Treasure hunt pays for Umphrey's fans

ROTHBURY, Mich. (WOOD) - Where were YOU Friday morning at around 2 a.m.?

I'll tell you where I was -- I was on a treasure hunt at Rothbury!

Michelle, my cousin Tim, his girlfriend Becca and I were at the Tripolee stage taking in some Break Science when we all simultaneously got text messages from @umphreysmcgee.

You see, a few days ago, I (along with Tim and Becca) had signed up to follow the band Umphrey's McGee's Twitter feed. Before the festival, it was announced that the Umphrey's crew would be hiding presents throughout the festival grounds and would be tweeting out clues as to where they could be found. The first clue read as follows:

"Hunt 1 - 3 x DVD package - Clue 1 - Pray you know the password in Robin's hood."

The first part of the clue was relatively simple -- "Robin's hood" was obviously a reference to Sherwood Forest, an amazing area of the festival grounds with a decoration sceme that words could never do justice (check out the pics). Now, I like to consider myself somewhat of a trivia buff. But I could not, for the life of me, recall any part of the Robin Hood story that involved a password. So Michelle leapt into action - jumping onto google.com and frantically searching for any reference to a "password" in the story of Robin Hood.

No luck. We were about to give up for the time being and wait for the next clue, when my cousin had a revelation: "Dave, where in the Sherwood Forest would we require a password? At the SPEAKEASY."

The Speak EZ (speakeasy) is a bar in Sherwood Forest, and as you may recall, speakeasies were underground (figuratively) locations where people could enjoy alcohol during prohibition.

To get into a speakeasy, one would require a password. Typically, the password would change quite frequently; it was rarely ever written down, but rather, passed along by word of mouth. So we headed over to the Speak EZ.

Shortly after we arrived, we received the second clue:

"Hunt 1 - Clue 2 - Present prohibition's provider with the password"

Well, this didn't help us -- we already had figured out where we needed to be. The problem was that we didn't know what we needed to SAY. The worst part was, we could see the prize underneath the bar, so we knew we were where we needed to be. We flagged down the bartender and tried a plethora of things in an attempt to guess the password.

"Friar Tuck." "Maid Marion." "Steal from the rich and give to the poor." All to no avail. Fortunately, no one else had figured out where they needed to be, or they were too far away when they got the messages. So after numerous failed attempts, the bartender decided to give us a hint: To think less about Robin Hood, and more about "pray". The answer immediately hit me like a ton of bricks.

"Mantis."

As in "praying mantis" and also as in Umphrey's McGee's latest album, "Mantis." Finally, we were awarded our prize: Three DVDs, a keychain and a handwritten note telling us to take a picture of ourselves with our spoils. We did so, and were congratulated by Umphrey's Mcgee via Twitter.

Seeing as I've already won once, I figure I'll help everyone else get in on the action -- simply follow Umphrey's McGee's Twitter feed (umphreysmcgee) and turn on the SMS alerts to your mobile device.

You'll be texted the clues, and have as much of a chance as everyone else. Have fun, good luck and enjoy the festival!