A Scavenger Hunt Snapshot

I spent four days with the staff and writers of the High Calling Blogs (HCB) at Laity Lodge near Kerrville, Texas. Laity Lodge is remote, and that’s by design. It is a retreat center that is devoted but not limited to the arts.

There were many things special about this meeting, not the least of which was, for most of us, we would be meeting face to face for the first time. People we had all known from blog posts, photographs, emails and comment boxes would translate from pixels to flesh and blood.

We arrived at various times on Wednesday, Sept. 29 in San Antonio. We were transported downtown for a scavenger hunt and dinner. Our scavenging team included an utterly fearless Claire Burge (HCB photography editor), a fast-tweeting Ann Kroeker (HCB family editor), an intrepid Jennifer Dukes-Lee (contributing editor on family), and me (with the map). We had to find a number of listed landmarks, photograph them, upload them to Twitter, encourage others to retweet them, and then wander around doing things like buying a stranger an ice cream and asking an employee what they liked about the boss.

In spite of technical glitches with uploading photos to Twitter, I’m proud to say that our team won.

Then we were off to dinner on the San Antonio Riverwalk, rushed to the airport to meet Bradley Moore (HCB work editor) who finally arrived after two cancelled flights, and then a 2+ hour drive to Laity Lodge.

And what happened there will take a few more posts.

HCB Editor Marcus Goodyear giving instructions for the scavenger hunt.
 

 
Claire Burge, Ann Kroeker and Jennifer Dukes-Lee in front of the Buckhorn Museum.
 

Claire Burge writes an inscription in a book left for any stranger who happens to walk by and see it (that was worth 15 points in the scavenger hunt)