Urban Dare 2008
Tracy and I did the Urban Dare together last Saturday. It took two of us to do the race so it took two of us to write this report! Tracy's comments are in blue.
There were 80 teams, up from last year's 30. This race is much like the Urban Assault Race, except without bicycles. [TDN] It's also much like Urban Challenge, which I had done 4 time (twice in Austin, twice at Nationals in New Orleans and Miami), except UC did not have dares -- just photos to prove you were at the right place.
The official description - "Urban Dare is the team race that's part photo hunt, part trivia and part dares. Teams of 2 must solve clues to find checkpoints throughout the city. To move on they must take photos or perform dares to earn passport stamps. Each team must determine their own route to the checkpoints. Most teams will cover about 5-7 miles and finish in about 3 hours. Teams may run, walk, or use public transportation (no cars, taxis, bikes, etc)."
You are encouraged to have a support team - friends that you can phone to ask for help with the clues. One difference between this race and Urban Assault - in UD you know nothing about the route ahead of time, but you get all the clues at the start, whereas in UAR you know most of the checkpoints ahead, but you get the clues to the mystery locations as you go. So in UD you most need your support team at the beginning of the race, whereas in UAR you have to have support throughout the race. [TDN] And in Urban Challenge, you have to visit the checkpoints in sequential order -- so your support team could solve the first one or two clues for you, and while you were on the move the support team could keep working on subsequent clues. staying one step ahead of you.
Our primary support team was Shayla and Jenny P, with crucial backups from Tracy's husband Brian [TDN] (who had forgotten about the race, but found Internet access while out running errands) and my dad and extra consultations from BlondePam and random strangers on the street. [TDN] Woohoo! THANKS Shayla, Jenny, Brian, BlondePam, Mr. Lilly, and random strangers!!
At packet pickup/registration we received our passports, race numbers, and T-shirts which we were supposed to wear throughout the race. Cotton T-shirts. Summer-like day. Yuck. [TDN] Pam is right - yuck. At least they had a size S for me.
The race began at noon with a multiple choice trivia question. They had a large grid marked on the ground to represent the four possible answers. The first question asked what was the real name of Freda of Freda and the Firedogs. I don't remember all the choices, because I didn't know any of them. Most people were moving into the D box for Marcia Ball. By the time we decided to go where everyone else was going, the race director called time and we were still in the C Box. The right answer was in fact D, so all those people got to start the race and get their clue sheets first. The next question asked which baseball player was from Austin, and we didn't know any of the names, so this time we were quicker about going where everyone else was going, which happened to be the C box that we were already in. That was the correct answer, and we were released to get our clue sheets, probably less than a minute behind the first group. We ran over to the shade to start answering the questions and plot our route.
I called Shayla and Tracy called Jenny and we split up the questions. By the time we decided to get moving it was 45 minutes later, hardly anyone else was left there, and we still had 3 unanswered questions. These were hard! [TDN] Pam is right - these were hard!!! We could have answered most of last year's questions without any help. This year out of 12 questions plus a bonus there were only 3 we knew without help, 9 which we needed help, and one that we never did figure out. [TDN] Lesson learned: remind the hubster (who is an ace clue-solver!!) to not leave the house during UD!! We drew a crude map and figured out a general strategy and finally at 12:55 we set out running from Auditorium Shores to our first stop.
1st clue: "The Pillar of Autumn is this class of cruiser. Get your picture at this coffee house." Shayla and Google had gotten us this answer. The Pillar of Autumn is a Halycon class of cruiser in the Halo videogame. And the Halycon Coffee Bar & Lounge Cafe is at 4th & Lavaca. We took a quick self picture. 1 down, 11 to go.
2nd clue - "Roman Math Time - GO TO (CXLIII TIMES V) WEST (MCDXXXIV DIVIDED BY CCXXXIX)TH STREET, where your aim must be true on this dare." I figured this one out while we had Shayla and Jenny busy googling other answers. [TDN] Thank goodness Pam knew Roman numerals!!! The answer was Mother Egan's Irish Pub at 715 W 6th St, where one of us had to play darts and throw a bullseye. Tracy attempted the darts while I asked friendly bar patrons and called my dad for help on the last unanswered questions. The bar patrons helped with one question and my dad helped with the other. Meanwhile Tracy threw and threw and got so close but never hit the little black circle in the middle. [TDN] I was pathetic!! I was beginning to think I should order a beer to see if it would help. I even tried one round left-handed (didn't work). Then the volunteer said the red circle surrounding the black circle was ok too. She had hit that several times but he wasn't watching. He took pity on us and stamped our passport. [TDN] Lesson learned: ask the volunteer what constitutes a "bull's eye."
