I know I have abandoned this blog in recent months. I no longer have home internet which makes it much more challenging to get on here and post, but I promise to do a better job as there is SO much to blog about, especially these past few months.
What a way to return to the blogosphere than with Urban Dare Fort Worth! You remember last Spring my friend Lisa and I competed in Urban Dare Dallas. If you don't remember or haven't seen that, feel free to read it:
http://themav211.blogspot.com/2009/05/urban-dare-dallas.html
So first - if you don't know what Urban Dare is, you're missing out big time! Please check out their website: www.urbandare.com . In short, it's like 'The Amazing Race' set in urban cities across the US. They travel to a different city 2-3 times a month and host these team based adventure races. You get a set of clues, that are not in geographic order, and you must race around town figuring out the clues - when you figure one out, it will be a destination where you must take a picture of you and your teammate, OR complete a "dare". Continue reading for better understanding.
So this being Lisa and mine's second Urban Dare, we had the nerves of being "newbies" out of the way. We were able to reflect on all the things we did right, and WRONG, in Urban Dare Dallas so that we were better prepared this time around. I moved to Fort Worth last June and live about a 8 blocks from downtown, plus Lisa and I had been studying our Fort Worth history and landmarks, so we were feeling pretty good.
We met at Gingerbread Man, a local pub on Camp Bowie, also the location where the Dallas race started at their Uptwon location. A VERY COOL pub to chill, grab a beer, and play some games.
We registered for the race, got our gear (however we decided to not wear the UD t-shirt this year and go with our own team gear - AmeriCorps Alums North Texas! www.americorpsalums.org for more information - or search for the group on Facebook). Here were are ready and with our game faces!
With just a few minutes to 12, we are psyched up and ready. I'm battling a cold so I've taken my meds and sprayed my throat with nasty syrup at the request of my girlfriend. Its high noon and the race begins. Now...a little beef with the race here...in Dallas, we went through a set of pre-questions to get the teams staggered upon starting. Lisa and I SUCKED at those and were one of the last teams to leave, however we have prepared ourselves for these questions and ready! But to our amazement, there are NO questions and we are given the greenlight to grab the clues and run out the door. Lisa and I are in the back of the pub! Now no pre-questions was probably to our benefit as we may have bombed them! So note to self - always stand near the front door, you know never know how the race will begin.
So off we go! As I said, the clues are in NO order. Part of the first few minutes, is doing your best to figure out the clothes. You're allowed to call friends and family to help you figure the clues out so that's instantly what we start doing. With our current knowledge of Fort Worth, we are able to figure out several clues on our own, which was definitely a big advantage. Once you get the clues laid out, then you build your route. If you aren't familiar with the Fort Worth area, we were starting in the cultural district, about 1.5 miles west of downtown. There is a river that divides to the two regions and two bridges that access - 7th street and Lancaster. We knew that we would have to go downtown so figuring out the route is very important, because once you cross a bridge, you don't want to come back until you've got ALL the clues on that side figured out and check points accomplished. We get as much as we can figured out with the help to our "phone a friends". A HUGE thanks to Lisa's mom & sister, my parents, and our friend Sue - they were all rockstars in helping us with the clues!!!!!
So...here is our race looked:
1. Get your picture with this plane. There was a picture of an old gas station with a plane in front of it. To most Fort Worthonians eyes, this was an immediate recognition - the old station on Montgomery. Not far from the pub, we darted to this spot to make it our first stop.
Thanks to the team behind us taking our picture!
2.Get your picture with the statue of the high desert princess. High desert princess - this is Fort Worth, TX...that MUST mean the statue in front of the Cowgirl Museum! Just across the street from the plane and through a couple parking lots, there we were.
Again - thanks to the team that took this for us!
PHOTO HUNT: So there are two of these - one of them is to take a picture proposing to a non-racer. As we were running through Will Rogers area, we passed this nice woman who was willing to advance from a stranger to my fiance for this picture. Sorry Amber!
3. Get your picture taken with the statue Woman Addressing the Public. Good thing Lisa has a better memory than me! She remembered this instantly as the strangely proportioned statue by the Kimball Art Museum. We ran over there just in time to find a nice family about to take their own picture. We busted up there photo opp to get our own - thank you nice family!
So at this point we have most of the clues figured out. The two that have been the most challenging is trying to figure out where a fountain is that was built by the humane society, and one about lemons and a billboard and destruction...sheesh! My dad gave me the number of the humane society and after a couple of tries, I talk to someone that works there that confirms the fountain is downtown in front of the courthouse. So we decide to head into downtown, anything else in the Cultural District we can hit when we come back west of the river.
So begins that LOOOOOOONG stretch down Lancaster Ave.
This is the bus we should have jumped on....more on public transportation later.
Downtown seems so far away!!!
And the finish line!!!! OK not really...just some fun on the never ending Lancaster...
4. Get your picture with a mural of a giant zipper. Lucky for us that this zipper mural sits at Lancaster and Jennings. I live on Jennings and pass through this intersection on a near daily basis and always get a glance at the giant zipper!
We spot some of the competition!
5. Go to the Active Water pool and get your picture down at the bottom. So active water pool could have been any fountain in town. But to be at the bottom of it...this HAD to have been the Water Gardens.
