Great Urban Race – Washington DC

This post isn’t going to be for the 365 Photo Challenge…a little off topic but I wanted to share my story somewhere.

My sister and I particpated in the Great Urban Race on Saturday in Washington DC.  You get 12 clues and have to run or use public transportation around the city to get a picture (or whatever they want) at the clue locations.  You didn’t have to do the clues in order so I’ll just list them in the order we ended up doing them in.  Part of the race is that you can dress up and then they have a little costume contest after the race.  Our team name was the Peeing Pooches and we  dressed as dogs and were going to pee on everything in our pictures. 

We had a really hard time driving around the city so we decided that we weren’t even going to drive our car to the race location, so we took the subway.  Once you figure out the subway system it really is quite easy and definately the way to get around!

Clue 1: Find a DC organization whos mission is to “empower homeless and low-income women to cliam thier highest quality of life by offering a broad sprectrum of services and advocacy in an atmosphere of dignity and respect”  Choose one of the three items below and deliver it to the guy with a guitar here: a new 42-54 D or DD bra, a new shower vinyl liner, a new set of twin sheets.  You must get a brochure after delivering your item to receive credit for this clue.

Clue 2: Return to the finish with one of the following items: a toothpick with an american flag attached to it or a wooden popsicle stick.

Clue 3: Detor (choose one): take a picture of 12 or more real people with at least 2 wearing  a shirt that clearly says “Washington DC” or 2 wearing a Washington Nationals shirt.

We knew there was a CVS pharmacy right below our hotel so Emily ran into CVS and got a shower liner and a popsicle.  Earlier that morning, we had bought Washington DC shirts, so I ran up into the hotel and got our shirts for clue 3.  We then saw a tour group that had a ton of people so we put on our shirts and asked this man to take our picture with them in the background:

Clue 4: Take a picture of all teammates in front of the specific statue of “The Philosopher” show on the right (then there was a picture)

I had my husband, Brad, on the phone helping by doing google searches and he could not find this one at all.  While I was running out of the hotel looking for Emily to come out of CVS I spotted the statue off in the distance!  We got soo lucky with that!  So after we got our picture with our shirts on, we ran over to the statue and got our first peeing picture!

Clue 5: Victor Hugo wrote that genious and this were “one and the same.” Find the commemorative spot that makrs where “the Park Bench Statesman” would wait for this.  Take a picture of both teammates sitting on the bench with the bronze plaque set in granite block clearly visible in the picture.

We figured out this was the Earuth Bench of Inspiration.  It was funny because a couple teams were searchng this park for this and we walked past this guy and he pointed and told us that it was over where this lady was sitting.  All the other benches were unoccupied and she had to be sitting on the bench we wanted.  So we ran over and asked if we could sit on the bench with her.  She was all flustered and moved out of the way. 

Clue 6: The Obamas decided to have a slumber party last night and were trying to figure out who to invite to the White House. Malia, being the older child, choose to invite double the amount of Sasha, her younger sister.  Sasha invited an odd primary number of friends, the next one up from her age.  Barack said it was unfair for only the girls to have guests over so he had a few of his buddies join the party, the other living presidents to be specific.  Michelle then felt left out so she invited up her girl friends, Hillary, Condoleeza and Sarah to come by as well.  Then she thought about it and unvited Sarah.  Grandma Robinson decided to invite all 69 of her Chicago friends to show them the White House.  If each guest and each Obama/Robinson slept in thier own room, how many rooms in the White House were Unoccupied that night?  Take a picture with the White House clearly visible and the answer of the above clue show by teammates holding up the proper number of fingers.

Well, we actually got a 30 minute penality for this one since we didn’t have the correct answer.  We thought the answer was 25.  If you’re reading this and you got the right answer…tell me what it is!  I’m curious where our math went wrong.

Clue 7: Solve the following puzzle assuming the longest word is basketballs, the sixth word is ESPN and the last word is picture.  After you solve this puzzle, do what it says. (Then there was a puzzle).  It said: Find the Super Shot in ESPN Zone and take a picture of one teammate shotting one of the basketballs with super shot clearly visible in the picture.

We had planned out the location of ESPN Zone because I knew that previous races have gone there and one similar things, so we quickly went there and got our picture.

Clue 8: Unscramble the following words and take a picture of all teammates in front of this sculpture. GOINCHUCR RIDEPS

Emily unscrambled it and got CROUCHING SPIDER.  Brad found that it was a statue and gave us the location.  We at first thought it was another sculputre on the same corner but then quickly found the right one.

Clue 9: Take a picture of all teammates in front of a real Bombardier in he National Musuem of American Indian.

This one was funny because as we entered the security guard beside the metal detectors apparently said “It will be 5 dollars because you are wearing that headgear” Well I only heard “It will be 5 dollars” and immediately told Emily to get the money out of the bag!  Then the lady was like “No I’m just kidding.”  It was funny because I totally missed the joke and the lady probably thought I was stupid!

Clue 10: Comedians are waiting to judge your best joke.  find the venue in Arlington where T-Rexx is scheduled to perform later tonight.  If your joke makes the judge laugh, you’ll get a ticket (return to the finish with this) and the clue is complete.  If your joke does not make the judge laugh you must perform another joke.

So after the Indian Museum we caught the subway back to Virginia and found this comedy club pretty easily.  Emily got up on stage and told her joke:  “Why did the Amish lady get kicked out the the Amish community?  Because she had too many men at night (meninite)”  The guy chuckled a little and gave us the tickets.  haha

Clue 11: Take the short lesson at Combat Sports International.  After successfully completing this lesson, the staff will give you a flyer.  You must return with this card.

The Comedy club was right next door to this, so we quickly ran over, took off our shoes and did 10 push-ups, 20 sit-ups, 30 squats, and some kicks and punches.  It was quick and easy!

We skipped Clue 12: Find the Roslyn Ledo Pizza.  Go directly to the buffet table, take one strand of spghetti and take picture of both teammates eating it “Lady and the Tramp” style.

I wish we wouldn’t have skipped this one expecally because we were dogs!

While waiting for the subway, we ran into another team dressed as pigs!

Anyways, that was our race!  We arn’t sure what place we came in yet.  The results will be posted tommorrow…then I’ll update this 🙂

Update:  We just found out that we came in 100 out of 331.  So not bad!  haha