The first of these small adventures fell just after my cattle drive but before my Gettysburg adventure. What does that mean? I’m rocking my mustache at the Philadelphia Zoo!

Small adventure #16

11/3/19 – Operation: Brush Tony!

Dr. Jen got me a coupon for Christmas for 1-free rhinoceros brushing! We kept putting it off for other adventures and suddenly we realized it was getting close to expiring. Thank goodness for climate change (not really, I’m sad we’re killing the world) but we actually had a warm, sunny day to brush Tony. He loves it and runs over when he sees the brush. He was super sweet but also clumsy. It would be easy to get our hands trapped between him and the pillars when he turns so we had to be very careful. He wasn’t cooperating with us to get a group photo.

Overall he was a good guy and didn’t smell near as bad as I thought he would. I can also say I petted a rhino butt, so I’ve got that going for me.

Small adventure #17

11/6/19 – 11/10/19 – Work Tour

This wasn’t exactly a fun adventure but it was a lot of work. I contacted 5 colleges, 2 in Arizona and 3 in California, to tour. I’m part of a long-term construction project on my campus and we decided to take students on a tour of other schools to see what they like. No use building something if the students don’t like it. I organized the transportation and made contacts within all of the schools for tours. I also did a lot of the leg work for our dining options. The best part of the trip was getting to know some of the students, they were hysterical. The worst part was trying to be serious with colleagues in my field while rocking a mustache.

This almost counted as a large adventure! Why was fear so high? I hate flying and there were a lot of people with director or vice president in their titles. Screwing the trip up would not have been great for my career.

Small adventure #18

11/3/19 – Philly Double Escape Room

Dr. J and her family are all smarty pants. Like a little too smart for their own good…nah, they’re all super nice. They were the perfect group to do a day of escape rooms! We were 100% on our escapes and I’d say both rooms were challenging. The first was a weird 70s themed room. The highlight puzzle for me used lights/lasers as a puzzle.

The second room was horror themed and by far the most elaborate escape room I’ve been to so far. I’ve sworn that if I give up any secrets to this room they can hunt me down like that company in the movie Cat’s Eye. They did let us take a cool picture in the corner though. I can’t wait to use this company again.

I should have marked difficulty as higher since my embarrassment level was really high. This was the day after I puked up my guts at the mall with Jen’s sisters.  At least they were willing to hang out with me again.

Small adventure #19

December ’19 – 5/9/20 – Killer Box

For Christmas I got my mom a 6 month subscription to the “Hunt a Killer” loot box. Each month we get physical and virtual clues with the goal of solving a murder. One Saturday night a month we would break out our cork board with its photos and our various files to discuss who had the motive and opportunity to kill poor Charlie. We succeeded! She also enjoyed the present so I bought her the next 6 month subscription (new case) for Mother’s Day.

Small adventure #20

2/15/20 – Psychic

Dr. J and I are skeptics but had been talking about trying a psychic for a while. We figured it would be funny, possibly spooky, and would count as an adventure. It was a weird experience and not in the eerie “the old gypsy woman was right” kind of way. We took turns sitting in a woman’s front porch area getting a loose card reading. The other person had to sit in the dining room while awkwardly a man in the next room (recliner dead center of the room) snored really loud watching golf. This was their house and an old woman walked around not acknowledging that we were sitting in her dining room. She told both Jen and I that I have some heavy evil or painful thing on me and that I should consult her meditation process (up sell) to help give me a happy life. Whatevs Miss Cleo, you just barely made being an adventure.