My friend Gian and I were some of the first to show up to the corn maze at the Petaluma Pumpkin Patch, which opened its doors Thursday evening to Sonoma State students.    

Associated Students Productions put on the trip, and although tickets were available for purchase in the Student Union, they were also available at the door. Forty-nine pre-purchased tickets were sold.

Gian and I were the second group to enter the corn maze and were determined not to get lost. We underestimated the size of the maze, and figured it would only take about 15 minutes to get out of it.

We began our journey with the iPhone flashlight turned on and in hand, shivering from the cold, crisp air. After wandering around the maze for five minutes we began to see light from outside of the cornstalks and thought we had made it out of the maze.

We shouted with excitement, only to realize we had maneuvered our way back out to the entrance. This happened two more times, until we finally caved and got a map of the maze. Gian held the map and attempted to direct us while I disagreed with everything he said, and because of this we went in circles over and over again.

In the maze there were four sections that looked exactly the same, so we thought we were never progressing, and at times we weren’t. There were also two staircases in the maze and I think we passed one of them a few times, which led us to believe we were farther into the maze than we actually were.

When we got to one of the places that had six directions to choose from, we got confused and went the wrong way, which took us in a circle and we ended back at the six directions.

One of the guys working there was at this point, so we asked him where we were on the map because I thought we were in one place and Gian thought we were in another; Gian was right.

When we were over three-quarters of the way done, Gian’s phone died and so did our source of light. We struggled through the last portion of it with just the light from my phone screen, which was surprisingly bright.

We soon realized our time of being lost was over when we saw the lights from the pumpkin patch. We had finally made it to the exit of the corn maze. It took us 45 minutes to get out of the corn maze with a map; I can’t imagine how long it took people without maps to get out of there. We were the second group of the night to finish the maze. 

Although anyone could go during the day to the pumpkin patch, wandering aimlessly inside the corn maze in the dark is another alternative. The turnout this year wasn’t the best, but I encourage more people to attend next year because of the bonding experience.