First order of business was one of the GUR directors rolling 2 dice to determine how many tic-tic-toe items we would have to collect (5 minimum). 7, OK, that sounds reasonable, I guess?
Our final GUR clue sheet was wrapped in a huge wad of cellophane (no red ribbon though), so John got out his pocket knife and went to work. Inside the cellophane was a little box containing the clue sheet - in pieces, nice! We spent a couple minutes assembling it, trying to make sure any key sections of text were readable.
There wasn't a lot of location info to work with immediately, but Sheila helped us locate a couple streets and it became clear we needed to return to the area south of False Creek. This time our "bus test" on Burrard worked out great, and soon we were motoring south. And this time we passed Kip and Dave as they were running over the bridge. Almost got a picture of them but missed...
My knee was officially a problem. We got to the location of the CP7 clue pick-up with me trying to run but mostly hobbling. Argh. Well, all we can do is try. Expectations were not too high, but there was a lot of race left to go.
Here is our CP7 clue:
Happily, Richard and Chris were there at the same time and they immediately saw some writing amid the sparkles. We verified that it looked like "DARK TABLE" and put our crew to work on that question.
Oh look, a grassy hill - we could use it for one of the tic-tac-toe items. The tic-tac-toe turned out to be one square from each of the local GUR races this year, except as a video with each of us appearing for at least 5 seconds and doing the challenge. Fun! Except - red socks in Vancouver, really? :)
Rolling down the hill, with (much needed) assistance from Dave partway down:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pX_8hpaV0ds
We followed Kip and Dave over to the area of another checkpoint where Richard and Chris were looking around. They started running west, while I wasn't going anyway on my knee until I knew for sure what was going on. Soon they all figured out that we should try the storage facility behind me and look for room 2152. Sure enough, the lady behind the desk was ready to point us upstairs to the storage rooms. Fun surprise.
The fun ended there, because the challenge was putting one teammate in one of 2 coffins, covering him/her with hissing cockroches and a couple snakes, and closing the lid! John and I had already let the other 2 teams go ahead since I wasn't running so good, and now that seemed like an excellent decision. Dave was not so excited about this.
Richard "taking one for the team":
John followed the other two to find out what they needed to do while the person in the coffin waited. Scooping sugar with a tiny spoon, it turned out:
I had the best experience, getting to listen to Dave talk from inside the coffin, still on the phone. Eventually he let us know that the cockroaches were starting to crawl up his face, and the animal handlers told him politely that the best thing would be if he shut his mouth now...
John gave me the option and I now owe him more than ever:
On my way to the sugar scooping, Chris and I noticed a cockroach on the loose. Hmm, hope they got all of those back.
I scooped as fast as I could, and John was a trooper until I came back. Yikes!! Hope they got all of those off:
Well, that certainly was memorable!
Back a couple blocks where we just were, for a neat climbing challenge that was obviously all John and I'm guessing he had more fun with this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBG2UscNwcI
Our crew was still working on solving several checkpoints, as it was another set of difficult GUR final clues. No problem, we had our next destination - Dark Table on 4th Avenue. Up on 4th Ave, we had just started west when a bus showed up. Sweet! My knee was happy to sprint for a few seconds in return for sitting on a bus over the next hill. That was lucky. We got off the bus right next to where Kip and Dave were taking a photo, hi guys!
At the Dark Table we had an interesting challenge of being in total darkness, feeling around to learn a table setting, then coming back out to copy it exactly. John had excellent "noticing" skills and I added one key detail with the discovery of a napkin, and we got it on the first try. Very cool.
Richard and Chris also nailed it, nicely done.
Now for the dilemma of the day - there were 2 checkpoints still to be solved. Our 3 teams discussed, checked out bus options for going back east, and debated what to do next. Kip and Dave took off running east while we went with Richard and Chris to the closest bus stop where we could catch an express bus. I had an easy decision - I couldn't run that far, so a bus was the only realistic option.
In the meantime, another tic-tac-toe video (maple leaves from the Toronto race):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZeogLwvd51I
Sheila and I focused on the checkpoint with boardgame pieces in the clue, and I even walked into a toy store to see if we might get (really, really) lucky with that kind of guess. We watched for buses. Suddenly Sheila told me that the crew had solved it! Even more amazing, the address was 2 blocks from where we were standing. We were pretty excited.
Drexoll Games had a big area in the very back where they had staged 8 hay bales. Each had one needle in it somewhere, attached to a small black plastic string. We picked one bale, Richard and Chris picked another, and we got to work looking for our needles. Some of the hay had prickers in it, so not only did it hurt a little sometimes, we'd think we had found a needle but we would be wrong.
Here is where we probably should have given up pretty quickly. Unfortunately that's just not in our nature. We had a lot of success in the Urban Challenge series by being tenacious. Two years in a row at a GUR finals race, we would have done a lot better by letting something go.
So we searched the whole dang hay bale, no luck. The funniest part was listening to Chris tell someone on the phone over and over that he was LITERALLY looking for a needle in a haystack. Made me giggle every time. We worked on it for probably 25 minutes, finally coming to the conclusion we should have started with - this doesn't make sense. We have to leave. So close yet so far.
Frustration...
On the bright side, we learned that the crew (with Dave's help) had solved the final difficult clue, yay! We also somehow managed another bus along 4th Avenue. Back on the move.
We found a gym where we were led in to meet a hypnotist. We played along, listening and pretending to act calm and relaxed. Well, John probably wasn't pretending. He's just like that. Obviously he was the one she picked to be "hypnotized", so I read some text to him instructing him to untie his shoe when she tugged on her ear.
