I just completed my first urban adventure race. This type of race consists of teams of two solving clues to find checkpoints around a city and either taking a
picture of the checkpoint or performing a dare. My bother-in-law, Jorge, and I teamed up to form an 'official' team while my sister, Deb, and two of
their friends, Felix and Lalitha, tagged along as our support crew, as there are not rules against this sort of help.
While getting 1-day metro passes (use of the T and buses is allowed in this race) some guy tugs on my camelback to get my attention. He asks: "Does it hold lots of water?" I reply: "it does." He asks: "What happens if it breaks?" I reply: "Then I get wet" but add "I've had it for ten years and it hasn't broken." Check-in at the Boston Common was next. To start the race all the teams, about 100, gathered inside a giant square lined out on the grass. The race director then informed us that the square was divided into 4 quadrants, A, B, C, and D. He would then read a multiple choice question aloud and we were to move to the corresponding quadrant for which we thought was the correct answer. Teams answering correctly were then able to go over the a volunteer to get the clue sheet for the checkpoints.
First question: What was Norm's real first name on Cheers? Jorge and I didn't have a clue so we just stayed in the quadrant we were in and got it wrong. Only about 10 teams or so got this one right...Hillary.
Second question: Where was the first Dunkin' Donuts restaurant located? Well again we didn't really know the answer, but we followed the mass of bodies rushing to quadrant four and got the right answer...Quincy. So we were able to go and get our clue sheet. Looking back only about 5 teams were left that didn't answer correctly.
Once getting the clue sheet we were able to join Deb, Felix, and Lalitha to decipher the clues. We decided to try and solve the clues as best we could first before heading out since there was no order to them...we could find the checkpoints in any order we could. I read the clues aloud, Lalitha and Felix searched for names and places using a blackberry, Jorge tried to find streets with his GPS and Deb marked the locations on a map she had printed out. A few were very easy...such as unscrambling a bunch of letters to get JP Licks which is an ice cream place, or Knowing what EMS meant and finding where the Boston store was. Other clues were harder such as finding a statue of some Puritan extremist which turned out to be John Endicott...we got the name from the internet, but couldn't figure out where the statue was.
After about 15-20 minutes of solving the clues the best we could we decided to head off on the route that Deb had marked on the map. We got to the Filene's building were we thought the Endicott statue was and couldn't find it. Deb and Lalitha keep surfing the web for it, Felix walks around the whole block and doesn't see it, Jorge and I ask a street vendor and check out an information map...nothing. So we decide to go off to the next checkpoint....Post Office square, at least we know this location, the clue sheet told us to go there. Deb said she would go the Old State house to see if the Endicott Statue was there while we went to Post Office square. So off Deb went and the rest of us set out towards our next goal. Along the way we pass by chance, Winthrop Square and with a statue in it. We need a picture of John Winthrop's statue so we are all excited to find this by chance since this was another we were having trouble locating on the web. We go up to the statue and it is one of another guy Grant....go figure
.
Off we go again. We arrive at Post Office Square. Here we find the volunteer at the fountain and our dare is to run through the fountain. But the fountain isn't working (Good thing since it wasn't exactly hot out, not a good day to be wet), but Jorge and I run around the dry fountain for the fun of it and get our passport stamped
. Deb meets up with us and we find the next checkpoint right away...a
building with a unicorn on top of it. Deb and Lalitha then need to find a bathroom so Jorge, Felix, and I go off to the next hopeful spot for the Endicott
statue which is some square on Beacon Hill. We get there and can't find the square. The GPS is telling us we are there but there no square of that name.
We call the girls and they have found where a statue of a Revolutionary General that we need is...back on the Common, so we head off to meet them. We get to
the statue and it is of the wrong General
. I look at the picture on the internet and the viewpoint
in the picture is different, so we head off to another side of the park and stumble across a volunteer in front of the statue we need to find but its not the
one in the internet photo....go figure. Anyway at this statue we had to do some push ups and then finish this rhyme...I don't know, but I've been
told....well after a few moments nothing is coming to either of us....our friends can't help with the dares... so I blurt out this profound gem of
wisdom....Eat your ice cream before is gets cold.
At least it rhymed and got us our passport
stamped.
It is now 1 and 1/2 hours into the race and we have found 3 of 12 checkpoints. I declare that we need to stop wandering around on wild goose chases and start going to find the checkpoints that we definitely know where they are. So we head off to one side of the Common to find the Oneida Club plaque honoring the first football team in America. Next we hop on the T to go to the Aquarium to get a picture of a harbor seal. Then back to the T to head down to Newbury St and JP Licks. There our dare is to wait in line, which is out the door and get a scoop of ice cream, or in our case sorbet. We both tried the chocolate sorbet....