Bonus clue - a picture of what looked like green olives on a rooftop - get your picture there for a 4:00 bonus. We thought it was at Whole Foods and we were so close so we went for it. Except it wasn't there. We wasted much more than 4 minutes. Bad move. [TDN] Lesson learned: don't spend more than the bonus minutes trying to solve the bonus question! Then we decided to run east on 5th street to try to catch a bus to the easternmost 6th street area. Except when we passed West Ave we changed our plan and decided to go for a more clockwise approach. So we ran around an extra block. Another time waster. [TDN] Lesson learned: going around the block can make you dizzy. (but hey, we were laughing and having fun!)
3rd clue - "UT's mascot sells books by the community college. Get your picture there." We knew it was Bevo's Bookstore, and Shayla had given us the address of that location - 1202 West Ave. A 7 block run up a steady incline, a quick self-picture, and we were 1/4 done! Funny, it didn't feel that way. We asked a passing walking mailman if he knew what the olives picture was but he didn't. [TDN] Lesson learned: we should have taken a bus to the northernmost point, then we could have run DOWNhill...
4th clue - "Go to the Greening WAR FILM (TWO WORD JUMBLE). If we are in a bull market, get your picture with the bull. If not, get your picture with the eagle. 2:00 minute penalty for the wrong pic." [TDN] Rather than have our feeble brains try to solve a word jumble, I had asked Jenny to google "Greening" and "Austin." Bingo! Jenny came up with the Greening Law Firm at 15th & San Antonio where there was an eagle statue in front. We traded photo duty with other teams that were there since it would have been a difficult self-photo.
5th clue - "The Boy Scouts dedicated a statue to the State of Texas. Get your picture with it." I think we had both Jenny & Shayla working on this one and they had told us the statue was a miniature Statue of Liberty on the north side of the Capitol grounds. [TDN] I actually knew exactly where this statue was -- it is really cool!! Just a short jaunt away. Runrunrun, trade photo ops with another team.
6th clue - "Napoleon would have hated Austin, too many places with a foreboding name for him. Go to the park with this name and get your picture with a sculpture of the man known as the Liberator of Mexico and do your soccer dare." I realized it would have to be Waterloo Park at 12th and Trinity, and Shayla gave us Hidalgo as the Liberator of Mexico. In many years of Turkey Trots based at Waterloo Park, we never realized there were statues there! [TDN] Who knew?? The soccer challenge was fun - one of us had to dribble a soccer ball back and forth around some cones and then shoot a goal. If you missed the goal you had to start over. Tracy and I first met playing IBM soccer! [TDN] We thought that was super-cool -- here we were doing a soccer challenge, and that's how we met (many years ago)!! Pam was always a MUCH better soccer player than I was (which is why I am a triathlete and not a soccer player now!), so I deferred to her. I took the soccer dare and fortunately I retained enough of my soccer skills that this was easy. We got our passport stamped, traded photo ops in front of Hidalgo's bust with another team, and decided to head to Red River in hopes of catching a bus to UT. No bus came along though, and we kept on running. [TDN] Uphill. We'd run about 4 miles at this point [TDN] uphill (!), and it was hot!
7th clue - "Get your picture with the first statue of a Latino on the UT campus." Jenny had given us this one and Shayla had confirmed it - Cesar Chavez on the West Mall near the main building with a flag over his shoulder. Along the way we ran by the Blanton Art Museum and ran through an outdoor art exhibit that consisted of a square of dense yellow plastic tubes hanging down. Kind of like walking through spaghetti. It was worth the extra 30 seconds. So cool. Went on to find Cesar right where he was supposed to be and got help from a passerby to get this picture.
