Post Hunt: A Fun DC Scavenger Hunt Of Sorts

Today was hopefully the first of an annual tradition in Washington, DC: The Post Hunt. The Post Hunt is the brain child of Tom Shroder, Gene Weingarten, and the hilarious Dave Barry. (Click here to see Dave’s blog.) In essence, the Post Hunt is identical to the Herald Hunt, which is held in South Florida every year, except that it is held in Washington, DC. For those that have never participated in either event, I highly encourage you to do so, because I had a blast today. The Post Hunt is a scavenger hunt of sorts, where you need to initially solve five brainteasers, instead of searching for hidden objects. However, you could always be looking for hidden objects as one of the brainteasers. After accumulating the answers to all of the brainteasers, you then have a final clue, which somehow ties the solutions to the brainteasers together.

To give you an idea of how challenging the final clue was, I will divulge how the final clue and answer came together. Based on the final clue and the previous answers to the brain teasers, participants were left with the former home of the caps, which would be the MCI Center. “MCI” when used for roman numeral purposes, is equal to 1,101. Looking at the map, there was a building labeled 1101, so when participants when there, there was a sign regarding employment opportunities with a phone number. Upon calling that number it said No, I asked you to call TODAY. So based on that, participants had to discern to call TODAY, or 5/18/2008 or 202-518-2008. Upon calling that number, the participant was given a clue of giving the roman numerals and team name to a person wearing a Red Sox hat at the intersection of Elm and Maple. For those unfamiliar with DC, there are no streets called Elm and Maple, so participants had to go through a crossword solution to find that Elm and Maple intersect at the “L.” Then, participants had to find the “hidden” L on the map to find the actual location of the man with the hat. As you can see, it was quick a challenge, and my hat is off to the people that solved all of that within 30 minutes.

With all that said, my experience can be summed up in four words: a lot of fun. I highly encourage everyone to come out next year (I really hope they do it again in DC) and join in the fun.

Only in DC: Field Trip Permission Form = Sex in Hotel

Last month, 70 middle-school students from Mid-Carolina Middle School, which is located in Newberry, South Carolina, went on a field trip with 20 chaperons to Washington, DC. However eight of them, saw a lot more than the monuments.

While the chaperons were nowhere to be found one night, it is unclear what exactly they were doing, four of girls from the field trip sneaked out of their rooms and went into the boys rooms and had sex. (It is unknown which hotel they stayed in, as well as if the any of the students were in Room 871.) Luckily, no alcohol or drugs were involved in this incident. According to the school, there was a screw up with the hotel reservations so there was not a chaperone in every room and the rooms were scattered throughout ten different floors. The school's official response is suspending the students for the rest of the school year.

When I thought about this, there were so many questions raised. First, the kids had sex, possibly for the first time, on a school field trip and the school is rewarding, I mean punishing, them with a suspension? While I will agree that having sex on a field trip probably is a prohibited activity, whose fault is it? Should the chaperones done something differently? Is it the hotels fault?

It is also interesting to hear that there is an "ongoing study" of what can be done against the chaperones, which were both volunteers and school employees. If you were a parent what would you want to see done? What if you were a school official?

The most ironic thing about the story, is that the Mid-Carolina Middle School team name is the "Rebels." Maybe the students were just taking their team name to heart. Go Rebels!