6. Alfred Hayne was a hero of the Spring Palace fire. Go to his memorial for your three legged dare. So this is where God intervened for us! We emerged from the Water Gardens in pursuit of this memorial but were a little confused on which way to go. We knew it was 100 yards down Houston, but which way. About 50 feet away from us a man is walking towards the T&P lofts and waving at us to follow him. We are completely unsure if we should follow this stranger AWAY from downtown, but figure we might as well chance it! He continues to wave us on his direction, but never stops for us. We race after him and sure enough, we come upon the memorial. The man disappears under the I-30 bridges. And what was even better is that this was supposed to be the 3-legged race, but for whatever reasons, we were told to just get our picture and move on. That is GREAT because the 3-legged race was the toughest dare for us in Dallas. So thanks God!! And waving stranger!
PHOTO HUNT - So another photo hunt was to take a picture of a non racer doing a cartwheel. As we raced down Commerce street to our next check point in front of the Convention Center, we spot a family with 3 kids. Surely one of them will do this! We ask and they are happy to help.
Thank you teenage girl who did a cartwheel for us!
7. Go to the Aviation Wall of Honor for your bubble dare. This wall is right in front of the Convention Center at 8th and Main. And our first dare! It's the bubble one, which Lisa did in Dallas so I decided I would take this on. Dive head first into whip cream, find the giant piece of bubble gum, and blow a bubble.. A LOT harder than you think!
So after this we start heading towards the next check point when we see 2 cheerleaders....one advantage that all teams have been given is that if we get a picture of 6 non racers doing a pyramid, we get 5 extra minutes. We see these cheerleaders and ask if they have any others nearby that can do a pyramid for us. They start calling their friends and tell us there is a cheerleading competition going on at the Convention Center, how perfect is that!!? So we follow them back to the Convention Center, they go in to gather some friends...and we never see them again! Luckily the place is filled with cheerleaders, so as we are waiting our two new friends to help us out, another team gathering a group for their pyramid picture. Now I'd like to think that even though our two cheerleaders didn't come through, our efforts still earned us the right to get a picture. So we snapped one of the other group!
Thank you cheerleaders and the other team!
8. Get your picture taken by the fountain built by the woman's humane association. We race through the heart of downtown to the courthouse and instantly see this fountain. Thanks to the lady at the humane association for confirming this for me.
So at this point our time downtown is over. We have 2 more check points and luckily both are on 7th street. We need to leave downtown and take the 7th street, but will do just about anything to not have to walk/jog it back. We decide we will take the bus (public transportation is allowed in the race). So we follow the bus lane as we race through downtown. We find a couple standing at a bus stop and ask if they know when the next bus is coming. They say it should be there in just a couple of months. That is worth the wait for us! I brought lots of change just in case, so we count our silver coins just as the bus arrives. We jump on board and confirm that they can drop us off just after the Trinity River, where the next dare is waiting for us. We get on the best and have about 2 minutes to sit and relax - and probably saved us about 10-15 minutes! HUGE ADVANTAGE. If only we had done this going down Lancaster earlier...
9. Go to the memorial for fallen firefighters and police for your spellbound dare. This memorial sits at end of Trinity Park right at the river and 7th street bridge. The bus drops us off in front of it, we cross 7th street, and begin our spellbound challenge. We have a word on the back of our passport (which we must get stamped at each dare) - IMPORTANCE is our word. Across the lawn at the memorial are markers with a letter and a number beside. We must find all the letters in our word and then add up the corresponding numbers for a total sum. If we have the corrent sum, we can move on. This takes a while, and it took us a while in Dallas too. These markers are spread everywhere and very hard to see! We finally find them all and get it added up.
10. When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. When your billboard gets blown down, take the poles and turn them into art. Go there for your wheel barrel dare. It's our final dare!! Then we are done, just have to get to the finish line. It took us a while to figure this clue out and definitely had to have help from our family and friends. I kept trying to think of a billboard with lemons on it...but nothing rang a bell. The part about "gets blown down" is probably referring to the 2000 tornado that blew through downtown Fort Worth and specifically came through the West 7th area. After much research, we learn that the poles are being used at a location at 7th and Camp Bowie. We race down 7th street hunting for this spot. We finally see it, right on the edge of the crazy and ridiculous intersection of 7th St., University, Baily, and Camp Bowie (horrible intersection!).
We complete the wheel barrel race and fly up Camp Bowie to the Ginger Man. I'm dragging behind (did I mention I have a cold?) but Lisa is motivating me to get to the end. We pass Great Outdoors, one of my favorite sandwich spots, and pass UNT Health, and make it through the Camp Bowie/Montgomery intersection, pass the CVS where I got my throat spray, and here we are!!! We FINALLY get there!!!!
We get inside, turnover my camera and our passport so all of our checkpoints can be approved. DONE! And how did we do???
Dallas results:
3hrs, 13 mins
31st out of 80 teams
Fort Worth results:
2 hrs, 18 mins
7th out of 37 teams
7th!!! Whoo hooo!!! Our goal was top 20! With much lower participation this race than in Dallas, we were still VERY proud of our top 10 victory. As rookies in Dallas were happy, but this was GREAT. Definitely makes us wonder what we would have placed had we taken the bus across Lancaster at the beginning. Lesson learned.
So a GREAT time! Thank you to Mr. Keefe @ Urban Dare for another amazing race. Can't wait until Urban Dare Dallas - May 1st!!!
