Yesterday Panda was feeling a bit antsy and wanted to move around. Knowing that I needed the exercise, I decided to go on a walk with him. I had mentioned awhile back that I wanted to do a treasure hunt on campus, so he suggested we go do that. You see, there’s this iPhone app called DreamWalk where you go to various places and either collect a stamp or get an instant win prize. Each stamp is a letter and if you get all the letters to a word, you can win a prize, like an Amazon gift card or movie ticket. Instant win prizes are some form of food that you can eat when you are in that area. Well, the only spots on campus are for stamps for the Victoria’s Secret gift card or a movie ticket. I wasn’t particularly interested in either, so we opted to try out the Geocaching app I had also gotten (and never really used).
There are quite a few on campus, so we headed to one near the IM field and John Wooden Center. I had no idea what exactly to expect or look for, so I felt rather silly standing next to a bike rack, trying not to draw attention to myself while searching. After taking a look at the hints, I was able to find it and was surprised at the huge water bottle full of little goodies! There was nothing I wanted/needed, so I left it as is, but there were some cool items. With our first find under our belt, Panda and I found another one to locate. This time, he saw it and we sat there as two guys on a bench nearby probably wondered what we were sitting on the ground for.
On our walk to the next site, we came across a Star Wars photo shoot. Darth Vader was hanging out around Broad Hall and two Storm Troopers were near the parking structure, one posing in front of a vent and one posing in a tunnel. Amused, we stayed out of the way until people started to walk into the shots, then continued down the tunnel and into the parking structure. There we found our next geocache, cleverly hidden (but unfortunately rusted shut!). I spent a good 15 minutes prying the thing open because I’m stubborn and would never allow such a thing to foil me! 😛 Finally, we headed over near the Chancellor’s residence for our final one, which was in an area most UCLA students are probably not aware of.
After that, we headed back, proud of a good day’s work. It was great to get out, enjoy the day, breathe some outside air, and be active! In the future I definitely want to have more of these adventures with Panda (I don’t think I’d have as much fun alone – plus, it’s a perfect way to spend time together). We even decided to do some team building along the walk back and gave each other piggyback rides, then took turns guiding one another as one person kept his/her eyes closed. Yeah, yeah, cheesy, but we had a lot of fun bonding in so many ways! 🙂
