Surprise birthday trip reveal

To celebrate my golden birthday, my husband Chad planned a surprise birthday trip, which included an elaborate guessing game.

If you haven’t read through his clues, go ahead and do so now—I’d love to know if you can guess the destination with his hints!

Here’s the reveal.

My guesses

Clue 1: It is warm

Guess 1: Mexico, incorrect 

Clue 2: Has salt water

Guess 2: San Diego, incorrect 

Clue 3: Has unique fossils 

Guess 3: Lake Powell, incorrect 

Clue 4: Known college age party destination 

Guess 4: Lake Havasu, incorrect 

Clue 5: Has a unique food like Chicago and deep dish 

Guess 5: Key West, incorrect 

Clue 6: has a light rail system 

Guess 6: New Orleans, incorrect 

Clue 7: can get a direct flight from Milwaukee to the location 

Guess 7: Cancun, incorrect 

Clue 8: Mentioned in Harry Potter

Guess 8: Phoenix, correct 

Trip reveal

Okay, ready?! We went to Phoenix, Arizona. (More specifically, Scottsdale.)

And not only did Chad book the trip, but he also added an additional surprise by inviting our best friends Alexis and Jessica to join us. They picked us up at the airport, posing as our “Uber drivers,” which was a literal cherry on top of an already wonderful surprise.

Clue breakdown

Here’s a breakdown of how Phoenix fit into Chad’s clues.

Clue 1: It is warm

Arizona is warm, if not hot! (It was perfect.)

For my initial guess, I chose Mexico. And after this, Chad adjusted the rules to state that I could only guess cities, not entire countries.

So, in my mind, cities in Mexico were not necessarily ruled out, but tabled until later, if clues correlated.

Clue 2: Has salt water

This one was pretty tricky. The “salt water” which Chad is referring is actually the Salt River.

From Wikipedia, “The Salt River is a river in Gila and Maricopa counties in Arizona, United States, that is the largest tributary of the Gila River. The river is about 200 miles long. Its drainage basin covers about 13,700 square miles. The longest of the Salt River’s many tributaries is the 195-mile Verde River.”

Like I said, tricky.

Clue 3: Has unique fossils 

The Petrified Forest National Park is nearby Phoenix.

This one is also tricky, but it was meant to be: Chad didn’t want me to guess it too soon. This was meant to throw a wrench in my guesses, and it worked.

Also, I started feeling scared that the trip was to Colorado (Grand Junction, to be specific), because it matched all the clues thus far. (GJ is warmer than Milwaukee, my parents’ pool has salt water, and there’s a bunch of dinosaur fossils nearby.) And while I would love to visit CO, it seemed a little disingenuous for a “surprise birthday vacation,” lol, which heavily implies a warm weather getaway. I was relieved when Chad told me it wasn’t Colorado.

Clue 4: Known college age party destination 

ASU, Arizona State University, is located in Phoenix and is definitely a party school.

I was randomly very close with Lake Havasu, so Chad had to get tricky once again.

Clue 5: Has a unique food like Chicago and deep dish 

I was unbelievably confident in my Key West guess. Instead, Chad dove deep with the Sonoran Hot Dog.

Clue 6: has a light rail system 

Again, I quickly became very confident in my guess with New Orleans (it fit all the boxes perfectly, particularly with the regional beignet pastry, which I’ve always wanted to try straight from the source). Alas, I was wrong once again.

Phoenix does have a local light rail system, called the Valley Metro Rail.

Clue 7: can get a direct flight from Milwaukee to the location 

Without Google on my side, I had pretty limited information for this one. I did know that Cancun fit the bill, so it was my second Mexico guess.

Chad said that he’d been slyly pointing out billboards with direct flight information for a while now, but I hadn’t noticed. Lol.

Clue 8: Mentioned in Harry Potter

If you followed along my guessing journey on Instagram, you might know this clue as the one that broke me, lol. It should’ve been obvious, but it definitely was not.

Obviously, the answer is the Order of the Phoenix. But I didn’t get to the answer that way: instead, I asked Chad which of the movies I needed to watch, and he said the second. So I rented the Chamber of Secrets, and watched hawk-eyed until I figured it out.

However, I came to two possible conclusions:

Moaning Myrtle = Myrtle Beach, or Fawkes = Phoenix. I was pretty equally divided, but I knew Chad, and thought he’d more likely choose Phoenix.

I chose correctly, thank god.

Bonus clues

Clue 9: has 4 major sports teams. Phoenix fits the bill, with the Suns, Cardinals, Diamond Backs, and Coyotes.

Clue 10: “my hat has 3 corners, but I’m part of 4.” He was referencing both a nursery rhyme and the Four Corners monument. (I would’ve hated this clue, lol.)

Conclusion

This was so, so special.

During this process—which was fun, exciting, and silly—I made sure to note that I felt incredibly lucky to have such a thoughtful husband.

This Golden Birthday surprise trip was of course amazing, but not just because of where we were going—it was more meaningful to me because of Chad’s effort. Knowing that this was far beyond his comfort zone made it mean the world to me. I am very thankful to him for putting this together: the trip, the clues, the game—it all made me feel so loved.

So, shoutout to Chad, my besties Alexis and Jessica for joining, all of the enthusiastic guessers and commentators, and to a wonderful surprise birthday trip to Scottsdale.

---