8th clue - "Go to the first sibling rivalry's place for your double dare." I knew this one! With no help! Cain & Abel's & 24th & Rio Grande. At Cain & Abel's the double challenge was to eat a mini burger while winning 3 games of Connect 4. Fun! I proved quite adept at multitasking, winning 2 games against my opponent and snarfing down my burger while Tracy won one game against hers and ate only half her burger. [TDN] Pam ROCKS at Connect Four! I was about to put my challenger away for the 2nd time when Pam said she'd won the 3rd game, so I played a turn that allowed the other team to immediately win, thereby getting one win (I felt sorry for them, after getting trumped 3 in a row, going on 4!) That burger was so good!!! [TDN] Mmmmm!!! We were able to refill our tummies, our water bottles, and use the restroom at this stop. Very much appreciated!
9th clue - "Get your picture where Ratso Rizzo's roommate was first caught posing." This was one of the questions that had everybody stumped. Jenny and Shayla had both learned that Ratso Rizzo was a character in the movie Midnight Cowboy and his roommate was Joe the Pimp. That's as far as we could get. The bar patrons at Mother Egan's didn't know this one. My dad told me that Dustin Hoffman was Ratso Rizzo and Jon Voight was Joe the Pimp. Nice to know, but not getting us closer to this answer. Finally I asked Dad to google Midnight Cowboy & Austin and he came up with Midnight Cowboy Oriental Massage on 6th & San Jacinto. Could that be it? [TDN] Brian had thought the same thing, so It was going to have to do since we had nothing else. As we turned the corner from 24th onto the Drag, we saw a bus. And we wanted that bus. We ran to catch the bus. We were saved by a red light at the pedestrian crossway in front of the co-op. We asked the bus driver if he was going downtown. Yes, going to 6th & Congress. Perfect!!! Paid our $.50 each and relaxed on the lovely air-conditioned bus. Other passengers asked us about the race. During the mile or so ride our Garmin's beeped an automatic mile lap. That made us laugh. All our other miles ranged from 16 to 24 minutes, including stoppage time for photos and dares. This mile was a 7:32! Wheeee! We loved the bus. [TDN] Lesson learned: did I mention that we should have ridden the cool, air-conditioned bus for the UPHILL portion of the race? But the bus still felt great and came at a perfect time, allowing us to rest and digest our delicious burgers! Left the bus at 6th & Congress and ran down the street a few blocks to get our photo at Midnight Cowboy Oriental Massage where we found other teams too, so we had the right answer! [TDN] Lesson learned: well... you'll see...
10th clue - "Get your picture with the item shown here." This was one of our unsolved mysteries when we set out. It was very hard to describe the black & white picture to our support crew. It was a side view of a large piece of fruit or vegetable hanging on the side of a building with letters across the front beginning with "FO". Could be an apple, bell pepper, tomato. It appeared to have some sort of vine or stem. We got the answer from the bar patrons back at Mother Egan's - Forbidden Fruit on 6th & Neches. It was an apple! With a snake, not a vine. Just a few blocks from the last stop. Ran, got a quick picture, and moved on.
11th clue - "Next to the restaurant named for the capitol of the largest Caribbean island you'll find your water dare." Shayla/Jenny had given us two choices. Havana Soco restaurant on South Congress or Habana Calle 6 at 6th & Sabine. Tracy used a trick we learned from reading last year's race reports. She had Jenny call both restaurants to ask them if they had an Urban Dare race going on and that pointed us to Habana Calle 6. Which was quite convenient to Forbidden Fruit and right on Waller Creek, hence the water dare. The dare involved using a bucket to bring water up from a bridge over the creek and fill up a tub. Tracy excelled at this with her longer arms and longer reach. [TDN] It was a little tricky, as the bucket was so light that it would just float on top of Waller Creek. It took a little skill to swing the bucket out wide enough so it would land on its side and fill with water. But it only took 3 or 4 turns, and the tub was full. This was fun! (although I was a little disappointed that the "water dare" did not involve a kayak or canoe!!) While she did that, I double checked that we had everything we needed before heading to the 12th clue and finish line.
