The Salty Senor and I tackled Urban Dare Tempe this afternoon and wow — it was such fun! We covered 7.3 miles of running/walking/gasping across the city to reach 12 check points in 2 hours and 12 minutes. It is essentially a mini Amazing Race, complete with dares and trivia at some stops. There were probably 20 teams and we finished third. The idea was to figure out each clue and take a photo at the Tempe landmark. In order:
Clue 1: It’s the type of pass you throw when time is running out and you absolutely, positively need a touchdown. Get your picture with the place that bears this name.
Hail Mary’s! A bar on Priest Dr, north of Southern Ave.
Clue 2: You will find your baseball dare at the intersection of CCCLXXIV divided by XXXIV and the first name of the lead singer for the Cowboy Junkies. 374/34 = 11th street and Margo!
~No photo. We had to go around a baseball bat head down 8 times and then run bases. From there…
Clue 3: This is the place to go for the tattoo that you will always be happy with. Get your picture in front of stonegerr (2 word jumble) Tattoo. No Regrets Tattoo on University, between Priest and Mill.
(You wouldn’t know by the photo, but a scary drunk dude was trying to grab the camera away from us at this point.)
Clue 4: Go to the tenth letter of the alphabet plus the third letter of the alphabet park for your spellbound dare. JC Park on 5th and Hardy! No photo. The challenge on this one was to find letters on cards to spell a pre-assigned word. Each letter had a numeric value. To get a stamp to go forward, you had to come up with the right total for your word. This was made a wee bit more complicated because a couple little kids at the park started playing with the letters. We still figured it out quickly and moved on to…
Clue 5: Get your picture in front of the store with lady bugs and mushrooms over the door.
Anyone who’s visited Mill Ave. knows that is Hippie Gypsy!
Clue 6:
Nearby get your picture with the well named sculpture — Above the Crowd.
This one was annoyingly difficult to find and we lost some serious time, but we did finally find it behind the Borders on Mill.
Clue 7:
When you name musical instruments in alphabetical order, youw ould use this for the letter X. Here in Tempe, it is art. Get your picture with it.
Oy vey we got of course here and had to loop back. Xylophone bicycle rack and public art on Myrtle and Mill Ave.
Clue 8: He equals MC Squared. Go to his eatery for your trivia dare.
(Do these people know that I eat at Einstein’s every morning? HELLO!) No photo, we completed the trivia fairly quickly. Unfortunately the two teams before us were super slow and we had to wait about 5 minutes for our turn.
On the way to the next clue, a way to make up those precious five minutes! For bonus 5 minutes, we had to get volunteers (non-racers) to perform a human pyramid. Viola — good sports on ASU campus:
Clue 9: Find the Urban Dare official next to the Mars Space Flight Facility for your double dare.
Done! We had to put together a puzzle and then do three dances. Woo hoo! Found on ASU campus and moving forward to…
Clue 10: Get for your picture with the Southwest Pieta.
Yep, I’ve walked by that thing 10,000 times when studying and never noticed it until today. Check! On to the next clue:
Clue 11: Come together at the art installation Come Together and get your team picture with it.
Lordy — another one I’ve driven past 10,000 times. That pretty metal bus stop at Broadway and Mill? Not just a bus stop, but apparently an official piece of community art too.
Finish: Tailgate Bar and Grill, where your aim must be true on your final dare.
The grill was at Broadway and Hardy. By this time, I was exhausted. Adam shot a bullseye in darts and voila! We were done. One of the teams that beat us took the bus, which although was within the rules (as was being able to use your phone to call for help) I still think it was cheap. We ran the whole thing.
Great teamwork, great running and great planning. I can’t wait to see what they do next year!
~K