For the last 4 years, my company has had an annual retreat for it’s employees. The organizers always go all out to try and make this as fun and interesting as they can. This is the first retreat that I’ve been on, so I can’t comment on the others except to say that everyone always seems to have a great time.
The overall style and design of the retreat was a copy of “The Amazing Race” which is apparently a reality TV show where people fly all over the world and do all kinds of crazy concocted things. Research that show if you want to know more about the overall theme of the retreat.
We started out on Friday morning at 8am, when we were informed that we had 2 hours to raise as much money as we could, individually, for one of several charities. I raised $525, which I was pretty proud of, but our 20-something people in total raised over $15,000! Quite impressive for 2 hours work, if you ask me.
At the end of this, the team that raised the most funds won a “Fast Forward” which I will describe in a moment. The losing teams got in their minivans and started North up I-39 to our next challenge. The winning team skipped all of the day’s challenges, and instead got on a private jet, where they were flown up to a Casino in Iowa, just West of what we would later find out was our final destination. They were given gambling money, and they were treated to hot stone massages and facials. After all of that, they were taken to the retreat location in Limousines. Sounds like fun, eh?
The rest of us went on to our next challenge, which was at a small skate park. One team member had to get on a really tiny bicycle and ride it around the course in under 30 seconds. Doing so awarded us a “puzzle piece” which we would later combine and which would, in theory, help us out with some other part of the retreat.
The next stop was to a Cajun restaurant. Upon arrival, we were told that our lunches were already selected for us, and to just sit down and enjoy. All of the alligator bites and frog legs had to be gone to receive our next puzzle piece. The alligator was really good, but the frog logs: let’s just say I’ll not voluntarily eat them again. They had a strong fishy taste and were slimy, with the veins still intact and right on the bones. There was no mistaking what it was. I did manage to get them down (and they didn’t come back up) and so we were once again on our way.
Next up was to stop at the Paw Paw, IL Rest Area on I-39, and look West, while standing on a very specific picnic table. We were to count how many windmills we could see in a 90 degree arc centered on West. Unfortunately, it was pouring down rain, and visibility was awful. I was able to count 7, but really, only 3-4 of those were clearly visible. The others were mere shadows in the rain. I was told that you can count 18 or more when it’s clear and sunny. It would have been a cool picture to get, but I didn’t want to risk ruining my camera.
After getting on our way again, we were told to find an original Rockford Sock Monkey. We were going to end up in Rockford, and one of my teammates suggested that we could probably find them in any gas station in the city, since it’s what they are known for. In fact, that was true, and we could have. But we were entirely too focused on the word “original” in the description, and so we managed to locate the one place in town that sells certifiable original sock monkeys. We bought one for the team, and I bought another one for my desk, to remember the trip by. After quite a bit of arguing with the GPS on where we wanted to go, we left Rockford and headed West on State Road 20. This had us heading towards Galena.
We had been instructed to find “Tom the Butcher” in Seward, IL. Turns out he works for Eickman’s meat processing. So we headed there, dreading the worst. We were suited up, hands washed, and then into a processing room, where I scooped leftover deer parts (my understanding was that it was largely deer neck) with my bare hands into a tray. I got 10 pounds of it, then we put it through a meat grinder, after adding some seasoning. Turns out we were making bratwurst. After carrying the ground meat upstairs, we started to put it into casing, which was sheep intestine. It was a bit slimy, but we managed to get through it. Chad, our supervisor, informed us that we had done that better than any other team that day. We then proceeded to wrap it up and took it with us to the retreat, for later cooking and consumption. Quite a few people were really grossed out by this and swore they wouldn’t eat the brats.
That was our last major stop. We moved from there to a Subway to pick up a sandwich that we had previously selected, based on a question, “What sub best describes you?” and then we were off to Le Fevre Inn, which was our retreat destination. Everyone arrived over time and we ate, relaxed, drank, and had a generally great time on a very nice deck and with excellent weather. We didn’t have to be ready until 9am the next morning, so there was quite a bit of late partying. At least one bottle of tequila disappeared in a minute flat.
That night, around 4-5am, storms rolled in. At 8, it was still coming down. It eventually cleared temporarily, long enough for us to get our assignments and be on our way. We had one mandatory “route card” which wanted us to go into downtown Galena. We also had a half dozen or so optional objective cards, which didn’t have to be done in any order. Route cards were such that you’d get another one after you completed the first, much like the first day of the race.
A bit of research had us with several locations to hit up, and we chose to go to the Inn of the Irish Hollow first. We were to each buy a jar of our favorite preserves, and get the innkeeper to sign our instruction card. We arrived while he was serving breakfast, and he seemed a bit surprised, as I guess he had forgotten that today was “the day.” We paid for our items, got our signature, and went to the next stop, which was the Sinsinawa mound, in Sinsinawa, Wisconsin.
Turns out this mound is a church, or nunnery, or something. They have a bunch of nuns who live there, and it has a Dominican descent. They also make some bread that is to die for. We bought a loaf of cinnamon bread, as well as some caramel rolls, to eat in the car. The rolls were wonderful. I could have eaten them all, if I hadn’t feared what else we might have to do that day.
