3rd Annual Anthem Quest for the Cure

It is a widely accepted and generally undisputed fact that Robert E. Lee was a Confederate general during the Civil War. What falls into hazier territory is the name of his horse. But I digress, we’ll revisit this in a moment…

On September 26th, the Connor’s Heroes Foundation held their 3rd annual Anthem Quest for the Cure—an annual treasure hunt which benefits CHF’s fight against childhood cancer. PUNCH again represented with a small, albeit strong, team consisting of myself, fellow co-worker Cassandra Wilder, and my unsuspecting husband Ricky Shannon.

Describing the Quest as “difficult” is an understatement. The PUNCH team had to dart through the Fan and Museum District within a 2-hour time period and unscramble puzzles, decrypt codes, plot along a map, and then some! We visited six stops, consisting of the Virginia Historical Society, various Monument Avenue Statues, the Science Museum of Virginia, and random stops throughout the Fan neighborhoods. Good thing we wore comfy shoes!

After our first couple of stops, we realized we were missing some key info from the puzzles we were trying to solve. Enter our moment of zen, or our clarifying epiphany if you will! Turns out all answers were in fact, one of Connor’s heroes…such as Captain America, Batman, and err, Lara Croft? Really? Tomb Raider? So be it! After that, we were charged up and ready to go!

We covered a pretty expansive chunk of the Fan and Museum District, and learned a lot about our home-city in the process. Did you know right off of Strawberry Street is a quaint, well-maintained hidden park built in 1974 called “Scuffletown”? Really? You DID know that? Well then, you would’ve been a big help to our team. (By the way, thanks to the generous movie-store chick who pointed me in the right direction on that clue.)

Of all of our stops and clues, nothing, NOTHING proved a potential team-breaker than the good ol’ “Lee’s Horse Headscratcher of ‘09.” That was the one that nearly broke us! For that clue, there was a mere casual reference to the word “pathfinder” amongst the rather lengthy clue. This is the point when my husband adamantly declared that we should search the Lee Monument because “Pathfinder” was the name of his horse. Oddly enough, we had this argument while standing at the Stonewall Jackson monument, I think there was some confusion…hmm.

After much deliberation, and time wasted, Cassandra and I convinced Ricky that the Matthew Maury statue would be a better fit to the “pathfinder” reference because #1) he was an oceanographer, and #2) the front of his statue says “Pathfinder of the Seas.”

So, in conclusion, we now know that Robert E. Lee’s horse was NOT named Pathfinder (nor for that matter was it Trailblazer, Mountaineer, Honda Pilot, or any other popular mid-size family SUV). We also now know a lot more about Richmond, and we also know that although we didn’t win a trophy, we helped benefit one of our favorite organizations, the Connor’s Heroes Foundation, and had a great time in the process!

...and for the record, Lee’s horse was named “Traveller.”