Jamie Thingelstad Profile Photo

Jamie Thingelstad

Writer of the Weekly Thing. Explorer of tech, the open web, AI, and a good escape room. Minneapolis is home.

Escape Room

This section chronicles our family’s love of escape rooms, from cracking a record 23 rooms in 2025 (82 total since 2016) to quirky trip logs detailing each puzzle, travel stop and post‑game reflection. It’s an ever‑growing diary of teamwork, hints and shared victories.

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    Instanbul Gambit at Enigma Adventure

    Tyler, Tammy, and I had a lot of fun solving our way through The Istanbul Gambit at Enigma Adventures in Bloomington today. We finished the room with just 1m 39s remaining on the clock. This was our 64th escape room!

    The room was very well done and we always felt like we were moving forward. There were multiple “a ha” moments and towards the end a super cool solve involving lasers. Also unique with this room was that you actually had three separate tasks to complete, with the final being to get out of the room. It even had an add-on mission to identify some additional information that you could tackle if you had time. We did that one as well!

    Recommended room! Room 64!

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    We completed “The Museum” at Puzzleworks today in 58m 48s. There is a whole genre of escape rooms that are creepy and this was our first that was even a little in that genre. We had a great time solving it with our nephew Levi. 👻 Room 62!

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    Deep Woods Cabin Escape Room

    Today we returned to Copper Cat Escape Games in Brainerd so that we could try the Deep Woods Cabin room. When we were here yesterday we were talking to Allon after finishing our room and loved his passion for Escape Rooms. He said this Deep Woods Cabin room was his favorite and we wanted to give it a try. We had a great time!

    The room has a great backstory and you start in the woods outside of the cabin. Your first task is to figure out how to get in. The story is rich and the puzzles are just perfect. There is a wide variety of things to figure out. Your not just pounding codes into locks but have to really put the scene together.

    We were completely immersed from the very beginning. We were challenged but everything connected together. I’m proud to say we completed the room with no clues and 13m 08s on the clock. There were several puzzles that made us smile as they came together.

    We were very impressed with Copper Cat Escape Games. If you live in the Twin Cities it is a two hour drive and I think it would be worth it if you like escape rooms. You could book two or three of the rooms. Deep Woods Cabin is definitely one of the best, if not the best, that we’ve done in Minnesota. Room 61!

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    Ireland 2024 Log - Day 12

    Weather: Cool and nice. Not much wind. Warmer in Belfast.

    • Up early to depart Airbnb at 7:00 AM.
    • Drive to Giants Causeway.
    • Cross into Northern Ireland at Lifford.
    • Arrive at Giants Causeway Hotel to park.
    • Hike Red Path to rocks.
    • Hang out on rocks for an hour.
    • Walk Blue Path back to car.
    • Drive to Belfast.
    • Arrive at Titanic Hotel.
    • Lunch in Drawing Room Two.
    • Jamie leaves lunch to join remote board meeting.
    • Tammy, Mazie, Tyler explore shipyard section of Belfast.
    • Tammy and kids check into hotel.
    • Tammy and kids go to Central Belfast to walk around and shop.
    • Jamie finishes meeting and walks to meet family.
    • Dinner at Little Wing Pizzeria.
    • Walk to Timescape and do the “Titanic: The Final Hour” escape room.
    • Walk back to hotel.
    • Have today’s Guinness in the hotel bar.

    Jump to day 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18 or see Ireland 2024 Collection.

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    We solved the Titanic: The Final Hour escape room at Timescape in Belfast tonight. We finished with 8:32 remaining! Fun and challenging room. Room 57!

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    We attempted to solve the Utopia room at Lock & Key Escape Rooms today — alas we didn’t quite get there. It is there hardest room, and we skipped hearing the solution so that we could make a return trip and try again with Mazie there too! 🔒 Room 56!

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    We “successfully” solved Bigfoot’s Backyard Escape Room and helped Bigfoot find Littlefoot. The room had some challenges, but we still had a good time and were laughing up a storm at the end. Room 54!

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    We successfully finished “The Zeros” escape room at Escape Code today with 1 second on the clock! We missed one clue so had to make an informed guess at the time end, but it worked out! Room 53!