We were on our way to our next destination when we got a phone call from one of the organizers, Mike. He asked us where we were. We hadn’t checked in for our first mandatory stop, and the people who were waiting on us wanted to go home. I didn’t realize that was going to be the case. We changed our focus to getting to that first stop.
The first mandatory clue had a picture of a staircase, and it said it was in downtown Galena. We were trying to find it when we happened to notice a person wearing a Gaggle shirt, so we thought, “Eureka, we found it!” Eric, another teammate, spoke to her for a moment, then disappeared down the stairs, so I got out of the car and asked what the deal was. “I need to know how many steps are on this staircase.” It was 192 steps. And steep, at that. Eric went all the way down, back up, and gave her the answer. We were wrong. So we had to count them again. This time Heather and Eric both headed down. They came back up, and we were once again wrong on our answers. So we asked how many guesses we were allowed per climbing of the stairs, and were told there was no limit. After a few more guesses, we got it right (185) and went on our way. For what it’s worth, Google says it’s 192. 
After climbing the steps, we were instructed to find the hottest store in town. We had some other destinations on Main Street that we needed to hit up, so we headed down there, and figured maybe we’d spot the right place. It was easier than expected, as Mike was standing outside waiting to give teams instructions on what to do while there. We were to find specific items in the store and purchase them. We did so, and were on to our next clue, which involved the sweetest store in town.
This turned out to be a place that sold candy, of course, and we had to find certain flavors of jelly beans, and get exactly 1 pound of them. After going back and forth between the lady behind the counter (to weight them) and the jars of beans (to add more), we finally hit a pound. So we got our next clue and off we went again.
I don’t recall exactly what this clue was, but it required us to construct our own candles, using little wax beads. I had to create an Apple Pie candle, which was Apple, Cinammon, and something else. It was kinda neat. Once we had all created our candles, we got our final clue, I believe, which was to head out to a luge on the side of a mountain, I guess. We still had a few more stops to make in the city for our optional items, so we stuck around.
We headed over to Durty Gurt’s, a restaurant, where we were to get a menu. Unfortunately, someone had previously stolen all the menus, presumably another group we were competing against. We took a picture of the menu, hoping that would be adequate, and moved on. On the way to see “Miss Kitty” we stopped in at a store and found a metal sign that read something along the lines of “Don’t let the dog out, no matter what it tells you” for one of the event coordinators, Susan. She brings her dog to work every day, and apparently, she bugs people to go outside quite a bit more often than is actually necessary, so it seemed appropriate.
We then headed down to see Miss Kitty. Turns out she was out that weekend, but the proprietors came up with a picture of her, and allowed us to take a picture holding the picture. In fact, they took the picture for us. They also had custom made bloody mary’s. You buy the vodka in the glass, they provide you with a whole slew of ingredients, to make as you see fit. We were in far too much of a hurry to stop for a bloody mary though. 
We made a few other stops, including getting a T-shirt for Mike, another one of the coordinators, and then hopped in the car to head towards the luge. The remainder of the city stuff is far too hazy for me to remember it in any significant detail.
We didn’t have the name of the place with the luge, so we were guessing, but thought we had it right. I plugged the address into the GPS and off we went. There was some question by others in the car as to whether we were headed in the right direction. I insisted that the GPS was right, and we should continue, even though we had turned onto a road that had a Dead End sign on it. After a few miles we hit the end of the road, and a sign that said, “Your GPS is wrong. Turn around.” We all thought that was pretty funny, and took a picture of me and Heather standing next to it. In the end, we would win bonus points for that photo, as the funniest photo of the weekend. We called the resort, got directions, entered new instructions into the GPS, and turned around.
At this point, we had completed many of the optional challenges set forth. There were 5 we hadn’t gotten to, two of which we had decided to abandon entirely, and two of which we were definitely going to complete. The fifth involved finding a particular building and getting a photo in front of it. We had no idea where the building was, but at the same time, we weren’t giving up just yet.
On our way to the luge, we saw the building. We screeched to a halt and there just happened to be another photographer there taking a picture of it (unrelated to us and our contest). We asked him to snap our picture, and went on our way. Shortly thereafter, we saw a sign, “Walk an alpaca” which was another of our challenges that we had planned to get to. So we said we’d stop back after the luge, and walk the alpaca. It was right after that that I was reading the clue card about the building more carefully, and saw that it said, specifically, “Take a picture of three of your team members,” but we had our picture taken with all four team members, due to the fact that someone else happened to be there. I panicked, and we decided we’d take a new picture when we drove back by it.
It started to rain as we headed towards the Alpine Ski (or the luge, as it is called, I guess). Once there, we found out that the rain had caused it to close. I panicked, as this was a “required” portion of our day. Eric ran over to talk to the folks and find out if we could get a flyer or something, to prove we’d been there. I called Mike, and he said that someone else was going to wait out the drying time, which turned out to be an hour. We decided to go walk the alpaca, get the proper Sears picture, and then head back, if it hadn’t rained for awhile.
