Saturday, August 13, 2022

An Alaskan Tour Gone Awry and more

Stacia always goes to great lengths to make birthdays special for youth group members, family members...and this year Allie wanted to plan a special day for Stacia. Stacia is turning 17 on the 16th. We'll have a family celebration on the 20th. BUT....Allie planned a scavenger hunt, she then created a murder mystery plot line, she and Mike spent a bit of time working on characters and how it could all work....character sketches were sent out, pizza was ordered, brownies made...and we had a party. 

Our characters: 

Deanna Bright - a young aspiring photographer who's on the hunt for the perfect picture of a moose. She stumbled across the tour by accident but is happy to be there. Keeps a positive attitude even after the murder. 

Left to Right: Charles Lewis - a proper English gentleman on his honeymoon. He's rather suspicious of the group as a whole.

 Penni Rosewood - a young woman on her honeymoon. Happy and optimistic and thoroughly enjoying the scenery. After the murder, her sole focus is getting her honeymoon back on track. 

Deanna - and on the right - Lila Fairview - a young architect just out of college traveling the world exploring old buildings. She suspects Billy Murphy from the beginning. 


Left to right: Wiley Jacobs - a Alaskan tour guide of 20+ years. the murder victim of Billy Murphy.

Ruby West - A hit woman in the guise of a wealthy businesswoman. She has come to Alaska to fake her death to get out of the business. She spends her time complaining about the weather and the distinct lack of any decent iced coffee. 

Bohdi Late - A struggling street performer on his last tour of the states. 

Billy Murphy - A desperate gambler who plans to kidnap Ruby West and hold her for ransom. 


Esperanza Lockwood- An eccentric (aging hippie) innkeeper who's been in business with Wily for 20: years. She has an affinity for the Beatles and special brownies...and lavender essential oil... 

Lacy Jane - Wiley Jacob's assistant/junior Alaska Tour Guide. A southern bell and sweetheart. She fights to keep her team together after the murder. 

All but Esperanza met at the train depot. They went on a scavenger hunt while in character, a murder took place, and then they came back to Wibbly Wobbly Inn to wait for the police and to solve the crime.  Here are a few glimpses of the fun. 

In this photo they have bounced from CoRielle's to BreZaak's where they each received a carrot and I'm not sure what else they did. 

Penni Rosewood (AKA Krisa) found a painted rock - which was on their list. 


Team A singing outside Klondike Mike's

Team B singing outside Klondike Mike's 

Charles and Penni - looking for free books? 

Team B interviewing Balto

Both teams stopped at CoRielles...where they each got a high five from Benny, and a wave from Danny and C, before they bounced next door to BreZaak's. 

What could have happened? Ruby and Wiley are both dead outside the visitor center. 

About this time, I got a call to pick these two up and book back to the Inn. They both hid. The others showed up and went about solving the crime.  Eventually, it's revealed that RUBY is ALIVE. 

Ruby reveals she was faking her death, Billy walked in and thought Wiley had shot her - so he shot Wiley, leaving them both outside the visitor center. He was shocked to find Ruby had not been shot...Wiley was quite shot. 


With the murder solved we were free to resurrect Wiley, drop our characters and go on to pizza, brownies (yes, with a special ingredient) and ice cream. 


This was a fun afternoon. Now that we know a bit of the problems which arose, we could do this again and have it go even smoother. 

BEFORE the scavenger hunt and dinner there was a church breakfast and workday.  We tried to figure out the best way to get the most of us working. In the end I stayed home with Dad (he wouldn't have any fun at a workday) and Mike and the girls went to the workday. There they joined our life group, Pastor and Larry to paint, go through a shed and a few other things. 

There is more to do - but much was done! Maybe next time we'll have one of the boys take off work to stay with GG.