In honor of Sheila's Birthday, as well as a sweet deal on Groupon, I took part in LA Challenge Nation this past Saturday. It was definitely a fun and memorable experience, and I am definitely going to participate next year. The event itself is based on the show "the Amazing Race" with a few differences. In teams of two or more, you are asked to solve 11 out of 12 clues that lead you to different landmarks throughout downtown LA. With a camera in hand, and only using public transportation (aka the Bus) or walking, you needed to figure out the location of the land mark and take a picture of your entire team with the answer.
I was surprised at how challenging some of the clues were. You definitely needed to read each clue carefully, and even though I had written down nearly all of the landmarks within walking distance of our starting point, it really did not help. Some of the clues were straightforward (Take a photo with anyone with a badge). Others, not so much (The oldest house in LA?) Honestly, I don't know how a team could solve some of the clues without the help of a smartphone (iphone, android, blackberry).
The five of us had a great time wandering around downtown. Despite growing up in "LA," I was amazed at how much of downtown LA I had never seen before. I'm tempted to spend a weekend just walking around downtown and exploring. Since we were so focused on finding the clues and finishing the race in a reasonable time, it really prevented us from getting more than a superficial view of the landmarks. It makes me wonder if those teams on the Amazing Race actually get a chance to explore the cities they visit after they check in to their pit stop for the day. That would suck if they didn't have that opportunity.
Another really fun aspect about the challenge was the costumes. This was optional. You were by no means required to dress up, but in fact, a large majority did. Our team was "Dora's Explora's." Sheila was Dora, I was Diego, Nina went as Swiper the Fox, Afarin wore animal print, and the best was Jess, who wore a furry monkey costume that belonged to Nina's brother. We, especially Jess, got plenty of looks while we ran around downtown, which made the day so much more memorable.
Other groups had really clever costumes and I'm smiling as I write this thinking about them, specifically my two favorites
1. Team 2nd Amendment- For those of you, like me, who don't know what amendment that is, it's "the right to bear arms." It was a group of five guys who had fuzzy bear arms. Very clever.
2. Charlie [Sheen]'s Angel's- Three girls that wore fedoras and cubavera shirts like Charlie Sheen. They also had things like "winning" "warlock" and "troll" written on their faces. I think it was Nina who asked them why they didn't go as his "goddesses." They said that it would require that they dress like sluts and they had too many other reasons to dress like that anyways. I love the people you meet at events like this.
We finished in 61st place in about 2 hours and 30ish minutes. But just FYI, the first place team finished in 1 hour and 30ish minutes. Since my number was 325 when I checked in, there was at least over that many people who participated. When we left, people were still finishing the race and 100 teams had finished.