On the way to the car, we spotted a hot dog/hamburger stand. We were starving, and hadn’t had time to stop for lunch, so we all ate something quickly. It was arguably the oldest, most awful hot dog I’ve eaten in years, but it was good enough in a pinch.
We missed the alpaca stop, so got our Sears pictures and turned back. The very nice couple who had the alpacas were more than happy to let us walk them, but made sure we understood there was a fee to do so. Apparently some other team had been by that day and walked but not paid. I got some cute pictures of the alpacas, we walked it, talked to the proprietor for a few minutes, found out she didn’t have running water, got some flyers, and went on our way.
The rain was still coming and going, so we decided to hit up our “last stop” other than the luge, which was to find these three specific silos which were apparently the site of an accident earlier in the year, while the retreat team was finding things to do. We wandered a bit unable to find it, when someone (maybe me?) suggested we stop and ask a local if they knew how to get there. The first house had no answer, but at the second house, an older lady came out. She indicated that she knew where it was, had previously lived on said farm, and offered to drive us there. We got directions instead, wished her well, and went on our way. The road to the silo was really steep. I worried a little that the Camry wasn’t going to make it. At the top, I got pictures of my team, and we noticed that we could see the cottages where we were staying. Heather asked me to use my zoom lens to see how many teams had already returned. While I was busy doing that, she noticed that on the other side of the fence I was leaning on was marijuana, growing in the wild. I snapped some pictures quickly, and we rushed back to the cottages, hoping to be the second team to arrive.
Turns out another team beat us back to the place by a mere 30 or 40 seconds. It was a real shame, but what can you do? Originally there was a boat-making event scheduled for first thing in the morning, but it had been canceled on account of rain. So we were informed that we could do it now, for an extra 100 points. Naturally, we ran down and started.
There was some disagreement among the team about how to best construct the boat. We had the following materials: 1 4′x6′ piece of cardboard. 1 9′x12′ piece of plastic sheeting. 3 garbage bags. 1 roll of duck tape. 2 4′ pieces of pipe. I wanted to make a boat with outboard pontoons to act as stabilizers, but Eric wanted to make a raft with the cardboard floated on the bags. Eric won out, and we did so. I suggested it was going to be far too top heavy, and it was. We flipped it over, so the cardboard was down and the bags on top, and Heather paddled across the water. Job done.
It was around 4pm at this point, and we were told to relax, shower, or whatever, until 5:30, when our rides would pick us up and take us to dinner. I copied pictures from the camera to the laptop, had a drink and sat and talked about the day’s events with others who were also done. We eventually got called in for judging, as several of the challenges revolved around taking pictures of specific things.
One of the challenges was something about a 1990’s award winning film. Most people thought Field of Dreams; I guess it was filmed nearby. We thought of something filmed at Eagle Ridge, and had gotten a picture of that. But the actual answer was Fried Green Tomatoes. There was a restaurant in town by that name. Not one team had gotten it right. As I was scrolling through the photos I’d taken to find the proper evidence, I happened to notice that, by pure chance, I’d taken a picture of the sign from that restaurant. The judges decided that was fine, and we got credit. The rest of the judging went well. I also showed them our GPS picture, just because I thought it was cute, and they decided that was the funniest picture of the day, so we got extra points for that too. Win!
Our ride came at 5:30, a limo and a party bus. I was in the limo, and it sounds like I missed out, especially on the ride home. Apparently lots of fun was to be had in the party bus. They took us to a riverboat, where we were fed and supplied with drinks. On the boat, they announced the winning team, and it was mine! We edged out 2nd place by only 10 points. So my Fried Green Tomatoes picture, and my GPS picture had won us the day. It was nice to be vindicated for being the guy that was slowing everyone down all day, taking pictures.
Dinner was prime rib, and it was pretty darned good. Some Gaggle folks did some skits and comedy and other various stuff, and eventually $275 was awarded to two folks to split between them. 10:30pm rolled around entirely too quickly, and we were on our way back.
The next morning we were scheduled to go on hot air balloons, but unfortunately, the winds were too strong to do so. Everyone packed up and headed back home to Bloomington. I stayed an extra night with Allie, Mike, Susan, and Jeff. It was a much different atmosphere, relaxed, tired, and generally quiet. It was a nice change from the past several very hectic days. We cooked some of the Bratwurst we’d made at Eickman’s, and it wasn’t bad at all, I have to admit. A lightning storm appeared on the horizon, and we spent a couple of hours watching it come closer and eventually overtake our location. At that point, we all turned in and headed back to Bloomington bright and early on Monday.
That’s all I have to say about my trip for now. I’ll go back over it and maybe fill in some blanks, but I tried to cover everything in pretty good detail. I’ll add some more pictures to the album I’ve created once I’ve had time to go through them. All in all, I took nearly a thousand pictures in just 3 days time.
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Fluff by cmoates