Finish - "The Thorpedo is an ___________. Go to __________s for your final dare." Tracy figured this one out. She knew this was in reference to Ian Thorpe, the Australian Olympic swimmer so the location had to be Aussie's at on Riverside, not far from our starting point at Auditorium Shores. One last run across the Congress bridge and over to Aussies. The final dare was to bounce ping pong balls in 3 cups. [TDN] Beer pong!! This was the first time I'd ever played beer pong, and there wasn't even any beer in the cups - just water. They kept having us move from table to table but we finally got our 3 balls in 3 cups and they called out our team number for our finish time to be recorded. At which point we got in line to show our pictures and prove we were everywhere we were supposed to be. One last glitch - somehow our picture at Midnight Cowboy Oriental Massage was missing! The race director believed us though and gave us credit for it anyway. It wasn't like we were going to win. [TDN] Lesson learned from above: don't trust the people who took your picture! Actually, I thought I had checked the camera to make sure they got our picture, so I wonder if it got deleted somehow...
Our finish time was 3:08:31, good enough for 33rd place out of 79 finishing teams. Our moving time was around 2:30. And we covered 8.6 miles total, including the bus ride from the Co-op on Guadalupe to 6th and Congress. We never did get that bonus and learned from others at the finish that the rooftop olives are at the Cedar Door. Our route turned out to be pretty efficient. We did a kind of figure 8. [TDN] Woohoo - check out all those squiggly lines at Lamar/5th/6th/West! Hehe -- all that was in an effort to solve a 4:00 bonus clue. Hehe... Lesson learned: don't even need to mention the lesson learned!
All in all it was a very fun day. [TDN] Yes it was!!! We were frustrated at the beginning when it took so long to get going, but we recovered nicely and had a wonderful time. [TDN] It was tough to be one of the last ones to leave the park, but after the race we found out a bunch of teams just started moving without having had all of their clues solved yet. We took a gamble that we needed to solve all of them ahead of time (even though we were unable to, but we lost time trying to solve them anyway) so that we could plan the most efficient route. Our route was pretty efficient and we're glad we didn't have to backtrack anywhere. We took a gamble that the few we hadn't solved yet would be on the route somewhere, and they were, so it ended up just fine. I can't wait to do it again! [TDN] Me too!!! Bring on Urban Assault!!!!
There were 80 teams, up from last year's 30. This race is much like the Urban Assault Race, except without bicycles. [TDN] It's also much like Urban Challenge, which I had done 4 time (twice in Austin, twice at Nationals in New Orleans and Miami), except UC did not have dares -- just photos to prove you were at the right place.
The official description - "Urban Dare is the team race that's part photo hunt, part trivia and part dares. Teams of 2 must solve clues to find checkpoints throughout the city. To move on they must take photos or perform dares to earn passport stamps. Each team must determine their own route to the checkpoints. Most teams will cover about 5-7 miles and finish in about 3 hours. Teams may run, walk, or use public transportation (no cars, taxis, bikes, etc)."
You are encouraged to have a support team - friends that you can phone to ask for help with the clues. One difference between this race and Urban Assault - in UD you know nothing about the route ahead of time, but you get all the clues at the start, whereas in UAR you know most of the checkpoints ahead, but you get the clues to the mystery locations as you go. So in UD you most need your support team at the beginning of the race, whereas in UAR you have to have support throughout the race. [TDN] And in Urban Challenge, you have to visit the checkpoints in sequential order -- so your support team could solve the first one or two clues for you, and while you were on the move the support team could keep working on subsequent clues. staying one step ahead of you.
Our primary support team was Shayla and Jenny P, with crucial backups from Tracy's husband Brian [TDN] (who had forgotten about the race, but found Internet access while out running errands) and my dad and extra consultations from BlondePam and random strangers on the street. [TDN] Woohoo! THANKS Shayla, Jenny, Brian, BlondePam, Mr. Lilly, and random strangers!!
At packet pickup/registration we received our passports, race numbers, and T-shirts which we were supposed to wear throughout the race. Cotton T-shirts. Summer-like day. Yuck. [TDN] Pam is right - yuck. At least they had a size S for me.
