Great urban race

Well, we just finished the Great Urban Race, Madison Edition. It was a really great day for a race. 75 degrees and sunny at noon when it started. The race is like a big scavenger hunt, or similar to the Amazing Race, without the international travel. The race started at a campus-area sports bar, and the went all over the downtown Madison area. Our team name was the salad spinners.

At the beginning, all the teams got a clue envelope. When they say go, you open your envelope and start solving clues. There are 12 clues. You get to skip one. Each clue has some sort of trick to it. Some have anagrams, others have riddles or word puzzles, or some kind of clue that helps you figure out a location somewhere in the city. Then you have to go to that location. Once there, you perform a task, get a brochure or picture, and move on. Some of the tasks we did this year were to hit a volleyball back and forth 10 times, and pump up a bike tire, and throw coffee beans into a cup. There are also pictures you had to take along the way. We had to take a picture of Emily riding a stranger's bike, take a picture with a guy who has a mustache, and take a picture with a person in uniform.

The most tricky clue was that there was a clue in the classified ads in the paper. We looked it up and found it, and it said Midwest clay project, and then below that there was a paragraph: "In 1953, a skinny errand boy (me) stands in front of a building at 1 west Wilson street, staring up at the building with with the words Wisconsin State Office Building over the door. It was as if the building was the place that Wisconsin will always do business. I was wrong."

So we went to the building mentioned, and it was locked. The was nobody anywhere nearby, and couldn't figure out what to do. Then we saw an elderly man walking with a walker and we thought, "yes, that's the skinny errand boy!" Then we went to him and asked him if he was the skinny errand boy. He looked confused, and asked us if we were lost. We realized that wasn't it, so we kept looking. We then realized that the paragraph had nothing to do with the clue. We looked up the Midwest clay project, and found out it was a scripting studio on Willy street, and we were completely off track.

In the end, we finished just over 2 hours, and we think we finished in the top ten. We go back tonight to find out where we ended up placing. I'll try to update later. Some of our pics are attached below.

Update: we finished 8th!