock.

Become members of 'The Top of Bell Rock Club' in Sedona and say Hi to Peter from us. He helps you climb to the top of Bell Rock and it is physically challenging and lots of fun. 

Tristan's note: This is straightforward, challenging, and place specific, I like it! Thanks Kirstie.

Challenge Accepted!

Wombat's Ruling: This is < 1 day, Difficult "Sweat Factor" = 800 exp, 5 hours charity.

Tristan's Update: 6/9/18

I am very pleased to announce that both Zora and I are official members (2753 & 2754) of the TOP OF BELL ROCK CLUB! What an amazing experience it was, I don't think there would have been many others that Zora would have been glad at being dragged out of bed at 5:30 am for on her birthday.

We met Peter, the Vortex Jumper, and the rest of our group at 7 am and followed around to the West side of the rock. We climbed in shadow up the center, winged on either side by the flaring outcrops of sandstone. Our route was a near vertical ascent using cracks and crevices for footholds and treading a path worn smooth by other members of the club.

The challenge of the climb was absolutely worth it when we reached the top, a plateau towering 600 ft over the valley below. It was stunning. I think everyone experienced a profound sense of awe. I certainly did.

We made the most of our time at the top by taking photos, answering riddles, signing the guestbook, and getting ready for the route back down again.

Thank you Kirstie and Reid for questing us, and Peter for dragging us along. It was brilliant!

Wombat's Judgement: Stunning pictures, and a nice story! Also, Tris, your hat is adorably dorky (and presumably quite practical). Full points!

Will Sail For Food

Submitted by: Westie Family

The Quest: The Nautical Excursion of Nibbliness

The Challenge: Find the gig, sail, and pillage for snacks.

It has been 12 years since Genoa... Verite misses you and wishes you would come pull an oar. There are always snacks involved! Your Westie Family misses you and will provide many more challenges and quests when you visit the Pacific North West!!!

Zora's note: This is great! We can't wait to get back out on the gig! And to eat all your snacks. Challenge accepted! 

Wombat's Ruling: This sounds like too much fun to be worth experience! I think Zora and Tristan should bring some snacks of their own. Some really, really cool snacks. Something exotic (Hawaiian?)! If they do that, and post some pictures (maybe a testimonial from a fellow snack-eater?), then this is worth 400 exp, 3 hours charity (1-4 hour length, Moderate "Sweat Factor"). 

Update 7/31/18:

We had a wonderful (if all too short!) visit with the crew and Verite. Thank you so much for taking us out Westies!! AC love never dies (it seriously doesn't, we got to see so many crewmates before we even made it to the gig)! So while we did end up bringing our own snacks they were only Costco chips (so nothing special) and we were so busy having fun and rowing/sailing that we didn't eat them while we were out. However there was some communal snackage once the gig was put to bed. It was so lovely to be back out on the water and it reminded us both how much we miss Atlantic Challenge, how much better life would be with a gig in it (and our crew!), and how jealous we were of the crews doing AC '18 in Antrim (pretty much simultaneously). We had serious boat glow for the rest of the day despite it being the first leg of our 5 day 2,200 mile slog back to St. Louis. We also had some serious blisters!! Our time on the road has left us with some soft hands. So Wombat, you'll have to determine how many expectations we met on this one. 

Seriously, we can't wait to do this again. Excited to meet up with you and Louyaute, Easties!

Some Photos!

Wombat's Judgement: You had too much fun for this to possibly be worth the full points! Plus, your snackage was lacking. 300 exp, 3 hours charity.