The race began at noon with a multiple choice trivia question. They had a large grid marked on the ground to represent the four possible answers. The first question asked what was the real name of Freda of Freda and the Firedogs. I don't remember all the choices, because I didn't know any of them. Most people were moving into the D box for Marcia Ball. By the time we decided to go where everyone else was going, the race director called time and we were still in the C Box. The right answer was in fact D, so all those people got to start the race and get their clue sheets first. The next question asked which baseball player was from Austin, and we didn't know any of the names, so this time we were quicker about going where everyone else was going, which happened to be the C box that we were already in. That was the correct answer, and we were released to get our clue sheets, probably less than a minute behind the first group. We ran over to the shade to start answering the questions and plot our route.
I called Shayla and Tracy called Jenny and we split up the questions. By the time we decided to get moving it was 45 minutes later, hardly anyone else was left there, and we still had 3 unanswered questions. These were hard! [TDN] Pam is right - these were hard!!! We could have answered most of last year's questions without any help. This year out of 12 questions plus a bonus there were only 3 we knew without help, 9 which we needed help, and one that we never did figure out. [TDN] Lesson learned: remind the hubster (who is an ace clue-solver!!) to not leave the house during UD!! We drew a crude map and figured out a general strategy and finally at 12:55 we set out running from Auditorium Shores to our first stop.
1st clue: "The Pillar of Autumn is this class of cruiser. Get your picture at this coffee house." Shayla and Google had gotten us this answer. The Pillar of Autumn is a Halycon class of cruiser in the Halo videogame. And the Halycon Coffee Bar & Lounge Cafe is at 4th & Lavaca. We took a quick self picture. 1 down, 11 to go.
2nd clue - "Roman Math Time - GO TO (CXLIII TIMES V) WEST (MCDXXXIV DIVIDED BY CCXXXIX)TH STREET, where your aim must be true on this dare." I figured this one out while we had Shayla and Jenny busy googling other answers. [TDN] Thank goodness Pam knew Roman numerals!!! The answer was Mother Egan's Irish Pub at 715 W 6th St, where one of us had to play darts and throw a bullseye. Tracy attempted the darts while I asked friendly bar patrons and called my dad for help on the last unanswered questions. The bar patrons helped with one question and my dad helped with the other. Meanwhile Tracy threw and threw and got so close but never hit the little black circle in the middle. [TDN] I was pathetic!! I was beginning to think I should order a beer to see if it would help. I even tried one round left-handed (didn't work). Then the volunteer said the red circle surrounding the black circle was ok too. She had hit that several times but he wasn't watching. He took pity on us and stamped our passport. [TDN] Lesson learned: ask the volunteer what constitutes a "bull's eye."
Bonus clue - a picture of what looked like green olives on a rooftop - get your picture there for a 4:00 bonus. We thought it was at Whole Foods and we were so close so we went for it. Except it wasn't there. We wasted much more than 4 minutes. Bad move. [TDN] Lesson learned: don't spend more than the bonus minutes trying to solve the bonus question! Then we decided to run east on 5th street to try to catch a bus to the easternmost 6th street area. Except when we passed West Ave we changed our plan and decided to go for a more clockwise approach. So we ran around an extra block. Another time waster. [TDN] Lesson learned: going around the block can make you dizzy. (but hey, we were laughing and having fun!)
3rd clue - "UT's mascot sells books by the community college. Get your picture there." We knew it was Bevo's Bookstore, and Shayla had given us the address of that location - 1202 West Ave. A 7 block run up a steady incline, a quick self-picture, and we were 1/4 done! Funny, it didn't feel that way. We asked a passing walking mailman if he knew what the olives picture was but he didn't. [TDN] Lesson learned: we should have taken a bus to the northernmost point, then we could have run DOWNhill...
4th clue - "Go to the Greening WAR FILM (TWO WORD JUMBLE). If we are in a bull market, get your picture with the bull. If not, get your picture with the eagle. 2:00 minute penalty for the wrong pic." [TDN] Rather than have our feeble brains try to solve a word jumble, I had asked Jenny to google "Greening" and "Austin." Bingo! Jenny came up with the Greening Law Firm at 15th & San Antonio where there was an eagle statue in front. We traded photo duty with other teams that were there since it would have been a difficult self-photo.
