The Urban Dare

On Halloween Day Joseph and I got to go do something really fun.  It was Peter Pumpkin's birthday and Abby found this Amazing Race type experience that was going to be in LA that day that she invited us to do with them.  We had a lot of fun, even if it was a ton of running (this girl does not like to run!)

Basically, the Urban Dare was a series of clues that you had to figure out, go find the place, and take a picture in front of it or do a dare, whichever one it called for.  We worked together as a foursome and called my Mom who was in front of a computer for help googling things to figure them out.  We were in West Hollywood so we didn't know the area at all.  (Definitely an interesting place to live we quickly realized.)  The first clue had us take a picture in front of a comedy place with Pauly Shore's name in the background.

We next had to shake hands with a dog.  We definitely didn't have a hard time finding someone walking a dog, this being LA and all (i.e. people have pets here, not children).

We figured out a clue that took us to the Silver Spoon,

then to a store called On the Road (which we just got lucky and stumbled upon because we couldn't figure out the clue on our own).

A clock with 3 children hanging from it was our next stop we ran all the way to,

and then we were lucky enough to find a topiary that says LOVE.  A nice cop directed us to this little treasure because it was impossible to locate alone.

We were supposed to do a wheelbarrow race dare at West Hollywood Park, but that didn't work out so the lady here kindly stamped our passports for us just for finding the big lamp that we got to take a picture in front of.

And my personal favorite was having to propose to a complete stranger.  I asked this guy if he would be in a picture with me proposing and he responded "Can I say no?" and I thought he was just saying no to taking a picture which I thought was a little weird.  Then I realized he meant that he would say no to my proposal, and I assured him that I was already happily married and this wasn't for real. :)

We ended up coming in 13th, and Peter and Abby, who ran uphill the entire last leg (while we chose to walk) came in 8th.  We were just over 2 hours and they were just under 2, thanks mostly to the fact that we never had to double back but took it in a perfect circle that brought us back to the start again.  We saw a few poor contestants who took 4 hours to complete it, so we were lucky!  The winners ran the entire thing and did it in under an hour and a half, so I'm sure that if Abby and Peter weren't held back by us slowpokes that they would win it and get the cruise, too.  I hope you do it again next year and do win!  Thanks for letting us tag along this year, though.  We had a great time!