Our October theme was “Play” and audience member, Anthony Blatner, had a unique experience thanks to our speaker, Mikal Hart. Check out his Quest Box adventure below:

I went to the CreativeMornings event and heard the talk by Mikal Hart.  It was very a very interesting talk about a game that he created using these devices, these boxes, that would only unlock when they’re physically brought to a specified location, sometimes at a specified time. The quest only gives you clues of your distance to that location, only 50 times. And it will only tell you your distance, but not any more information such as direction. If the location is not found within those 50 tries, then it is locked forever. For-ev-er.

The idea was born when he wanted to give a really cool, unique gift to a friend for their wedding, and so the puzzle-boxes were created. Since then many people have used his puzzle-box adventures to get engaged, given as gifts, and more. He told one awesome story of an older sister who gave each of her 3 younger brothers a box that would open on their 18th birthday.

At the Creative Mornings event, Mikal randomly chose three people to give a puzzle-box to, and I was chosen!

So the following Wednesday, me and my team at Jackrabbit (Jon and JoJo) went on the epic adventure to find the location for our puzzle-box. We met at Doc’s on South Congress for a beer, planning, and we activated the quest. The screen lit up and reported that we were 18 miles from the goal. Since we were starting in South Austin, we decided to try driving north first. Stopping at a nearby gas station on I-35, we hit the puzzle-box button again — data point number two. This time it reported we were 21 miles away. Wrong direction.

Next, we headed back south. Approaching 290 we decided to head west, since we thought there was a better chance of the goal being out there. Hitting the button a few minutes later, we found we were on the right track. We followed 290 for a ways, and were still making progress. We approached Dripping Springs, and gave it another try—the screen reported that we were within 10 miles. On Google Maps we saw a Sports and Recreation park, and guessed that this may be the location, since the theme was “Play”. Although after a few more presses we found that we were wrong, and must have overshot turn somewhere. The distances that were previously counting down were now starting to climb back up—wrong way.

Backtracking through Dripping Springs, and along with Google Maps help, we took the next biggest road that wasn’t 290. Again, progress. We were weaving through backroads and the rain was coming down hard. Looking up with Google Maps, we saw we were approaching Driftwood. As we came within 2 miles, we saw The Salt Lick plotted on the map, and started to get excited.

It’s so rewarding to watch the number shrink as you get closer to your target. And pulling up to and in the parking lot for Salt Lick the number crawled from miles to thousands of feed to hundreds of feet. We pulled around the back, and as the number dropped, the box popped open right outside the venue. Success!

The note said, “Dear Friend — Nice! Meet us on the patio. We’ll find you. <3” Woohoo!

We found the rest of the group inside of Salt Lick. The first team had already arrived, and Mikal was there.  

We grabbed a bunch of Salt Lick BBQ, and some pie & ice cream dessert. What a great prize! The third team arrived at the very end. We had a great time on this adventure—reverse geocaching is awesome!

You can see the path that Anthony’s team took and read Mikal’s blog post about all three teams adventures here: http://www.sundial.com/2013/11/dark-stormy-night/