The truth is, corn mazes are all about getting lost.
My family really enjoys our yearly visits to the Pumpkin Valley Corn Maze in Dayton and this year’s spider web theme made for another fun – and challenging – corn maze adventure for us.
At the entrance to the maze at Pumpkin Valley, a “corn cop” explains a bit about the maze and gives visitors a passport. By answering the trivia questions (there are a bunch of different themed passports to choose from) at each numbered marker within the maze, visitors can get a clue about which way to turn at that marker to find the next one. And here’s a tip: The answers to the passport questions are very tiny and upside down on the bottom of the page if you need extra help (don't mock the idea, you may feel the need to look when you're truly lost in the maze). But knowing the answer isn’t all that helpful at times because even with the correct first turn, you are often faced with many more navigation decisions to get to the next marker.
And let me clarify something now. Everyone is a critic about which path to follow when you're in the maze.
“I know which way to go, mommy, and it’s not that way,” my 10-year-old told me after five minutes in the maze.
So I decided to put her I-know-what-I’m-doing and you’re-not-too-smart-mom notions to the test by asking her to be in charge of leading the family through the maze.
It was not long before the maze’s spider webs had us passing through the same area over and over again.
“No, you’re taking the wrong way. We’re walking in circles again,” my 12-year-old told her younger sister when we were looking for our fifth marker.
OK, so you’ve got to set some ground rules with siblings at the start and give each a turn to be the leader so everyone has a chance to be humbled by the experience. Then you can watch those same siblings share a smile a bit later while in the throes of victory over finding an elusive marker, or when they discover the stairs to one of the bridges that overlook the cornfield.
But also expect that after an hour in the maze and more than a mile and half of walking, the kids might share another moment of conciliation and make a joint declaration that their parents take over and “find the end because we’re getting hungry.”
We brought along our GPS unit on this adventure, not to help us find our way through the maze (that’s cheating!), but to save a track of our path through the maze to see if we could “draw” the maze’s design.
Needless to say we did not come close to re-creating the design with our track. But after downloading it at home, we did have a few laughs about how many times we walked over the same path trying to find a way out of that particular area.
We were also surprised to discover that we had covered 1.8 miles in the maze from start to finish.
Not only is walking around in a corn maze a lot of fun, it's a great opportunity to get some exercise on a beautiful fall day.
We’ve been to two corn mazes in Maine this season and each has its own unique features in addition to their mazes.
Pumpkin Valley Farm offers wagon rides to pick pumpkins, a mini maze for young children and a playground complete with slides, tire swings, a corn kernel box (like a sand box but filled with kernels of corn instead) and some farm animals to feed. They also have a corn cannon – an ingenious device powered by a compressor with a steel barrel that can shoot ears of corn at targets in a field – that was admired and well-used by the male population (both young and old) visiting the farm. The Almeida dad was not immune to the cannon's allure and he was quite smitten after hitting a wooden target with it.
Zach’s Corn Maze in York has flashlight tag every weekend night (Friday, Saturday and Sunday), which my kids are itching to try this month because we couldn't stay until dark the day we visited in September. This maze also offers a pleasant 20-minute tractor ride to the maze entrance (included in the admission price) and pumpkin picking for an additional fee as well. My kids enjoyed this maze but without numbered markers to find, we did not cover as much ground within the maze as we usually do at Pumpkin Valley.
Visiting a corn maze is a fall tradition for my family and over the years we’ve learned a few things about making the most out of this seasonal activity.
* Bring a bottle of water. It might not seem like you’re going on a long hike but depending on the navigation skills of your children and/or you, the possibility of getting lost in the maze for more than an hour is a good one. If you’ve got little ones in tow, it’s best to anticipate their need for a drink when you are truly lost in the maze
and cannot make a quick exit to get one from the car.
* Encourage everyone to use the bathroom before entering the maze. It’s obvious, I know, but even if no one has to “go,” have them try anyhow. You’ll be glad you did when you’re an hour into the maze and have no idea how to get out and no bathroom in sight.
* Wear layers. Even when the temperature is brisk, you can still work up a sweat walking through the maze.
* Wear old shoes or boots. We visited Zach’s Corn Maze the day after a rainstorm and it was muddy, with a couple of big puddles. At the time we wished we had worn rubber boots. But even when the ground is not wet, the clay dirt and sand in corn mazes are like glue (a friend described it as mortar-like and I don’t think she’s too far off), so it’s best to wear footwear you don’t mind getting dirty.
* Bring a sense of humor. Whether you put the kids in charge of navigating the family through the maze or you do it yourself, you are likely to get confused and lose your way at some point. Every time my family has been in the thick of the corn maze we’ve overheard a heated discussion (involving kids and/or adults) about which path to follow next. The best way to avoid sibling fallouts (or spousal ones) in the maze is to make sure everyone has a time period when they are in charge of making the navigational decisions.
And I’ll let my kids wrap up this outdoor adventure with their thoughts about our latest trip to Pumpkin Valley.
10-YEAR-OLD: “I liked the corn maze but I got mad that we went in circles. I liked being the leader but the maze kept taking me in circles. I loved the tire swing and slides in the playground. My sister tried to bury me in the corn (kernel) box but the corn was so cold. And the corn cannon was loud but my daddy really liked it.”
12-YEAR-OLD: “This was a very long maze and there were a lot of circles. It was fun and there were some bridges so we could see the paths we just took from the top of the bridge. We did go around in a lot of circles and I knew we were doing that but my sister refused to believe that when she was the leader. And if you see our GPS track, we did go in circles a lot.”
Pumpkin Valley Corn Maze
We covered 1.8 miles during our corn maze adventure in about an hour and a half.
Zach's Corn Maze
We spent about an hour in the maze and covered 1.1 miles of walking.
See photos from Zach's Corn Maze
In the Maze at Pumpkin Valley
Originally published in Raising Maine Magazine, October 2008
Wednesday, October 1, 2008
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