2023 Life Logs, Day 35: Sam’s 16th Birthday Party at RI Karting
Date: Saturday, February 4, 2023
Weather: Epic Cold; High 20, Low 17 degrees F (feels 8 degrees F with wind chill)
Sunrise and Sunset: 6:51 am – 5:03 pm (+2 minutes)
Location: At Home in the Cottage, East Falmouth, NH
It was truly COLD this morning. Around 11 am, I took Shadow for a short walk. I wore good winter gloves, not the little stretchy things I normally wear, but still my fingers were so cold I lost all feeling in them. Plus, my face hurt from the cold. Shadow was walking as fast as I allowed, so I think he was freezing as well. But it is warmer tonight than it was this morning, so all is well.
My oldest grandson, Sam, was supposed to have his 16th birthday party on January 21, his birth date. Unfortunately, his good friend Robert tested positive for Covid that morning, so Sam wanted to cancel and go when Robert could go with. The outing was rescheduled for today at Supercharged Entertainment in Wrentham with friends Robert, Sebastian, and Ethan.
But when we got there, people were leaving. Supercharged’s water main had burst so they had to close for the day. What to do? Heather got on her phone to search out other possibilities. A similar place in Rhode Island looked the best and after a few tense minutes, she was able to make the reservations and off we went. Luckily, it was only 15 miles from Wrentham. It had the indoor go kart track we were looking for, plus it had something called Time Mission. I called it ‘escape room’ as you try to solve the puzzle presented in each room.
They advertise it as the biggest time machine gaming experience in the world. The ‘time machine’ has 25 portals (rooms) where you “put your intelligence, physical condition, and hand-eye coordination to the test.” Basically, you form teams to solve the challenge in each portal and try to amass as many points as possible. If you beat all the other teams playing at the same time, you become a Master of Time. The rooms are small, so you wouldn’t want more than five people on your team. Some of the challenges are mental and some are physical. All were fun. I was on a team with Heather, Jed, Jonah, and Ollie that we called the Goldpebbles and came in fifth. Sam and his three friends, Robert, Sebastian, and Ethan called their team Mike’s Cereal Shack, and they came in first—the Masters of Time. Only the boys got on the racetrack while Heather, Jed, and I watched.
Ollie and Jonah joined in on the first race which was for ages 6+, the warm-up. Then Sam and his friends did two more races in the 16+ category (a little faster)
while Jonah and Ollie went to the arcade.
It was a fun filled afternoon followed by dinner back at Heather and Jed’s and then an overnight.
Once again, Happy Birthday to Sam!
