First of all, I want to apologize for not keeping up with this blog, as much as I should have been. I just got back from spending time in Hershey, PA with my two adorable nieces and my sister. After the breakfast and award ceremony on Sunday, I left immediately for Hershey, PA. It was about a two hour trip. I was able to get a nap in, luckily. I was exhausted, still trying to recover from all the excitement and fun I had at the convention. When we got there, I went to "Chocolate World" ate a lot of candy and then afterwards I crashed into a deep sleep at the hotel we stayed at near by. We went to the Hershey Park amusement park the next day. My niece was happy that I was willing to ride all of the roller coasters with her, even though I thought I was going to have a panic attack and lose it on some of the rides. We had so much fun. We were there all day until after 5:00 and did not actually leave to go home until after we ate dinner, which was around 8:00. We did not get home in Virgina, until late at night. Man, we were wiped out!
Now I am feeling well rested, after sleeping for ten hours. It's funny, I kept dreaming about hearing aids, meeting deaf and hard of hearing people, and trying out FM systems, as if I never left the convention (which is not a bad thing).
Anyway, here is what happened at the
Young Adults Scavenger Hunt, which took place Thursday, at 5 p.m. Before I went, I became a little worried, because it looked as if it was going to rain. I was told that a good portion of it will be spent walking around outside in the National Mall area. But, one of the volunteers, Zac La Fratta, assured me that it should not be a problem and that we should not let some rain spoil the fun.
Luckily, it did not rain while we were out and about, and everything went well as planned.
The point of the
Scavenger Hunt, which was managed and brought to us by
City Hunt, was to find as many of the list of objects and scenarios as we can and to take pictures of them with the cameras they provided us. Some of the scenarios included acting like monkeys on the Metro, looking as if one of us walked on the moon, and taunting a large prehistoric animal with giant tusks.
We broke up into teams and took off to the Mall area in D.C. taking the Metro. We had to find and take as many pictures as we could before we had to stop and meet everyone at a certain location and time.
My team was super enthusiastic and competitive. We decided to name it "The Winners." I thought my team did a great job. I loved their enthusiasm. Throughout the scavenger hunt, we were able to talk for a bit about our lives and what brought us to the convention, which was nice. It was great to see so many people my age and younger with hearing loss, which I do not experience much back at home.
It was fun as we rushed around the Mall area taking pictures of random objects and recreating bizarre and silly scenarios within the museums and outside in various places. We took so many pictures and laughed as we tried to recreate well known scenes within the museum such as a scene from the movie,
Jurassic Park, where I pretended to be a driver of a Jeep, frantically driving away from T-Rex (well, the skeletal remains), with everyone sitting in the "car" with me, looking terrified, pretending to scream.
Once it came close to the time we were supposed to meet with everyone, we speed walked back to our meeting place, Crystal City Sports Pub. We were supposed to be on time and not allowed to run, as part of the rules. Some of us cheated, including myself (I just wanted to catch up with my team, I got caught in the turnpikes at the Metro as they sped off!).
There at the pub, we looked at the pictures on large television screens. There were plenty of embarrassing pictures of me, of course. I loved looking at what the other teams did. It was hilarious!! Unfortunately, my team did not win. Team "Rain Haters" did. Congratulations "Rain Haters"! I thought it was unfortunate that we named our team, "The Winners." Oh, well, we had fun and that is all that matters. It was a great way to meet and get to know everyone too. :)
City Hunt's Facebook page has
pictures from the scavenger hunt, check them out, they are pretty funny! I have a few pictures I took with my camera, shown below. If anyone would like to contribute photos from the scavenger hunt, please email them to me at
ehwhathuh@yahoo.com.
Thank you
Starkey, for your generosity in sponsoring this event! And thanks to
City Hunt adventure guides for doing such a great job putting this together!
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*If there are any pictures that you are in, and you want me to take them down (privacy reasons) please let me know and I will take them down as soon as possible. I apologize in advance. 