3..2..1.. and you're awake, John. The lady kept talking, subtly pulling on her earlobe a couple times. John stood there grinning. OK, either you're really in a trance or you were just zoning out, although actually he just didn't see her do it (his story later). I made eyes at him to untie his shoe, but that didn't work either.
Trying again - "when she PULLS her EAR you will UNTIE your SHOE" - 3..2..1.. and you're awake. This time he got it! Phew, that was even longer than intended. But we got it eventually!
I guess I'm not really the Best Hypnotist in the World, no matter what she says.
Sheila had been hard at work with the bus question, directing us up to Broadway in the hopes of catching one that went all the way across to the east. It looked like we were going to get really lucky once again, but the first bus didn't stop - an Express bus at a non-Express stop, dang it.
So we started running. My knee was doing better after all the breaks, so we were actually running with some velocity that didn't involve limping anymore, that was nice. Another bus blew by - another Express! This time we were closing in on a big cross street where there was an Express stop, and the bus stopped for a couple red lights on the way so we were able to catch up. The driver apparently had noticed us and said something like "hey you made it!"
We were now watching the clock, with a 6 pm time limit looming. We would try to get as many of the remaining CP's as we could...
At least the trip east went quickly once we were on board the bus. After getting off, we covered one more tic-tac-toe video by juggling peaches, although we decided later that we were probably both supposed to complete the challenge so we didn't count this as one of our 7:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pq0M8Y-uv8A
Just down the hill to a parking lot where, HEY WHOA, lady's got a gun! Ally from GUR came around a vehicle holding a pellet gun and looking like she meant business. Sheila, I'll call you back.
We took turns shooting cans of soda, trying to knock 3 into a box behind the sawhorse. For each shot that didn't finish the task, one of us had to run around to the front of the building to retrieve another pellet and a couple cans of soda. John started out shooting but eventually took over the running duty so I got to try my hand with the firearm.
Neither of us was particularly good at this task, but it was entertaining and we finished eventually:
Here is our attempt at a video with "wind blowing in our hair" (what there is of it, in my case) for the tic-tac-toe:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZfXY4O8o-Gk
A couple blocks away we found the Sin Bin Sports Grill where we had to do a couple quite strange things. John searched through a pie with his face looking for an M&M while I was perched on his back. He might have been faster, but the pie was apparently yummy so he had to eat some of it? Just a strange photo to show for it:
Then I got into a machine that blows money bills around (fake ones, too bad) and captured between $250 and $300, I think. I had as much time as I wanted to get it right, so that worked out OK.
John filmed it for fun:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU3FZQyutRM
Ah, OK, this is a checkpoint about sin, so the first part was gluttony and the second half was greed, got it!
While we were there, we worked on more of the tic-tac-toe. The lady behind the bar was ready to sell us a couple shots of rum. Bacardi rum, actually tasty! John doesn't like alcohol AT ALL but he was game to try. If you watch only one video in this post, watch this one, and stay for the ending:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=066YVFPn43Q
Cheers! (Another tic-tac-toe item) (and I hated leaving the beer behind but we were running out of time!):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWrYB2PErLk
One last one at the bar - ringing a bell:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpLl2_FODy8
Well, that was entertaining!
We ran over to Main Street, hopped on a bus for a couple blocks (yes, another bus happened to show up!), and got off right in front of our next CP location. If you could remove the part in the middle of the race where we spent 25 minutes on a checkpoint we had to "bale" on, and the beginning where I couldn't run at all, the rest of our race was dang smooth.
We walked into the library, whispering loudly to each other to try to find the volunteer until he heard us and came to our rescue. Hey, my kind of challenge! I had to type a bunch of text without looking at the keyboard. It went great until a bunch of symbols gave me pause and a few flubs, but our final penalty was only 2 minutes so I guess it wasn't too bad. I liked that one.
Even better was the next one - I got to meet Victor! He hung out on my gloved hand while John and I worked together to pick up plastic geckos scattered on the floor. John was blindfolded and wearing long nails to make it more bird-like, while I wore some bird-ish glasses that weren't as easy to see through. I had to direct John to locate and pick up one gecko at a time, then Victor and I would go collect it from him. After 5 of them we were done. I loved chatting with Victor, helping John find the geckos, and getting into a groove with this most excellent task.
Thank you Victor! You are a very cool bird.
That was fun!
Also fun was walking out the front door to see a bus going by (yes, AGAIN), so we ran and caught it for a ride down to the train station. We have never been this lucky with buses in an urban race before and never will be again. My knee sincerely thanks you.
We made quick work of the logic/trivia puzzle at The Party Bazaar, even taking along a slushy to drink afterward, yum.
At the nearby Sky Train station we chatted with Sheila. There was just enough time to get back to the finish line before the course closed. But we had one checkpoint left - Academie Duello swordfighting! We would have loved to go try it, but it would have put us over time for sure (for a 30-minute penalty). Sheila told us that Kip and Dave had won, but 2nd and 3rd place still weren't certain yet.
OK, time to get back, even with the loss of one CP (30 minute penalty also). The "Train to Main" finally showed up, we rode it back, and ran our butts off toward the finish line. I think we passed the Finnsters on the way, but they weren't racing us.
Dave waved us in with a teddy bear to hug for one last tic-tac-toe video in case we needed it - see also some cameos as John didn't stop the video immediately:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LI12791MA8
And... 4th place! Richard and Chris were right behind us for 5th place, with the Finnsters coming in 6th. Missed 3rd place by 8 minutes, but any number of things (and buses) could have changed that in both directions.
Our collection of "stuff" - we got more videos than flyers this time!
Bottle of champagne along with a big check:
What a fun time with all of our friends, fellow racers, GUR staff, volunteers, everyone we met that weekend! We miss y'all already and hope to see you again at future races!
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