Scavenger Hunt

COVID times are tough for leisurely pastimes.  Many organized activities are cancelled or questionably safe.  Restaurants are open but I'm not eager for dine-in experiences.  As I pondered ideas for fun activities, a scavenger hunt popped into my head.  With a critical mass of my friends from New Delhi currently in the DC area, I designed a scavenger hunt based on our own interests, in-jokes, and shared experiences from India.  

One must-find item on the list was an Indian restaurant.  It turned out to be more difficult to find than expected since we somehow started out in a neighborhood with NO Indian restaurants.  Shocking, I know!  But, with a little help from Google, we eventually persevered.  Once there, we sampled the garlic naan, a staple for Will and Karime at any Indian meal.

Smile if you like Indian food

After our snack, Troy limbered us up with his favorite yoga move.  Actually, now that I think about it, Troy's favorite yoga move is probably ridiculously harder than this, but we were all grateful that he choose the triangle, which all of us were able to execute.

Feel that stretch!

One of the hardest items to find was a pair of Crocs.  This was in honor of our friend, Maribel, who LOVES Crocs so much that she convinced most of us to buy a pair.  Now, Maribel isn't especially into the classic plastic Crocs with the iconic holes.  She loves Crocs' other designs, many of which aren't easily recognizable as Crocs.  So we were a bit skeptical if we would actually find any Crocs. And then - hurray - we found this boy in a park and he agreed to let us take a picture of his Crocs, although he surely thought we were absolute morons for being so excited about his shoes!

Look at dem Crocs!

Also harder to find than expected was Will's favorite food - pizza.  We passed a Papa Johns, but Will deemed that unworthy to count as his favorite food!  After some more searching, we finally found a pizza place - which turned out to be another tribute to Maribel and her husband Dorian, who are not with us in DC but are from the Bronx!

Only NY-style pizza would satisfy Will

Some in our group had not yet experienced the scooter craze that has invaded DC and many other American cities.  The scooters themselves were easy to find, although it took some time for all of us to get the proper app downloaded and take a test run to get used to the feel of the scooter.  Then we were off at a blazing 10 mph through the wilds of a quiet residential neighborhood in Northern Virginia.

Check out those smoking' wheels!

As we ended our scooter ride, our scavenger hunt was complete.  Not exactly the Amazing Race, but a fun way to spend a sunny, September Sunday.

From left: David, Will, Karime, Erica, Yanira, Troy