Corn Maze - September 24, 2009

Who said that you can’t have fun and still get in some exercise at the same time?  It’s amazing the amount of calories you can burn off walking around in a gigantic maze cut into a corn field while getting frustrated that you can’t figure out a map to save your life.  You should try it!

Located in beautiful Lodi, Wisconsin is the Treinen Farm and a wonderful stretch of land on which sits a field of corn cut into an elaborate maze of mermaids, clam shells, circles, fish and waves.  This is also the home of a charming little dog, aptly named Little Dog, who will escort you into the corn maze and linger long enough to determine whether or not you have snacks to share.  He will abandon you after you find the first checkpoint, never to be seen again, as if to say, “You’re on your own, suckers!”  Don’t be alarmed by this though, as you would have gotten lost with or without Little Dog, and you know it. 

Here's Little Dog, leading the way. He's wearing some PVC pipes to keep him from getting through the fence and bothering Big Dog.

Little Dog, searching for snacks

I had a lot of apprehension about doing a corn maze because I am directionally challenged when outside of my hometown.  There is nothing to worry about though, and you’ll just have to trust me on that.  We started out in the little store to pay our admission fees ($6 per person) and to get a blank map with our first clue taped to it.  The “map” is a regular sheet of paper with eight blank squares on it.  You are given the first square of the map and the instructions are this:  “Find the first checkpoint and you will receive the next square of the map at that place.”  You are also given an actual map of the maze, stapled shut.  If you can return to the store at the end of the maze with all eight pieces of the map, and the real map still stapled shut you will win a prize.

Sounds easy enough, right? 

Here's Mary, ready to start off the adventure, and there's the corn

We were told that it would take the average person between one hour and one and a half hours to complete the maze.  It was 5:30 when we started, and sunset was supposed to be at 6:39.  With no flashlights available the pressure was on to be the average person, or get lost in the dark in the corn. 

We found the first checkpoint without much trouble, and then the second one came rather quickly after that too.  It wasn’t until the third checkpoint proved elusive that we began to lose confidence.  There were a few points where we found ourselves on the outside of the corn field, but that was a lucky mistake as it allowed us an opportunity to orient ourselves with the maze.  It was somewhere after the fourth checkpoint where the map orientation and the maze itself started to make sense to me, but we did still struggle a bit if only because we overestimated the size of the field, and the speed with which our preplanned turns would come up, making it easy to pass them up. 

We arrived at the seventh checkpoint just as the sun was setting.  Victory was so close we could taste it, but it was much harder actually finding it.  Within about five minutes, however, there it was…checkpoint #8.  The prize would be ours. 

The observation tower was right near the exit, so we climbed it in order to snap a photo of our fully-completed map before we checked back into the store for our major award. 

Kristin and the completed map of the maze. Boo-ya!

Safely back at the barn, we handed over our completed map and the other map, still stapled shut.  The happy man at the counter handed over our trophy:  a piece of our choice of candy from a bucket.  I chose the Pal Bubble Gum, and Mary chose the SweetTarts.  Success never tasted so sweet!