Corn Maze or American Gladiators?

I had the joy of completing my first corn maze this past weekend. Even with living in the heart of Indiana, I've never done one before. Plus there are several intricate ones in my area to choose from. When the idea popped into my head, I ran it past Matt.


Me: What do you think about doing a corn maze tomorrow?

Matt: Isn't maize considered corn?

Me: No, like a maaaaaaze.
(As if sounding out homonyms helps.)

Matt: Oh. Well. Um.
(Apparently sounding it out does help.)

Me: It'll be fun! Like... like a labyrinth! Ooh, remember Pan's Labyrinth? Such a good movie!

Matt: Do you remember the guy with the eyeballs in his palms?

Me: Yuck! Did you have to bring that up? So are you up for the maze?

Matt: Does it have any obstacles? That'd be fun.

Me: Huh? No, no obstacles. What do you think this is? American Gladiators?

Matt: That would be COOL!


It was a beautiful day for it:



The maze was 9 acres and supposed to take 1 - 1 1/2 hours to complete. Within the first few minutes, we both agreed that it was a good idea that we didn't watch "Signs" or "Children of the Corn" the night before. Twenty minutes in, I was getting irritated. We were backtracking, there was no apparent strategy, and you couldn't even give up if you wanted to! What if I was stuck in this corn until tomorrow? Or eternity? There were no cheat maps or clues. But oddly enough, I started to develop a strategy that worked. (Tip: rock-paper-scissors isn't very effective.) The strategy was to make it to the outer edges of the maze and try to work our way around. I'm not sure why that worked but it did. We made it to about 9 of the 12 checkpoints within an hour when we found the exit by accident. We both agreed it would be best to not press our luck.

Outside of the maze, I had the most delicious sweet corn and chicken chowder. Yum! Corn chowder is my favorite. Then I topped off with a hot caramel apple cider. When leaving, I got the enthusiastic response that every girlfriend longs to hear: "Well, that didn't suck as bad as I thought it would." We'll definitely be back next year. And maybe even try the corn shooters! (You shoot ears of corn under high pressure at a distant target.) Who thinks of this stuff?!

Matt is 6 foot tall. The corn stalks towered over us.




We never even saw the bridge in the middle of the maze until we were right upon it. You could look out over the entire maze. This is just a small portion of it. Can you see that the higher view is NOT helpful? At all?