Explorers' Club

 Escape! One more bunch of pictures we got of stuff we did in Virginia.

After the minigolf, we used the power of the phones to find a room to escape from. I mean, I guess you can consider every room you are in, you would need to escape from, but these are professional rooms with puzzles and stuff.

The one we got was called The Explorers' Club. We are going to do an Indiana Jones type of thing, obviously. Can't you tell by the font and colors of the text? Expectations!

In the waiting room, there were sample puzzles on the table. Remember, you came here for the puzzles. I thought it would be neat if these things were clues to your room already, but that might not be fair to people who wouldn't expect it, so... probably not.

Here's a bit of text that helps you feel not-so-stupid when you couldn't see an obvious clue. Of course the obvious thing is hard to see! Right? That's why I couldn't see it!

This certainly looked like a puzzle. But again, it's in the lobby, so it's probably not a real puzzle. Am I taking too many pictures here? Well, if this did turn out to be a puzzle, I'd be glad I had a picture of it.

After we went to the bathroom, we peeked and saw there was another waiting room empty in the back, that was creepily dark. Um... are we already supposed to be trying to escape?

No pictures in the escape room! Here's the door. The funny video at the beginning had an explorer guy tell us he locked us in the room and was going to kill us; why? "Because I'm bored! ...And rich! ...And maybe a little CRAZY! But I'm nothing if not sporting, so I'm going to give you a chance to escape!"

With no clues to start with, we all scrambled around the room and eventually found locks, and keys, and puzzle things. It was dimly lit, and we were using the lights on our phones, which might have been okay, but ultimately probably not necessary. There was a chess piece hidden behind a chest that was easily spotted but only after we found the real clue. I guess you can tell by the picture of the clock, that we indeed did escape! With nearly 20 minutes to go! Yay! The final puzzle involved spinning a globe like a combination lock, which I would have never thought of, but luckily you're trapped in here with other people hahaha.

Celebration diner at Village Inn. This place has been here for as long as I can remember. Which means it's got to be a great place, right?

Sign on the back wall says The Best Pie in America. Really? I said this earlier about a pretzel, but who's going to get a lawyer on this? They can say whatever they want about the pies. They're probably pretty good, but we did not get any that night.

Harsh! Saw this sign on the wall and thought yeah, that's what I wanted with my breakfast, extra bacon with a side order of sadness and guilt.

Got the pot roast. Honestly it was just "alright"; too much fat on it. Some people like that though. You can get an unlucky portion of fatty pot roast anywhere, it might be unfair to judge them on it.

Late one night we relaxed and watched a few episodes of The Venture Bros. If you've never seen it before, it's a comedy based off of a sort of Johnny Quest future. So it's kind of super scientists vs crazy villains, but they are all so inept. Here'a a picture of The Monarch with some of his loyal henchmen. I can't say enough about how consistently, awesomely funny this show is.

The next morning we purposefully stopped at an auto body place that always displays crazy custom cars. You pass it while driving and try to get some pictures, but you really need to park and get out to see all they have.

Like, zoiks, Scoob! Could you imagine the reactions you would get driving this thing around town? You'd probably get hassled by everybody asking to solve their mysteries for them.

Where are the people? Despite the popularity of the Disney Cars franchise, it has always creeped out my friend a little. There should be people, he says! But the cars ARE the people, don't think about it that much!

I like the figure box photo op spot! This means they expect you to have stopped to wander around and get some picture, so we feel less awkward now.

I don't ever remember the Peanuts school bus being rusty and beat-up. Should we call somebody? Are they in trouble? Um... Where's Charlie Brown?

Yikes! It's kind of wrecked, but there it is; the General Lee. The car from The Dukes of Hazard with its now-inappropriate flag on the roof. There was a time in history when that flag represented rebellion of authority, but it now represents something totally different. I can imagine seeing it might upset some people, but it's a thing, so what are we going to do?

The biggest thing here is this massive truck with a full whole Dragon on it! How bonkers would it be to see this thing driving down the road?!

That dragon looks tired. It's cool, you can take a nap. We'll be happy to drive you to wherever you need to go.

I heard somewhere that they were re-mastering The Dukes of Hazard, and digitally erasing the flag from the car's roof, in all scenes. There's issues with artistic integrity; Cancel Culture and what-not. Preserving history, letting it be as originally filmed vs people's comfort in watching a show, and not being afraid or ashamed of it. That's more politics than I care to address on my silly photo blog, but... did you notice I digitally erased the flag from this picture? 

I guess I'm NOT going to the bank! One of the things about visiting your old town, is that sometimes places close down and move to a different location. Later I found out where they moved nearby, but right now I had to drive all the way over to the mall to get to the other bank location I knew of.

We had visiting relatives, and while discussing what kind of dinner to get, we discovered they did not have any Chic Fil-A restaurants near them. It's fun to get excited over something you've heard a lot of hype about. For them, this was a bit of a treat, and we were happy to have such a simple yet good dinner.

The Monopoly people must love making these tourist themed sets. The highlight of Virginia Beach-opoly is the tax spot called "Cursing Citation" based on the real-world no-swearing laws at the beach! Yep; if you are caught saying bad words near the boardwalk, you might get a real ticket and have to pay a fine! Welcome to Virginia Beach!

Fisher Price Little People set with RuPaul! While I personally don't find anything wrong with this; it somehow seems like they are daring to create a controversy. What's the word? Trolling? I think it's fun to have a thing that's normally made for babies, except now it's made for adult collectors.

Wonder what the insides of a washing machine look like? My friend's washing machine had broken, and in an effort to save the cost of a whole new one, he had to completely take it apart to get at the piece that was bad.

Who else does this? Arrange the screws in the exact order when you remove them? I don't think I ever told anybody that I do this, yet here I see that it's been done. Mind blown!

This thing looks completely wrecked! While they were totally willing and able to put it back together again, it turned out that the piece that needed replacing was selling for over $600, and they wound up buying a whole new machine anyway. Yowza. At least I got a few pictures out of it. I can do that much for them.

Just one quick picture on the way back home, we stopped at a McDonald's and saw this bowl full of McMints. How odd. Wouldn't you want the delicious taste of fries in your mouth for as long as possible? Why ruin that with a mint?