DC Vacation, Day 4: More Escape Room Adventures, Beer at Churchkey, and a Sudden Rush of Water from the Ceiling

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Liz and I spent a slow morning packing up and checking out of the hotel. Around 1PM, we headed back to Escape Room Live so that we could do the “Sherlock Holmes” themed escape.

It was just the two of this time, and we were half-wondering if we’d be the only ones. That said, all the earlier slots for the morning had gotten filled up, so it seemed like they had a decent audience for these types of things.

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We were the only ones in the waiting area at first. I left to go to the bathroom, and on my return found Liz joined by a group of five other women. Lo and behold, the rest of our team had arrived (and me the only guy).

The story behind the game: we are all detectives, called to help search for Sherlock Holmes. We know he was recently in his office, but signs point to a kidnapping. Our task was to find out who took him, and where.

This time around, I definitely felt like a fifth wheel. It’s always interesting to see what happens in these games, in terms of group dynamics. I think it’s best to have someone who serves as a “director,” and sometimes I adopt this role because I feel compelled to.

Today though, I didn’t feel as comfortable trying to “force” anything on the group. So I took a back seat. Most everyone else paired up to solve a particular clue or puzzle. While I got some early wins on my own, I kind of was in the peripheral for the second half of the game.

I’d pick up a few things and ask about them, only to learn that someone else had already solved it some time ago. This happened more than once.

Still though, it was a fun time. This particular room was more cerebral than the one we did yesterday. Fun, but not quite as “immersive” as the one we did with the kids.

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Liz, outside 221B.

I was already trying to figure out good “team” names in the event we got onto the leaderboard. We ended up having to ask for a clue (which made us ineligible for the board), though we did finish with some time to spare.

My proposed team name: “The Hudson Cartel.”

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After checking out of our first hotel, we moved on to our B&B in DC proper: Akwaaba. Our room was the Langston Hughes room.

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A small window balcony.

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View of the interior.

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Another view of the bed/room.

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Downstairs, main dining area. There’s breakfast at 8AM, and a happy hour at 5PM.

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Sitting area, ground floor.

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Entryway.

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After unpacking, we wandered down some side streets to Churchkey. Lots of beers available here, and we ended up trying a lot of small samples.

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A lot to choose from. Normally, I seem to favor hoppier beers – but of late, I’ve been drawn to darker, thicker beers. In some ways, I’m reminded of how I seemed to lean towards white wines during our wine trip to Augusta, whereas I’m normally a red wine person.

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I tried: Curmudgeon 2015, Peppermint Victory at Sea, and Lost Weekend.

Liz tried: Farking Wheaton Wootstout 2016, Bona Fide, Ghost: Pineapple, and Schlafly Kolsch

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A little tipsy, we opted not to have dinner out at a restaurant. We passed a Whole Foods on our way out, so we decided to stop in for a bottle of wine and something from their hot bar.

Several mistakes were made.

The first is our decision to shop here. The place was crazy crowded, and the checkout lines were nothing short of insane. The “10 or less” line stretched super far, so we decided to go to one of the normal lanes instead.

We learned that there’s this protocol in place. You don’t just walk up and stand behind the person at the checkout. There’s an overflow, where people stand in line in the aisles, allowing for a gap for other shopperes to walk by.

Each line was easily 10 people deep. The line we were in fed into registers 2 and 3. The guy in front of us failed to notice that another shopper had walked right up to register 2, and when we all got closer up… I asked the woman behind us about protocol. She was quick to explain to me (in a very loud voice) how things worked, and that the woman at register 2 was wrong.

Ultimately, we probably should have gone in the express lanes (even though the line for that was longer). But we had already committed.

Add to this the fact that I slapped in a ton of pasta into my container, and ended up walking home with a 2.3lb dinner that cost $22. Ugh.

Back at our room, we settled in, ate dinner, and watched a bit of TV. Since the TV was so far from the bed, we ended up firing up Netflix on my iPad and startee watching old episodes of Star Trek (the original series).

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Around 9:45PM, completely out of nowhere, we heard the sound of running water hitting wood. We both were a little groggy, and realized quickly that the sound was actually coming from inside the room.

I rushed over with a trashcan while Liz ran to get the trashcan from the bathroom. We caught as much water as we could, throwing down some towels to try to catch the extra water.

I ran upstairs and knocked on the door. It was a little hard to hear, but I made sure the people in the room were ok and no one was hurt. I also told them that water had leaked through the ceiling to our room. All I heard was “Oh my god.”

I think they said someone (or some thing) had dropped into the tub, possibly causing an overflow. My guess is that perhaps someone forgot they had the tub filling, and it spilled over?

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Back downstairs, I placed a call in to the caretaker of the B&B. The poor woman sounded a little confused and frazzled, but said she’d be right over. She came with extra towels for us, and an extra bucket.

She apologized profusely (even though it wasn’t her fault), and helped move the mini fridge out of the way. Given the water leaks, we opted to steer clear of this area for the night. She promised someone would be by to help clean up our room in the morning, and that was fine by us.

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Liz, cleaning off the wine glasses that were pretty much directly under the leaking water.

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Wine glasses that we soon put to good use. Exciting night!

Related:
DC Vacation, Day 1: Travel Day and a Late Dinner at Society Fair
DC Vacation, Day 2: Wandering Down King Street, Dinner at Carluccio’s
DC Vacation, Day 3: Courtney and Andrew’s Wedding at River Farm

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