As part of Elisa's many gifts, I booked us (us as in me, Elisa, Aaliyah, and Lisa) an escape room session in Salt Lake called Himitsu Station. Lisa told me about it before I even bought plane tickets. It looked like something fun to do. Elisa is a huge fan of Japanese culture, so I signed us all up. It was quite expensive for four people. I made Lisa pay her own way, but I did pay for Aaliayah's ticket. Looking back, I should have just paid for all of us. Oh well.
It was a totally immersive experience. We walked into a Japanese train station straight from the 1950's. Then we were led through an ice cream machine, of all things, to the escape room itself. I should say rooms. This was a little bit different than a traditional escape room where you are only released/win if you figure out how to escape (hence the name). For Himitsu, we were promoted to the next room regardless of whether we figured out all the puzzles or not. The goal wasn't to figure out how to escape, but rather to collect "soul coins" by solving as many puzzles as possible. Sometimes they were given out just because. The first room was a little overwhelming. There was so much stuff packed into the room, it was hard to figure out what to do at first. We solved a few puzzles, but overall, I would give us a C- grade on our puzzle-solving. These rooms are timed, so regardless of how few or how many puzzles were solved and soul coins earned, they moved us along after a certain time. The next room was "boiler room." This was the room Lisa helped out the most with. I was waaaay overthinking this room believing that everything was a puzzle to solve, but in fact all we had to do was follow a few directions in order to perform a couple of physical activities. We got our soul coins and were able to move along to the next room.
The next two rooms were solved by mainly me and Elisa. Poor Aaliyah enjoyed the experience very much, but as far as helping solve puzzles, she stuck to her own world, let's just say. Lisa did try her best to help, but in reality, it was mostly me and Elisa who solved ALL the puzzles in both rooms. The last room was a restaurant, which Elisa helped me a lot with. Mostly it was just adding things up and using elementary math to figure out. We ended up with 12 (or 14?) soul coins. The employee said we got about as many as a group of 6 would, so good job to us. One of the best parts of this experience was all the free ("free") snacks at the snack bar. We could take what we wanted and however much we wanted. I loaded up! Well, not too much in order to not look like a greedy weirdo but enough to keep me munching happily on them for the next day or two.
Waiting for our session to start
Entrance is through the ice cream machine!
In one of the rooms, trying to figure out what's what. Some items/decorations were just there for looks, and others were the key to solving a puzzle...
We did it! That was fun. Maybe we will do it again someday and get even more soul coins.
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May 4. The next day was my last day, and we (Lisa, me, and my mom) made sure to make the most of it! First, we dropped the girls off at the Classic Fun Center. Elisa and Aaliyah had a good time, except for the part when Elisa lost the $20 in cash that I gave her. I told her right before leaving, "Don't lose the money," I guess she only heard the "lose it" part haha. While they were skating their little teenage hearts out, we went to lunch at a restaurant that none of us had tried before, Tin Roof Grill. The food was alright--the fish and chips were especially good--but man was it expensive for a diner. Lisa didn't like it at all. So, I guess that was the first and last time at that restaurant. Then we went to Goodwill. I can't remember if I found anything good (probably not, I couldn't take much back anyway), but Lisa always finds stuff. Then we picked up the girls and went to Ross just to look because I didn't find anything worth buying. Then we went to the Blaylock's house to make sure Elisa had all of her things to pack. We took some pictures and headed back to my parent's house with Aaliyah in tow too. She is Elisa's shadow! I discovered that our flight had been delayed (no big surprise for Frontier), so we had a couple more hours to kill. Elisa hung out with Aaliayh while me and my mom got our toes done at a nail salon. Our flight left much later than planned, which meant we got home pretty late--around 11. I, unfortunately, had to sit next to the stinkiest, most foul-smelling woman I've ever had the displeasure of sitting by. I had to continually put my Bath and Body Works hand sanitizer in my hands and take breaths through it as to not faint from that woman's odor. Yikes. Besides that, a very fun (albeit short) trip up to Utah! Elisa sure got spoiled with a good time!
My mom and I at Tin Roof Grill
Lisa checking out at DI, looking a little shocked that I took her picture
I can't remember why I took this picture at the Blaylocks's while I was waiting for Elisa to get her stuff together.
A few pictures of Grandma and her granddaughters on our way out the door.
Getting our feet done!
