Halfway through the month of June, a friend told me about the Brewing the Revolution Scavenger Hunt, sponsored by the Memorial Hall Museum in Deerfield, Massachusetts. It was created as a fun way to celebrate America’s 250^th and teach people the important role that taverns played in the colonial days. Many plans for the revolution were made over a mug of beer.

The scavenger hunt had to be completed by the end of June. There were about 60 challenges, but roughly half of them were questions that could be answered or videos and photos that could be taken from home.

However, the other half required traveling to locations all over the state where historic taverns once stood, or in some cases, still stand. To complete these challenges required taking a selfie or a video, scanning a QR Code, or confirming you were there with GPS.

I didn’t really expect to get into this scavenger hunt, but once I started answering some of the questions at home, I was hooked. I guess it appealed to my need to continuously learn new things. And then the yearning for adventure kicked in when I read the locational challenges.

Being the planner that I am, I started planning out the days that I could work on the scavenger hunt and the routes that I would take. The first one was a Sunday trip with my husband to Easton, Sturbridge, Spencer, Worcester, Sudbury, Weymouth and Braintree. Breakfast and lunch were even worked into the schedule. I knew that would keep hubby interested. We stopped for breakfast at a cute little café in Easton. Lunch was at the historic Wayside Inn. How could we go there to take a video and not eat there?

One weekday when I had to run some errands, I tackled the closer to home stops in Sandwich, Barnstable and Wareham.

On another occasion, I had to go to the North Shore to meet with one of my web design clients, so I took that opportunity to complete the challenges in Peabody, Newburyport, Reading, and Wilmington.

As I completed challenges and moved up the leader board, I was inspired to continue my quest, now determined to accomplish every last one.

So, the second weekend day was planned with Roger. This time we left for Boston early in the morning to avoid possible traffic from the soccer tournament and watch parties. The first stop was in Hingham. Then there were three locations in Boston proper and one in Charlestown. From there, we headed to Arlington, Lexington (where there were two stops), Concord, and then back toward the south shore with stops in Weston and Canton. For this trip, we brought homemade zucchini muffins with us for breakfast, and had lunch in Canton after our mission was completed. We were done much earlier than we had anticipated, so we even had time to stop for ice cream at FarFar’s in Duxbury.

In Lexington, I had to take a selfie from the town green with the Buckman Tavern in the background. It’s now a museum, which happened to be open. One of the non-location related challenges was to take a selfie holding a pewter mug, which I had not been able to find. So, I went into the museum and asked if they had a pewter mug that I could borrow to take a selfie. They did, of course. I told them why I needed it. One of the women who was working there chimed in that her friend created the scavenger hunt! She texted her friend the photo that I took. What an incredible coincidence that was!

The scavenger hunt was monitored by an admin, who approved or rejected each completed challenge. Each one also had a “maximum” number of point that you could earn, meaning that points could be deducted for reasons unknown to me. But it did mean that the likelihood of the contest ending in a tie was low, even if more than one person completed every challenge.

Having said that, we returned home from this second trip, only to discover that one of my selfies in Boston had been rejected. A lot of these challenges required some additional research, and in this case, I had not looked far enough and had not located the exact spot of the marker that I was supposed to get a selfie with. Would I bother venturing into Boston again just for that? I wasn’t sure.

However, I still wanted to see if I could complete the scavenger hunt. So, trip #3 was planned, this time to the western part of the state. I set up a loop that started with Westfield, then to Stockbridge, Pittsfield, Williamstown, Greenfield, Deerfield, and Goshen. We stopped for lunch/dinner at the Whately Diner on our way to Greenfield.

In Deerfield, we had to find four spots tracked by GPS. This was worth twice as many points as most of the other challenges.

The first spot was the Memorial Hall Museum itself, where we had to find the original license for a tavern that was once located there. While there, I got to meet Lindsay, who turned out to be the admin for the scavenger hunt.

Finally, I had completed every challenge – except the one had been rejected. How could I go through all of this and not get that last one? I couldn’t. So back we went to Boston early on a Sunday morning to get the correct photo of the marker, where the Bunches of Grapes Tavern had once stood, with the old State House in the background. I bribed Roger to go by promising to take him to Kane’s Donuts in Saugus afterward.

The adventure was complete, and I was in second place, only one point behind the winner. It was so much fun. I gained some new perspective on how the colonists conducted business and formulated plans to separate from the King. It was well worth every minute. We plan to visit Deerfield again soon and hope to see the museum’s special exhibit, Brewing Massachusetts: How Beer Shaped the Bay State.

Watch the Brewing the Revolution Video