5th clue - "The Boy Scouts dedicated a statue to the State of Texas. Get your picture with it." I think we had both Jenny & Shayla working on this one and they had told us the statue was a miniature Statue of Liberty on the north side of the Capitol grounds. [TDN] I actually knew exactly where this statue was -- it is really cool!! Just a short jaunt away. Runrunrun, trade photo ops with another team.
6th clue - "Napoleon would have hated Austin, too many places with a foreboding name for him. Go to the park with this name and get your picture with a sculpture of the man known as the Liberator of Mexico and do your soccer dare." I realized it would have to be Waterloo Park at 12th and Trinity, and Shayla gave us Hidalgo as the Liberator of Mexico. In many years of Turkey Trots based at Waterloo Park, we never realized there were statues there! [TDN] Who knew?? The soccer challenge was fun - one of us had to dribble a soccer ball back and forth around some cones and then shoot a goal. If you missed the goal you had to start over. Tracy and I first met playing IBM soccer! [TDN] We thought that was super-cool -- here we were doing a soccer challenge, and that's how we met (many years ago)!! Pam was always a MUCH better soccer player than I was (which is why I am a triathlete and not a soccer player now!), so I deferred to her. I took the soccer dare and fortunately I retained enough of my soccer skills that this was easy. We got our passport stamped, traded photo ops in front of Hidalgo's bust with another team, and decided to head to Red River in hopes of catching a bus to UT. No bus came along though, and we kept on running. [TDN] Uphill. We'd run about 4 miles at this point [TDN] uphill (!), and it was hot!
7th clue - "Get your picture with the first statue of a Latino on the UT campus." Jenny had given us this one and Shayla had confirmed it - Cesar Chavez on the West Mall near the main building with a flag over his shoulder. Along the way we ran by the Blanton Art Museum and ran through an outdoor art exhibit that consisted of a square of dense yellow plastic tubes hanging down. Kind of like walking through spaghetti. It was worth the extra 30 seconds. So cool. Went on to find Cesar right where he was supposed to be and got help from a passerby to get this picture.
8th clue - "Go to the first sibling rivalry's place for your double dare." I knew this one! With no help! Cain & Abel's & 24th & Rio Grande. At Cain & Abel's the double challenge was to eat a mini burger while winning 3 games of Connect 4. Fun! I proved quite adept at multitasking, winning 2 games against my opponent and snarfing down my burger while Tracy won one game against hers and ate only half her burger. [TDN] Pam ROCKS at Connect Four! I was about to put my challenger away for the 2nd time when Pam said she'd won the 3rd game, so I played a turn that allowed the other team to immediately win, thereby getting one win (I felt sorry for them, after getting trumped 3 in a row, going on 4!) That burger was so good!!! [TDN] Mmmmm!!! We were able to refill our tummies, our water bottles, and use the restroom at this stop. Very much appreciated!
9th clue - "Get your picture where Ratso Rizzo's roommate was first caught posing." This was one of the questions that had everybody stumped. Jenny and Shayla had both learned that Ratso Rizzo was a character in the movie Midnight Cowboy and his roommate was Joe the Pimp. That's as far as we could get. The bar patrons at Mother Egan's didn't know this one. My dad told me that Dustin Hoffman was Ratso Rizzo and Jon Voight was Joe the Pimp. Nice to know, but not getting us closer to this answer. Finally I asked Dad to google Midnight Cowboy & Austin and he came up with Midnight Cowboy Oriental Massage on 6th & San Jacinto. Could that be it? [TDN] Brian had thought the same thing, so It was going to have to do since we had nothing else. As we turned the corner from 24th onto the Drag, we saw a bus. And we wanted that bus. We ran to catch the bus. We were saved by a red light at the pedestrian crossway in front of the co-op. We asked the bus driver if he was going downtown. Yes, going to 6th & Congress. Perfect!!! Paid our $.50 each and relaxed on the lovely air-conditioned bus. Other passengers asked us about the race. During the mile or so ride our Garmin's beeped an automatic mile lap. That made us laugh. All our other miles ranged from 16 to 24 minutes, including stoppage time for photos and dares. This mile was a 7:32! Wheeee! We loved the bus. [TDN] Lesson learned: did I mention that we should have ridden the cool, air-conditioned bus for the UPHILL portion of the race? But the bus still felt great and came at a perfect time, allowing us to rest and digest our delicious burgers! Left the bus at 6th & Congress and ran down the street a few blocks to get our photo at Midnight Cowboy Oriental Massage where we found other teams too, so we had the right answer! [TDN] Lesson learned: well... you'll see...
