Fun Signs: Scavenger Hunt

As mentioned in a previous post, it's rare for a sign to be "fun".  Usually they are just a kind of legal nagging.  But a routine trip to a local dog park took a big twist when I saw a new sign that I had not snapped a picture of before.  Apparently the city of San Marcos, which has one of the most organized parks departments I've seen anywhere, has setup a scavenger hunt to get people to visit their city parks. 

The sign had a barcode which linked to a site with a PDF listing the 8 parks to visit: 

 

It wasn't clear how you are supposed to "return the card" to the Visitor Center to collect the reward, but I figured it would just be fun to find all the signs and get some pictures.  Even if I had "the card", anyone can put check marks on a piece of paper.  I figure having actual photos of all the signs must count as a win somehow, even if it's just for our own personal fulfillment.

We made it to 6 of the locations on day one, and I know where the other two parks are, so we can probably get to those on Saturday.  Just getting to the parks was half the challenge.  It was quite a search at the larger parks, with a few hundred yards of walking to the actual signs that were part of this event.  The fun of a scavenger hunt is finding the items.  This is a solid way to get people outside a little more, and to show off all the green spaces around town.

I stopped by park number 7 on the way home from work wednesday. 

And I hit park number 8 on the way home friday.  

Now, how do we turn in that card?  Doesn't matter, we thought, since we both thought the 31st was Sunday and the Community Center was going to be closed, and the time was up.  The site said to post your photos with a hash tag, but post them WHERE?  Heck, I made a composite and posted it on facebook with that hashtag.  I don't really care about the prize, but it would be silly to keep the pictures to myself.

July 31 update ... 

It turns out there was one day left in the month after all.  But it was a workday, so I was booked from 9 to 5 with 30-40 commute coming and going.  It turns out things wrapped up a bit early and I got to the Community Center at 4:55.  I had a nice chat with the lady who was making little prize packs for anyone else how showed up at the last minute.  I asked how checking things off on the card could prove someone visited the parks and she said they don't really care about the details, they just want people to get outside and have some fun.  Exactly where were we supposed to post the photos?  "You don't have to take pictures, just enjoy the parks."

The sudden lack of rules felt a bit odd to my gamer brain.  I showed my little photo collection.  It didn't have any smiling kids in the pictures, like other people had.  She gave me one of those little prize bags and I thanked the whole city team for putting on a fun event.

The pack was just a few fun little bits for kids: plastic sunglasses, a lollipop and ball of some kind, a free pass to one of the city pools, and a mysterious key.

Well done, Parks Department.  Well done.

Oddly, one other person at work was convinced that the 31st was yesterday.  Was there a time warp of some kind?