Scavenger Dash

About a month or so ago, I got the idea in my head that Landon and I needed a day together.  He has been working like crazy and it had been a while since we'd done anything fun, so I decided that February 11th, his half birthday, sounded like as good of a day as any.  I then began to rack my brain to figure out what to do.  I saw a few things on Groupon that looked fun but none of them worked out and everything I thought of just sounded kinda blah.  Then, one day, I was searching the internet to see what was going on in Houston on that date and the Scavenger Dash came up.  It was perfect--it's the closest I'll probably ever be able to get Landon to The Amazing Race.  So, I signed us up and my parents agreed to come babysit Aedan for the afternoon. 

On Friday afternoon, about an hour or so before he left work, I emailed Landon and told him about our plans.  He knew I had something planned because I had warned him not to plan anything for that day, but didn't know what.  I was going to just surprise him day of, but the more I thought about it, the more I figured we should maybe have a game plan going in.

So, we spent a relaxing Friday evening at home and then I let him sleep in some on Saturday--he needed some time to catch up on his rest!  While he was sleeping and Aedan was napping, I made this breakfast apple crisp that I thought he would like, but it turned out kind of awful (thanks a lot, Pintrest.  If you see if on my board, don't make it, ha!)  So, after the back up breakfast of Cheerios, we got dressed in our Team Speights gear and gathered up all of our supplies and, when my mom arrived, we headed for downtown.

We dropped a couple of things off in Landon's office and turned his computer on so we'd be ready to go once the race began and then headed down to the Flying Saucer, conveniently located just a couple of blocks from his office.
We checked in as "Team Speights" and then hung out and waited for a bit.  It was an interesting crowd--some were dressed in costume (there was an award for best costume), some looked serious, some were drinking beer and eating a full meal as they waited and looked like they were just there to have fun.

 Neither one of us really said it, but we were there to see how fast we could do it.  And, the fact that it was COLD outside definitely gave us some motivation to run!  We had a quick pre-race meeting with the rules and then the race director told us that at 2 minutes until noon, she would give us a clue as to where to find our envelope with all of our clues for the day.  After we all were gathered around the building on the sidewalk, she shouted that the clues were at Hermann Square.  We had google and google maps pulled up on our phones and quickly looked it up--but then ended up following a pair of girls (the girls who ended up coming in 2nd place) who knew right where it was.  We passed them about halfway there though and were the first ones to get to the clues, which was fun!  Then, we booked it back to his office (definitely running at Landon's pace and not mine, ha!).  It was a little funny being there, all dressed in race gear, while his co-workers were there, working.  But, at least we were having a lot more fun than that! :)

And, we got lucky--as we were in the elevator headed to his office, we noticed that one of the clues said to take a picture in an elevator!

Once we got to his floor, Landon made a 2nd copy of the clues.  Then, he looked some up on the internet while  I looked some up on my phone and "solved" the ones you had to do with pen and paper.  As we figured out all the places the clues were sending us, Landon marked them on the map he had printed out before we left.  Then, he planned out our route and we were off!  All that was left to do was get to the places and then back to the Flying Saucer as fast as possible.

 Before we left his office, we scoured the kitchen looking for a lime or lemon because one of the clues said we had to bring one back to the finish line, but no luck.  We ended up "borrowing" one later in the race from Niko Niko's by the dog park--great find by Landon!!

We were able to to talk one of his co-workers into taking a jumping picture for us though and before we left the building, we had 2 of the 12 clues marked off! (And, this time I managed to get my feet off the ground in the first shot!)

 

From there, we were able to get quite a few of the clues marked off right around his office.  Right off the bat, Landon noticed the dancing woman statue from the picture he had seen on the internet and I jumped in for the picture.

 

Then, right across the street, we saw a fountain and one of the clues was a picture of you planking by a public fountain.  Landon's turn.

Then, after a quick glance at the map, we headed in the direction of the aquarium, looking for the shark bench.  Luckily, it wasn't hard to spot.

Next, we found the huge cello and I got to pretend I still played the cello. :)

 

And, that was the end of things close by, ha!  So, we took off to the other side of downtown, looking for a dog carved out of wood from a really old tree that fell during Hurricane Ike.  But, right before we got there, we got super lucky and spotted a group crowded around a car--presumably one with a license plate beginning with the letter "M", since that was one of our clues.  We detoured slightly over to the front of the car (thank goodness the owners of the car didn't come out while we were all crowded around their car taking pictures with it, ha!) and snapped a picture.

Then, we ran across the street, spotted the wooden dog and took our picture petting him!  Then, it was time for our longest run--all the way down to Discovery Green.

We zig-zagged through downtown so we never really had to stop at any lights (one of the perks of Landon working downtown--he knew little things like that!) and when we saw the George R. Brown, we quickly spotted the race workers standing on top of this hill and ran over to them.  We had two "challenges" we had to complete and this was our first one.  We were handed a golf ball and a little golf tee and had to use one hand to balance the ball on the tee and walk up the hill and back.  It wasn't super easy, but didn't take us too long, which was nice.  I was afraid I was going to drop the ball 20 times and Landon would have to be standing there waiting on me!  When we finished and the guy was signing our sheet, we also learned that we were only the second team to make it to this checkpoint, which was very encouraging--and make us want to hurry up and get to the next place!  I didn't even think to take a picture here--we weren't worried about documenting the day, except for the places we had to for the race, I guess.

