My friends were dropping off their daughter at UC Davis and decided to make the Cool Patch Pumpkin corn maze a family adventure on opening day. The Watloves group managed to navigate the maze in just 1 hour 15 minutes. This left them time to play in the corn “bath”: a giant mass of dried corn kernels.
I asked Thea, the Rotary exchange student from Sweden, what she thought of it all. “It was fun,” Thea said. She said there was nothing like it in Sweden. She’s from a small town near the Arctic circle and is learning a lot about Northern California from her host family.
While participants are provided a map and the occasional raised bridge to get their bearings in the tall stalks, the corn maze does provide an additional challenge as the furrows make for uneven walking. Maybe this is less of a problem as the season progresses and many feet have tramped the maze. There is an escape route for people who find themselves panicking. The website warns maze navigators not to call 9-1-1. I wanted to know if they handed out wands that send up sparks–alas only in Harry Potter novels. The Watloves benefited from a full moon and started while it was still light enough to read the map. Everyone must be out of the maze (and off the grounds) by 10 p.m. sharp, so the last entrants are allowed at 8 p.m.
All of the “fun” is affordable at $15 per person. Dixon (maze located at 6150 Dixon Avenue West) is close to the Bay Area and just 10 minutes from UC Davis.
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