Our waistlines will Morph Carolina

Submitted by: Fuzzy Bear

The Quest: The Vanquishing of the Appetites

The Challenge: Good Eating in NC

Since you're swinging through North Carolina, you might as well do so on a full stomach. A really full stomach. Your challenge is to hit up some of the best places to eat along your route. They are: Bull City Burger and Brewery (Durham, NC), Backyard BBQ Pit (Durham, NC), Wimpy's Grill (Durham, NC), Crafted (Greensboro, NC) extra points there if you can suss out the new location without using their website to cheat, 5Church (Charlotte, NC, and SkyBAR (Asheville, NC). Prove you made it to each location by sharing photos, or dirty napkins. Your choice.

Zora's Note: Our friends are clearly trying to sabotage our arteries...Challenge accepted!!

Wombat's Ruling: I'm getting jealous just thinking about this! To earn any experience, you need to give us a review of your favorite restaurant in NC once you leave. It can be a blog post or a video. Answer the question "If I can only go to one restaurant in all of NC, which should it be, and why?"

Including the video, this is < 1 day, Easy "Sweat Factor", so 400 exp, 3 hours charity. 

Birding the US

Submitted by: SJ

The Quest: The Charting of the Chickens

The Challenge: Find and document (photo, note, etc) a bird in each state you visit - no repeats. I'll start you off - in Missouri, look for Eastern Bluebird.

Zora's Note: I love it! We will put our ornithological skills to the test and come up with an eagle or something. Would running into with the truck and stuffing it count as documenting?

Challenge Accepted!

Wombat's Ruling: This sounds like fun! As an additional service, you need to give us a few fun/interesting facts about each bird. Try to educate us a little about America's birds.

Drawing on my ruling for "Proof you have left!" let's say that it's 200 experience per bird, and 0.5 hour charity. Bonus 300 exp and 0 hours charity for each 10 birds you do. Bonus 1000 exp and 0 hours charity if you do all 48! (The seemingly low charity hours actually add up - if you do all 48 states, that's 24 hours of charity!). 

Update 1: Missouri

Well we failed a little bit at the initial bird challenge, but we made up for it by giving you two birds! (also see Update 3) Most of our traveling in Missouri was in the Missouri Ozarks (which are distinct from the Arkansas Ozarks). If you've ever watched the show Ozarks (we enjoyed it, but it's not for the squeamish) you'll know that turkey vultures (Cathartes aura) feature in it. And it's no surprise because they were EVERYWHERE. We also saw some black vultures (Coragyps atratus) but unless you see them side by side to compare wingspans (turkey vultures are much larger) or get a good look at the underside of the wings (turkey vultures have a silvery underside for the whole length, black vultures it limited to the tips) it's a bit hard to tell them apart. 

We saw the turkey vultures do just about everything, from soaring around on thermals, to creepily hanging around in the trees around one of our campsites making a lot of tree branch noise, to rather graphically ripping apart a roadkill raccoon (but hey! they are super important parts of the ecosystem for doing so!). We were pretty fascinated. The hard part of this challenge is that though we bought a nice camera for TGQ we didn't have enough funds for a zoom lens, so we're stuck with longer distance shots and fuzzy zoomed in iPhone photos. But here are our best attempts:

Turkey Vulture

Black Vulture

Wombat's Comment: That's actually really cool. Vultures get a bad rap, but they're important.

Update 2: Illinois 

We haven't actually spent much time in Illinois (at least not since TGQ officially hit the road), but we spent our first night there and walked around Horseshoe Lake the next morning. That is where Tristan saw his first bald eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus)! I saw it as well, but was sadly looking the wrong way when it took a dive and tried to snag a fish out of the lake (the fish got away), he was seriously excited. Bald eagles are primarily piscivores but will also eat carrion and are kind of famous in Alaska for swarming dumps...a less than glorious image of America's national bird.

And Tris managed to get a photo of it looking pretty cool:

Bald Eagle

Wombat's Comment: AMERICA MOTHERTRUCKERS!

Update 3: Arkansas

The start off challenge for this quest was to find and document the eastern bluebird (Sialia sialis) in Missouri, because, well, it is the state bird. We saw zero. Not even a glimpse of a blue color bird that wasn't clearly a jay that we could pretend was an eastern bluebird! However, Arkansas was very gracious in providing a mated pair (the female having duller coloring than the male) flitting around our camper while we stayed on the grounds of Headwaters School. They played the game of stay very still until I raised the camera and then flying further away with me which was frustrating. That is, until the male discovered our rear view mirrors. Apparently this little guy has been wreaking havoc on all mirrors and ledges of the school attendees cars, he loves landing on them and pooping everywhere!! Ours were no exception. The little dude also liked attacking his own reflection in our mirrors which were probably a bit larger than he was accustomed to. Hopefully they lay some eggs in the school's box, the eggs are as pretty a shade of blue as their feathers!

Perched on the mirror, doing his worst

Admiring his smeary handywork and laughing at us

Wombat's Comment: He clearly doesn't like you.

Update 3: Louisiana

It was pretty difficult just choosing one bird for Louisiana. We saw so many! From all sorts of swamp birds to brown pelicans on the Gulf, we were spoiled for choice. So we've gone with the one we got the best photo of! Tris had a lot of luck stalking this pretty unconcerned yellow-crowned night heron (Nyctanassa violacea). We got a great look at it! Apparently they only grow those long white feathers in their crest during mating season, so I think we got lucky! In one of the photos it looks like there may be an egg? But it could also just be a rock. 

Wombat's Judgement: Very cool! Very pretty and exotic. Full points.

Update 4: Texas

This episode of choose that state bird actually comes from Tristan. He completely fell in love with these guys. It's also one of our silliest. We snuck up on these guys who were sitting on the roof of the nature blind. When they saw us and flew away they made the silliest squeaky noises! They also have very bright bills. Zora searched for squeaky orange billed ducks with long necks and...

             Not helpful.

Right. That is not the duck. 

Let's try again:

These ducks, Google. What are these ducks? Turns out they are black-bellied whistling ducks (Dendrocygna autumnalis)! They are pretty much the cutest, and Tristan may just have a new favorite bird. Check out what they sound like here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-rgyCbntEAQ

Wombat's ruling: Very cute!

Dad's Fave Philly

Submitted by: Bromogida

The Quest: The Conquest of the Bovine 

The Challenge: Ro's dad challenges you to go to White House in Atlantic City, and order a "Whopper". Get some laughs then have the best Philly Cheese Steak dad has ever had. Post a picture to commemorate the moment.

Tristan's Note: We will starve ourselves in preparation, because I'm pretty sure that something called  a "Whopper" is not going to be small.

Challenge Accepted!

Wombat's Ruling: You guys are so lucky. This is 100 exp, 1 hr charity (<1 hr, Trivial "Sweat Factor" - all you have to do is have lunch!). 

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!