At this point, we only had 2 places left to get to and were thinking, if we could time it right, we might ride one of the trains for a block or two.  So, we headed in the direction of the Celtic Gardens.  When we saw a train, we sped up a little, but it turned out to be going the opposite direction.  But then, we spotted the train we needed to jump on a block or so down and proceeded to bust out into an all out sprint to make it there in time!  Landon was faster than me and I was afraid he'd make it to the train and I'd be left behind (even though I know he wouldn't get on without me :)), but that fleeting thought was motivation enough to make me run faster.  Luckily, we both made it and took a little rest and water break for a couple of minutes on the train.  Then, we jumped off and ran the last couple of blocks to our last "challenge" checkpoint. 

We didn't know what we were going to have to do at the Celtic Gardens, but it turned out to be awful--Landon is my hero for doing it!  He had to eat a plate full of 15 saltines, without any water.  Now, this may not sound bad, but we'd been running around for an hour at this point, breathing in cold air, and saltines are SALTY--they completely dried out your mouth.  I was sitting there coughing just from the air I'd been breathing in as we ran.  He ate them super fast--two to three at a time--and then we got our sheet signed and ran off to our last place--the YMCA, which was a few blocks away, in the direction of the Flying Saucer, where we needed to end up.

At the YMCA, the guy at the front desk pointed us in the right direction (up the stairs) and we ran into the room--only to be met with a long line!  The workers in this room didn't seem to understand the fact that we were in a hurry and were standing around chit-chatting.  Kinda frustrating.  But, we were nice and tried to kindly hurry them along so that Landon could get his blindfold and we could complete the task.  I had to lead him around the room with my voice to five bowls of candy and he had to grab a piece of candy from each one.  He couldn't hear me in the beginning but we got that worked out and went through it without too much trouble.  We turned in our candy, got our last clue signed off on our sheet and ran out of there!  Again, no pictures--we were just trying to get it done. :)

We ran out of there and headed in the direction of the Flying Saucer--we weren't super far away at this point, but not super close either.  So, again, if a train worked out, we were going to jump on it for a block or two.  And, we got super lucky again--one basically pulled up right in front of us, just in time for us to get on.  We rode it a for 2 blocks and then jumped off and ran down t o the finish.  We thought, based on how long we had been out, that we might have a chance at placing (which neither of us had ever done in anywhere real!) and we knew there was a team of guys that we had been seeing around the course that looked like they were headed to the finish too.  So, we didn't want to get beat out of something at the last minute because we lollygagged to the finish.  Neither of us said this, but after talking later, we were both definitely thinking the same thing, ha!

When we got there we ran inside (which was kind of a funny experience, since everyone in there was just enjoying a nice drink on a leisurely Saturday afternoon as we bust through the doors) and the waitress pointed us upstairs.  When we got there, there was no one there.  Weird.  We kinda looked at each other.  Then, after a few seconds, the race director walks out and looks at us and says something to the effect of "oh my gosh (but substitute that with a few choice words)--you're DONE?"  We said yes and then looked at each other.  We noticed there were no names written on the sheet yet, so I asked her what place we were and we were first!  We both just started laughing and gave each other a little high fiveo--it was SO unexpected we didn't even know what to say!  Neither of us had placed in anything, much less been first.  As we caught our breath, we showed her all of our proof, she wrote our time down (1 hour and 23 minutes) and then we grabbed some water and sat down at a table to rest for a minute and soak it in.  Considering this will probably be our one time to win anything EVER, and since it was so out of the blue, we enjoyed a moment just to relish in it. :)

Ten minutes later the two girls that we followed to Hermann Square at the very beginning of the race came running up the stairs, and a few minutes later the third place girls came in.  We all sat and chatted a little bit and then about 15 minutes later a lot of groups started coming in and that was when we decided it was time go head home and pick up our baby, so we texted my mom to let her know what was going on.  When I planned out our day we definitely weren't planning on coming back for the awards, but we decided to change our plans and pick up Aedan and come back, just for fun.

When we got home we found a sweet, happy baby (who had, thank goodness, taken a long nap while we were gone, since he had a long evening ahead of him!) hanging out with his Mere in the sling.  So cute.  We talked to my mom a little bit and played with Aedan for a little while and then got packed up to head back downtown.

 We got back a few minutes before they began the awards ceremony.  (I don't know what Landon and Aedan were looking at here but their matching faces of surprise crack me up!)  Don't judge us for bringing a baby into a bar, ha.  We felt a little weird about it too! A few minutes after we got there, the race directors got started with the announcements and awards and raffle prizes.(The girls in the fairy wings were the 2nd place team).  They were an interesting couple--we found out that he used to be an accountant and then they started this company and travel around the country putting on these races.  How fun!

They also did a costume contest--the couple of the right, dressed as nerds, won.

  Team Speights family picture--Aedan even had his own shirt.  I couldn't help myself!  We won a free team entry to next year's race, 2 gift cards to the Flying Saucer and 2 water bottles.  Not bad, considering we were just looking for something fun to do on a random Saturday afternoon. :)

After the show was over we hung around and chitchatted for a bit, then ran back by Landon's office for a minute to pick a couple of things up.  Some of his co-workers that were there that morning were still there! Then, we picked up some chinese food for lunch/dinner, drove around for a while to let Aedan get a little nap in and ended up at the church building for a little auction to help the youth group raise money for their summer mission trips.  I had plans for us to head from the auction to the town center for dinner and some live swing music/dancing, but at that point all of us (and especially little Aedan) were ready to head home.  So, we headed home, put him to bed and spent the rest of the evening just relaxing and talking.  

Thank you, Landon, for a wonderful day, full of laughs and memories and unexpected fun and surprises--and the ability to cross something off of your list! :)  I love you!