. While waiting in line we ask another team where the Endicott statue is. They tell us it
is next to MFA...museum of fine arts. We share that the Winthrop statue is on the corner of Berkley and Marlboro.
After JP Licks it is 3:40. All the dares finish at 3:45, after that you just need to take a picture of the checkpoint to prove you were there. There is a dare at the Endicott statue but we can't get there in 5 minutes to we head off to EMS and get our picture with an orienteering item....we choose a compass. From there Jorge and I walk to the Endicott statue via a street we think that a sculpture we need is. The others take the T to the Endicott. We find this other item...a modern sculpture entitled 'Tent Bay' in front of the Whole Foods store and ask a woman watching her kids play to take our picture...we both need to be in it to prove we were there as a team. Then we find the Endicott statue across the street from the back side of MFA which is under construction. No one is around so we sit down to wait for the others...we beat them here. Several sketchy people wander by so I don't want to ask them to take our picture. As we are waiting, I start cracking up laughing. It just dawns on me what I said for the rhyme 2 hours ago.
After Deb comes and takes our picture, we get back on the T and head back towards the Common. Jorge and I head off to find the statue of John Winthrop...the first governor of Massachussetts Bay Colony and founder of First Church in Boston. The others go off to the last checkpoint and finish to wait for us. We find the statue in front of the Church, help a blind man find the Lutheran church across the street
,
and ask a man sweeping the walk in front of his house to take our picture. Then it is off to the Sweetwater Cafe for the final dare. We have decided not to
find a rose garden that we need since we cannot seem to figure out where it might be...originally we thought Cambridge, then the other team at JP Licks told us
the Financial District, and Felix was recently coming up with the waterfront. The volunteer at the ice cream place told us that the race director would be at
the finish until 5:30 and it was now about 5 so we wanted to officially finish.
At the Sweetwater Cafe
our final dare was to put together a jigsaw puzzle. Upon completion our
finish time for the race was 4 hours 59 minutes. There were still about 10 teams that hadn't finished yet, so we didn't finish last. The race winner
happened by while we were putting the puzzle together and we chatted. He finished in 2 hours
, told us
that the rose garden was indeed over at the waterfront...we had actually been near it while at the aquarium, and informed us that he used to be a bike
messenger for a few years, so he knew where most of the locations were. We showed the race director our photos to get the rest of the passport stamps and he
told us exactly where the garden was. The five of us have a fun day wandering around and finished it off with dinner at Panang, a Malaysian restaurant.
David
While getting 1-day metro passes (use of the T and buses is allowed in this race) some guy tugs on my camelback to get my attention. He asks: "Does it hold lots of water?" I reply: "it does." He asks: "What happens if it breaks?" I reply: "Then I get wet" but add "I've had it for ten years and it hasn't broken." Check-in at the Boston Common was next. To start the race all the teams, about 100, gathered inside a giant square lined out on the grass. The race director then informed us that the square was divided into 4 quadrants, A, B, C, and D. He would then read a multiple choice question aloud and we were to move to the corresponding quadrant for which we thought was the correct answer. Teams answering correctly were then able to go over the a volunteer to get the clue sheet for the checkpoints.
First question: What was Norm's real first name on Cheers? Jorge and I didn't have a clue so we just stayed in the quadrant we were in and got it wrong. Only about 10 teams or so got this one right...Hillary.
Second question: Where was the first Dunkin' Donuts restaurant located? Well again we didn't really know the answer, but we followed the mass of bodies rushing to quadrant four and got the right answer...Quincy. So we were able to go and get our clue sheet. Looking back only about 5 teams were left that didn't answer correctly.
Once getting the clue sheet we were able to join Deb, Felix, and Lalitha to decipher the clues. We decided to try and solve the clues as best we could first before heading out since there was no order to them...we could find the checkpoints in any order we could. I read the clues aloud, Lalitha and Felix searched for names and places using a blackberry, Jorge tried to find streets with his GPS and Deb marked the locations on a map she had printed out. A few were very easy...such as unscrambling a bunch of letters to get JP Licks which is an ice cream place, or Knowing what EMS meant and finding where the Boston store was. Other clues were harder such as finding a statue of some Puritan extremist which turned out to be John Endicott...we got the name from the internet, but couldn't figure out where the statue was.
