I would like to preface this post-race tale with a warning. Included in this blog are some of the worst pictures ever taken of me. Should you wish to ignore the photos and just read the story, I would be just fine with that. You would think that this being our 7th race that there would be no surprises. That we would have everything well under control and all would go smoothly. Absolutely wrong. We were thrown off from the very beginning. Did we meet up to drive the streets to familiarize ourselves with surroundings? Nope.
Did we bring our headphones/bluetooth devices to make it easier to communicate with people while running? Nope. Did we have a healthy breakfast and wear our sunscreen? Yes, yes, we did do that. (my mother reads this thing). We stopped at Baker Brothers next door for a small bite to eat before heading to the Gingerman (2718 Boll St). Upon checking in we grabbed our numbers, t-shirts and our passport. I noticed that the Scrabble word was not printed on our passport (as it usually is). I was nervous as that is one race challenge we typically do well.
Would there not be one? Did ours get skipped? No, none of them were stamped that I could tell. We waited for the race to start, eager to see what else would be different. We started in a nearby parking lot. The usual costume contest was held. The finalists were The Mustaches or Slumdog Urban Dare (cute name). We had met the winners the Mustaches earlier and they commented on my AmeriCorps shirt. One of them works for a local AmeriCorps program Project Transformation. So excited to be Representing! After that we stuck near the fringes of the crowd and were lucky to be one of the first to get a clue sheet. Jonathan and I headed away from the crowd to call our researchers. One of the clues I knew right away from remembering it from a previous race.
9. Get your picture with Line of Thought. We made our way to the statue. I was furiously trying to figure out the best route and was looking at the clip board when Jonathan snapped the first of several unflattering pictures of the top half of my head.
Our next clue was solved by our call to my nephew Wesley (working in conjunction with my mom)
11. He was Texas Highway commissioner from 1935-1941. Go to his memorial park for your scrabble stick dare. Just like Scrabble, you will need to find the value on the letters on our scrabble sticks. Harry Hines Memorial Park (2402 Harry Hines) So we actually got our word
Entourage at the park. We made quick work of this challenge and Jonathan did the math to get our total 124. Jonathan's Aunt Karen got us our next clue
3. Go to the birthplace of Dallas for your three legged dare. Dealy Plaza is what is known as the birthplace of Dallas. (411 Elm) The three legged race was around a beautiful fountain. It was very tempting to run through it since it was so hot. At 91 degrees it was the hottest race temperature we had experienced.
Right next to the fountain we found tourists to pose for our next clue.
6. Photo Hunt- Get a picture of three people doing hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. AND get a picture of two people reenacting the famous WWII photo by Alfred Eisenstadt. You may not use anyone in the race for these photos. Jonathan loves asking strangers to do things for us, so this was pretty easy.
We got the initial location for our next clue from our friend Dhriti.
12. Go to the sculpture Harrow for your wheelbarrow dare. Luben Plaza (Belo building near corner of Young and Houston) Only when we got there we couldn't find it. We had to call Jonathan's parent to get more direction. Turns out the park was on the opposite corner of the building. Thankfully the wheelbarrow dare was a short route (Jonathan has the hard part of beeing the "wheel" and this part of the race always saps his energy).
Aunt Karen came to the rescue once again on our next clue
8. AT&T must be sponsoring the Olympics this year. Go to their HQ and get your picture with their countdown to London clock. (208 S. Akard) This was the first stop on our race where we encountered other racers and there were a lot of them congregating near the clock so we took our picture near the corner so we wouldn't be easily entangled.
I knew the best person to call for our next clue was our friend Dhriti again as it was a physics question. She's good with all things Math/Science related
10. This unit is the energy expended in applying a force of one newton over the distance of one meter. Get your picture with a hotel that goes by this name. (Joule Hotel 1530 Main) It was literally just around the corner. I was pretty beat at this point as the photo shows.
I tried to call my friend Tabitha for the next clue as she is a dancer, but Aunt Karen came through once more.
1. This is the position in which a person has his or her arms outstretched and legs apart. It is commonly used dance routines, especially at the conclusion, in figure skating. Get your picture in front of the restaurant that goes by this name. (1608 Elm) Spread Eagle Saloon. You would think that this one was common sense and it is, but when you are running the race, common sense isn't always available.
We were pretty confident as we came to Thanksgiving Square for our next clue
7. She wrote Mary Had a Little Lamb, and was a major force in making Thanksgiving a national holiday. Go by Thanksgiving Square and get your picture in front of her quote on a column. Aunt Karen got us the name of the person we were seeking Sarah Josepha Hale. We looked all around that square. As we looked, we saw lots of famous sayings. We saw lots of historical information about Thanksgiving. But no column with exactly what we needed. Many teams converged on the square. All looking perplexed. I went inside the information center to ask if there were any columns with quotes on them. Turns out the column was across the street near the post office. We were followed by a slew of people. The quote? "There is a moral value in counting our blessings collectively" I am guessing that many people were collectively counting their blessings to have that clue solved. This was the second race where we got tied up trying to find things near Thanksgiving Square.
Our last stop in the downtown area was for this clue
2. Get your picture with la llarga nit. We knew (thanks to Driti again) that we were heading to the Nasher Sculpture Museum (1627 Pacific)However, we did not know what the statue looked like. The photos online were glowing in the dark and it was bright and sunny outside. There is a fee to go inside the museum, so we knew it had to be outside somewhere. Fortunately there was a team taking a picture right when we got to the entrance. It is a light! Up on a pole just in front of the museum. A statue of a seated person that is lit in the evenings.
Once we made our way back to the Uptown area we only had two clues remaining. As luck would have it we were able to catch the McKinney Trolley for about a half a mile (public transportation is allowed on the race). As you can see from the photo, I was very pleased to be in air conditioning and off of my feet for a few minutes. I did feel badly for the people we sat near as I am sure our aroma was not pleasant.
Our next clue was fairly easy.
5. It’s a term you could use for a left-handed pitcher in baseball. Get your picture with a restaurant that goes by his name. I came up with Southpaw (being lefthanded my entire life) and Jonathan's parents got us the addres 3227 McKinney Ave. Even with the address we struggled a little with finding it. It was right next door to Frankie's bar and Grill.
Our last stop was right next to the end of the race
4. This restaurant is named after the the town famed for its violin makers. Stradivarius and Amati were a couple. Get your pictures in front of it. Cremona, Italy is the famous town and my nephew Wesley helped us with the location. (2704 Worthington)
We ran the block back to the Gingerman and the finish line.
Official time 2 hours and 21 minutes.
Total distance traveled 5 miles.
We finished 14th out of 153 teams.
We decided to celebrate by heading down the block to Jakes Hamburgers where we treated ourselves to a beer, a burger and some fried pickles. We debriefed our advenutre and reminisced about our previous races.
Oh, and Jonathan is offically fired from taking photos in future races.
To read about some of our other races check out these blogs (both written by Jonathan):
http://themav211.blogspot.com/
http://adventuresinwallaceworld.blogspot.com/