10th clue - "Get your picture with the item shown here." This was one of our unsolved mysteries when we set out. It was very hard to describe the black & white picture to our support crew. It was a side view of a large piece of fruit or vegetable hanging on the side of a building with letters across the front beginning with "FO". Could be an apple, bell pepper, tomato. It appeared to have some sort of vine or stem. We got the answer from the bar patrons back at Mother Egan's - Forbidden Fruit on 6th & Neches. It was an apple! With a snake, not a vine. Just a few blocks from the last stop. Ran, got a quick picture, and moved on.
11th clue - "Next to the restaurant named for the capitol of the largest Caribbean island you'll find your water dare." Shayla/Jenny had given us two choices. Havana Soco restaurant on South Congress or Habana Calle 6 at 6th & Sabine. Tracy used a trick we learned from reading last year's race reports. She had Jenny call both restaurants to ask them if they had an Urban Dare race going on and that pointed us to Habana Calle 6. Which was quite convenient to Forbidden Fruit and right on Waller Creek, hence the water dare. The dare involved using a bucket to bring water up from a bridge over the creek and fill up a tub. Tracy excelled at this with her longer arms and longer reach. [TDN] It was a little tricky, as the bucket was so light that it would just float on top of Waller Creek. It took a little skill to swing the bucket out wide enough so it would land on its side and fill with water. But it only took 3 or 4 turns, and the tub was full. This was fun! (although I was a little disappointed that the "water dare" did not involve a kayak or canoe!!) While she did that, I double checked that we had everything we needed before heading to the 12th clue and finish line.
Finish - "The Thorpedo is an ___________. Go to __________s for your final dare." Tracy figured this one out. She knew this was in reference to Ian Thorpe, the Australian Olympic swimmer so the location had to be Aussie's at on Riverside, not far from our starting point at Auditorium Shores. One last run across the Congress bridge and over to Aussies. The final dare was to bounce ping pong balls in 3 cups. [TDN] Beer pong!! This was the first time I'd ever played beer pong, and there wasn't even any beer in the cups - just water. They kept having us move from table to table but we finally got our 3 balls in 3 cups and they called out our team number for our finish time to be recorded. At which point we got in line to show our pictures and prove we were everywhere we were supposed to be. One last glitch - somehow our picture at Midnight Cowboy Oriental Massage was missing! The race director believed us though and gave us credit for it anyway. It wasn't like we were going to win. [TDN] Lesson learned from above: don't trust the people who took your picture! Actually, I thought I had checked the camera to make sure they got our picture, so I wonder if it got deleted somehow...
Our finish time was 3:08:31, good enough for 33rd place out of 79 finishing teams. Our moving time was around 2:30. And we covered 8.6 miles total, including the bus ride from the Co-op on Guadalupe to 6th and Congress. We never did get that bonus and learned from others at the finish that the rooftop olives are at the Cedar Door. Our route turned out to be pretty efficient. We did a kind of figure 8. [TDN] Woohoo - check out all those squiggly lines at Lamar/5th/6th/West! Hehe -- all that was in an effort to solve a 4:00 bonus clue. Hehe... Lesson learned: don't even need to mention the lesson learned!
All in all it was a very fun day. [TDN] Yes it was!!! We were frustrated at the beginning when it took so long to get going, but we recovered nicely and had a wonderful time. [TDN] It was tough to be one of the last ones to leave the park, but after the race we found out a bunch of teams just started moving without having had all of their clues solved yet. We took a gamble that we needed to solve all of them ahead of time (even though we were unable to, but we lost time trying to solve them anyway) so that we could plan the most efficient route. Our route was pretty efficient and we're glad we didn't have to backtrack anywhere. We took a gamble that the few we hadn't solved yet would be on the route somewhere, and they were, so it ended up just fine. I can't wait to do it again! [TDN] Me too!!! Bring on Urban Assault!!!!