After about 15-20 minutes of solving the clues the best we could we decided to head off on the route that Deb had marked on the map. We got to the Filene's building were we thought the Endicott statue was and couldn't find it. Deb and Lalitha keep surfing the web for it, Felix walks around the whole block and doesn't see it, Jorge and I ask a street vendor and check out an information map...nothing. So we decide to go off to the next checkpoint....Post Office square, at least we know this location, the clue sheet told us to go there. Deb said she would go the Old State house to see if the Endicott Statue was there while we went to Post Office square. So off Deb went and the rest of us set out towards our next goal. Along the way we pass by chance, Winthrop Square and with a statue in it. We need a picture of John Winthrop's statue so we are all excited to find this by chance since this was another we were having trouble locating on the web. We go up to the statue and it is one of another guy Grant....go figure
.
Off we go again. We arrive at Post Office Square. Here we find the volunteer at the fountain and our dare is to run through the fountain. But the fountain isn't working (Good thing since it wasn't exactly hot out, not a good day to be wet), but Jorge and I run around the dry fountain for the fun of it and get our passport stamped
. Deb meets up with us and we find the next checkpoint right away...a
building with a unicorn on top of it. Deb and Lalitha then need to find a bathroom so Jorge, Felix, and I go off to the next hopeful spot for the Endicott
statue which is some square on Beacon Hill. We get there and can't find the square. The GPS is telling us we are there but there no square of that name.
We call the girls and they have found where a statue of a Revolutionary General that we need is...back on the Common, so we head off to meet them. We get to
the statue and it is of the wrong General. I look at the picture on the internet and the viewpoint
in the picture is different, so we head off to another side of the park and stumble across a volunteer in front of the statue we need to find but its not the
one in the internet photo....go figure. Anyway at this statue we had to do some push ups and then finish this rhyme...I don't know, but I've been
told....well after a few moments nothing is coming to either of us....our friends can't help with the dares... so I blurt out this profound gem of
wisdom....Eat your ice cream before is gets cold. At least it rhymed and got us our passport
stamped.
It is now 1 and 1/2 hours into the race and we have found 3 of 12 checkpoints. I declare that we need to stop wandering around on wild goose chases and start going to find the checkpoints that we definitely know where they are. So we head off to one side of the Common to find the Oneida Club plaque honoring the first football team in America. Next we hop on the T to go to the Aquarium to get a picture of a harbor seal. Then back to the T to head down to Newbury St and JP Licks. There our dare is to wait in line, which is out the door and get a scoop of ice cream, or in our case sorbet. We both tried the chocolate sorbet....
. While waiting in line we ask another team where the Endicott statue is. They tell us it
is next to MFA...museum of fine arts. We share that the Winthrop statue is on the corner of Berkley and Marlboro.
After JP Licks it is 3:40. All the dares finish at 3:45, after that you just need to take a picture of the checkpoint to prove you were there. There is a dare at the Endicott statue but we can't get there in 5 minutes to we head off to EMS and get our picture with an orienteering item....we choose a compass. From there Jorge and I walk to the Endicott statue via a street we think that a sculpture we need is. The others take the T to the Endicott. We find this other item...a modern sculpture entitled 'Tent Bay' in front of the Whole Foods store and ask a woman watching her kids play to take our picture...we both need to be in it to prove we were there as a team. Then we find the Endicott statue across the street from the back side of MFA which is under construction. No one is around so we sit down to wait for the others...we beat them here. Several sketchy people wander by so I don't want to ask them to take our picture. As we are waiting, I start cracking up laughing. It just dawns on me what I said for the rhyme 2 hours ago.
After Deb comes and takes our picture, we get back on the T and head back towards the Common. Jorge and I head off to find the statue of John Winthrop...the first governor of Massachussetts Bay Colony and founder of First Church in Boston. The others go off to the last checkpoint and finish to wait for us. We find the statue in front of the Church, help a blind man find the Lutheran church across the street
,
and ask a man sweeping the walk in front of his house to take our picture. Then it is off to the Sweetwater Cafe for the final dare. We have decided not to
find a rose garden that we need since we cannot seem to figure out where it might be...originally we thought Cambridge, then the other team at JP Licks told us
the Financial District, and Felix was recently coming up with the waterfront. The volunteer at the ice cream place told us that the race director would be at
the finish until 5:30 and it was now about 5 so we wanted to officially finish.
At the Sweetwater Cafe
our final dare was to put together a jigsaw puzzle. Upon completion our
finish time for the race was 4 hours 59 minutes. There were still about 10 teams that hadn't finished yet, so we didn't finish last. The race winner
happened by while we were putting the puzzle together and we chatted. He finished in 2 hours, told us
that the rose garden was indeed over at the waterfront...we had actually been near it while at the aquarium, and informed us that he used to be a bike
messenger for a few years, so he knew where most of the locations were. We showed the race director our photos to get the rest of the passport stamps and he
told us exactly where the garden was. The five of us have a fun day wandering around and finished it off with dinner at Panang, a Malaysian restaurant.
David