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    Switzerland & Italy Log - Day 10

    Weather: Hot and hot

    • Amazing breakfast at iQ Motel
    • Catch express train 8803 from Milan to Modena for Ferrari Day!
    • Walk out of train station wrong way because of cute train mural on walls
    • Walk to Enzo Ferrari Museam
    • Briefly explore the smaller side of museam
    • Shuttle to Maranello
    • See the museam- Jamie shed some tears at the F1 racing display
    • Photo shoot in yellow Ferrari
    • Lunch at Museam Cafe (much better than the equivalent in the US and cheaper)
    • Panaramic factory tour- short naps for all
    • Shuttle back to Modena
    • Racing simulation for Mazie and Tyler
    • See larger section of the Rnzo Ferrari museam
    • Macarons, coffee, and chocolate crumble at museam cafe
    • Walk back to train station and wait for delayed train
    • Train back to Milan- seating troubles
    • Train 40 mins late, so have to take a White Taxi to Mad Machines
    • Taxi driver hauls it like we’re on the Amazing Race, but we are still 5 mins late
    • Time Machine: another amazing escape room with so many rooms and creative challenges
    • Tram to Pizzeria Fabrico
    • Delicious pizza, pasta, and tiramisu
    • Metro back to hotel
    • 😴

    Jump to day 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17 or Switzerland & Italy 2023 collection.

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    We completed the Birth Machine room at Mad Machines in Milan, Italy! This is the 4th ranked escape room in the world and we had a great time. The subject of the room was fun and “unique”, and the puzzles were so well done! 🧩 Room 51!

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    Mazie Turns 18

    Today we celebrated Mazie’s 18th Birthday! Both of the kids are out of school, and I took the day off, so we were able to make the day extra special for Mazie.

    Tammy had the awesome idea of reliving each of Mazie’s 17 preceding birthdays! She wrote out a brief remembrance of each birthday event, along with a few photos from that year. Some of the years also revisited a gift she got from that year. It was awesome.

    Highlights of the day included a morning visit to Shady Oak Beach, lunch at Yum! for her kid favorite of Mac & Cheese, a revisit of the Mad Tea Party at Zero Hour Escape Rooms that she did a few years ago with friends on her birthday (Room 50!), a new version of the Instax instant camera, and much more.

    It was an incredible day with incredible memories — old and new!

    Related:

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    Tammy's NYC Birthday Trip Day 3

    Rained all day.
    18,065 steps.

    Go to day 1, 2, 3, or 4.

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    New York 2023 - Day 2

    21,964 steps. 11.48 miles.

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    Tyler and I successfully solved the Sugar Rush room at Exit Escape Room NYC! We had 3m 3s time remaining on the clock. Doing puzzle rooms with just two people isn’t easy but we got it! Room 48!

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    Countdown at Mission Manner

    Tyler enjoys escape rooms and for his birthday we went to Mission Manor and did Countdown!

    We had a slow start with not much happening the first few minutes. There were a lot of locks and obvious clues, but it wasn’t clear what to do with them. Then we started rolling and we escaped the room in 45m 55s, with 14m 05s remaining on the clock!

    And, a first for the Thingelstad family, we had NO CLUES! A total “clean sheet”! 🙌

    And a first for us at an escape room, Mission Manor produces an actual score. With 2,240 points we hit the highest level of Escape Gods. 🤜🤛 We were only 60 points short of the record for the room, which if we would have finished just 1 minute earlier we would have beat.

    I’m sure that we’ll be back to Mission Manner to do the two other rooms. Room 47!

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    POAP Extensions

    I was pondering cool things that POAPs could have and three ideas came to mind.

    POAPs with Backs!

    POAPs are a bit like challenge coins, and physical coins have a front and a back. Why not support two images for POAPs so they have a front and a back. This would be cool to flip them around and see the other side. It could be a whole new place to have creative imagery!

    POAP Collections

    I’ve gotten a few POAPs that are officially part of a collection. The Ethereum Merge and POAPathon Krampus PAOPs are examples of this. It would be cool if there was an official collection that these were part of and that was part of the event pages. You could even unlock a collection POAP when you have all the POAPs in that collection. Some groups do that now but it is manual.

    Unique POAPs

    I would love to get a POAP every time we do an escape room. But it would be even cooler if my specific instance of that POAP had additional data like the time it took for us to escape, how many clues we used, and our team name. If an issuer could add one off metadata to a specific claim code it could unlock a ton of use cases.

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    We escaped from “The Mafia” room at Reykjavik Escape in 38m 44s with no clues! 🔓 Our first escape room outside of the US, and the only escape room in Iceland. Room 44!

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    Grand Rapids & Hibbing Log

    Weather: Cool. Mist and rain in the morning. Cool and mostly cloudy throughout the day.

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    We won the “Rock’n the 50s” Escape Room at Itasca Historical Society in 40 minutes! Room 36!

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    Vermont Road Trip Log: Day 9, Sunday

    Weather: Still a bit rainy in the morning, but cleared up. Fairly warm in the afternoon. Evening turned out nice.

    Jump to day 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 of Vermont Road Trip.

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