Troll Hunting Whimventure®

How does a Whimventure® start? What does it take to do something “On a whim?” Well to start off… not much. On Friday, Sue was finishing up a stressful week at work and we had discussed options for the weekend. Of course one of those options was to stay home and get things done around the house (the responsible ADULT thing to do). We knew that Thomas Dambo has just moved his traveling Troll Exhibit from Philadelphia to Nashville so we decided to head south and do some troll hunting. How long did it take? About 5 minutes. We knew the boys would be fine overnight, and all we needed was a change of clothes and (being adults) things like medications and a toothbrush. With a quick pack of our go bags we were on the road.

They say there is a season in the midwest called “Road Construction” and they aren’t kidding. In Indianapolis, currently one of the projects shuts down I-465 going south on the east side of town. Hmmm… guess where we needed to go? We did finally get on I-65 south and headed towards Nashville. We had thought about doing this in May, but Nashville hotel prices for that weekend were crazy expensive. This weekend, at least where we were looking were reasonable.

Always Complications & Maybe Some Beer.

“There are only four rules you need to remember: make the plan, execute the plan, expect the plan to go off the rails, throw away the plan.” – Leonard Snart. We pulled into Yazoo Brewing for dinner and enjoyed a beautiful view and nice food along with some pretty good IPAs. Unfortunately, when we got back to the car, we had a low tire warning light go off. Did I mention Road Construction is a season? The tire looked and acted fine and it was too late to do anything about it, so we headed back to the hotel. Fortunately? Sue had tire trouble in Nashville when she was at a convention and knew where to get it fixed. So we headed to Discount Tire in the morning.

Me, being anxious, had tire repair as my number one priority. They removed the nail, plugged the tire and we drove off to breakfast, getting a call that the tire place still had the cap for the wheel 🙄. Drove back and then headed off to the hotel, where I had left my wallet in the room 🙄🙄. You see how this day is going? Breakfast was nice, Sue wanted to stop at a franchise she deals with for work and play secret shopper. As we were there I tried to figure out how to reset the blasted tire sensor that still showed I had a low tire. Which I finally did reset on the way home. Today the low tire light came on again… 😱 I know what I’m doing tomorrow.

Finally, we get to Cheekwood Estates & Garden, current home of Thomas Dambo’s “Save the Humans” exhibit. We paid for entry and started to walk around the beautiful landscaped gardens, hunting for trolls. Where are all the trolls in the world? Check out Thomas’ Troll Map. We’ve now pretty much seen all the Trolls close by, but look forward to future trips and the trolls we will see along the way.

Having now become seasoned troll hunters we enjoyed not only the trolls but the other art and landscaping throughout Cheekwood.

We picked up the Trash Trolls and Treasure Hunts book, but unfortunately, they were out of t-shirts in any “normal old adult” sizes- no troll shirts for me. On our way out of town we stopped into Antique Archaeology home of the TV Show American Pickers… While nice it seemed to be mostly branded merch for the show and not as many actual antiques as I recall from my visit last fall. We left empty handed and headed home.

One of the nice things about being in Indianapolis is it is close to many places so going on a Whimventure® isn’t too hard. I’ve joked about driving to Chicago or Columbus, Ohio for a sandwich. As for my carbon footprint- I’d consider an electric car brother ways to get places if the infrastructure in the U.S. would better support it.

inner ring 400 miles
middle ring 500 miles
outer ring 600 miles
While I don’t like driving really long distances in one day, on the way home isn’t that bad if I get an early start.

The Second Happiest Place on Earth – Day 5 “Troll Hunting”

Thursday: Walked 6.27 miles

Yes, I said troll hunting!!! After a quick discussion in the morning we decided to go troll hunting by doing an adventure lab focused on the trolls created by artist Thomas Dambo we found one early on and decided to skip a few of the touristy spots to go walking and looking for trolls. It didn’t influence our decision at all that there was an adventure lab connected to finding the Trolls… nope, not at all.

Being married for over 30 years there gets to be a bit of mutual martyrdom, especially when traveling. Neither of us wants to have the other one do things they don’t like… or if we do at least in moderation. I’ll spend time in a yarn or fabric shop and Sue will spend time at a comic book shop or LEGO Store. It’s a trade off but we each feel as if we are getting the better end of the deal. Trollhunting was my idea, but since they were tied to Adventure Labs and a few geocaches I hope it evened out. The one thing we both realized was just how out of shape we are. We may have only walked six and a quarter miles, but it was over various terrain, something it looked like the Danes were used to, and we weren’t.

So today we squelched through mud, and walked on trails to answer questions about five different trolls hidden in the Danish countryside. There is a 6th “bonus troll” but we decided not to back track to hunt him, we were tired and wanted to head to Billund. We did decide that (like many of our trips) that we really enjoyed Denmark even being here on the off season. We’ve already talked about not spending enough time in Copenhagen and how we really want to return sometime when everything is open. I’ve also decided that I really want to make sure that I use my passport at least once a year. I guess I just added a #71 to the bucket list. Tomorrow is the actual reason for the trip… the LEGO House Fan Tour.

Note: The Troll Map shows that there are actually a few trolls near us, in Ohio and Kentucky. I’m also checking out other places we will be heading out over the summer, the troll hunt never ends… The ones in Chicago were removed and Indiana is too scary a place for trolls to inhabit. 😢

The Second Happiest Place on Earth – Day 3 “Alas Poor Yorick”

Tuesday: Walked 5.48 miles

We did a lot today starting with a Troll hunt. There is an artist who makes giant trolls around the world. A bunch are in Denmark, one was on our way to Helsingor (Elsinore) and the castle Shakespeare used as inspiration for Hamlet. Also on the way were a number of caches and adventure lab stages. I dropped off the first of my travel bugs- let’s see what happens. Geocachers know that in the U.S. travel bugs and geocoins tend to go missing. I even did a comic about Cecil’s collection. In Europe, that is not the case, While not the general rule I have found (anecdotal evidence) that even when the attached object goes missing the tag will still travel from cache to cache or event to event and be logged. I brought two Trackables with me- A MINI Cooper Hot Wheels , and a Geocoin that I had picked up at a local Leap Day event. I decided more than that would be overkill and add stress to the trip. (Update: the Trackable MINI was picked up while we were still in Denmark🤞that it will get moved around)

There were some caches and an Adventure Lab around Krønborg before and after we toured the castle we were able to get the AL completed. Remember: a lot of things don’t open until April so a number of the things that would be open were just starting to get ready. If you’ve toured a large historic house in the U.S. or another castle in Europe you might understand the way things go- it’s a big house with history. There is a reason why this spot was picked. Who the heroes and who are the villains change and what time period they want showcase can determine that. All this does is make me realize how much I don’t know when it comes to other country’s history. By the law of Tourists in Europe we had now completed the requirements by visisting a cathedral and now a castle, the tourist police cannot arrest us- one less anxiety I have to deal with.

After handling the cold (it’s next to the ocean- sea breezes bring about cold.) we headed for the hotel with a minor detour to Denmark’s oldest geocache located near one of Sue’s favorite places, a bog. We walked the geopath and signed the log. Cecil dropped off the last of the trackables he had and we headed to Copenhagen and the hotel to defrost, rest up and get ready for whatever tomorrow will bring.