7/08/2011

Great Urban Race in Chicago

July 23 in CHICAGO
the great urban race, chicago, logoSimilar to the TV show The Amazing Race, The Great Urban Race is where teams of 2 race around a city trying to complete 12 clues/challenges. I went with Karrie, her mom, and her sister.

We printed off a bunch of maps like this. Although we didn't really use them, mostly we used the GPS on our phones.
chicago map, road map, used for the great urban race
Also we got a 24 hour bus and train pass, which we did use a lot.

cta 1 day fun pass, chicago, train, bus pass
Along with the pass and maps we each had a back pack with lots of water and some other random stuff.

When the race started we were each given the "clue" sheet. We had looked online at previous races to get an idea of what type of clues they asked. This time it seemed like there wasn't really anything to solve on the sheets. The questions were like "go here" or "find this statue." Previous races had things like riddles or math problems you had to solve to know where you were suppose to go.

I emailed some people a week before the race and asked if they'd help. My friends Jill and Adam did. So right after the race started i took a picture of the clue sheet and emailed it to them. They would email me back with answers and addresses. We called Jill a bunch of times and she sent us a google map with all of the points on it and what was the quickest route to take. That was our biggest problem. Since we didn't know the city, even if we had all the answers we didn't really what order or where to go.

Jill's map she sent us.
all clues from the great urban race map, google maps
Front - questions 1-5
great urban race clue sheet, chicago
Back - questions 6-12
great urban race clue sheet, chicago
Everyone was suppose to dress up so we were Sherlock Holmes.
great urban race costumes, sherlock holmes, chicago
You needed to bring a camera with you to document everything you did. After the race one of the workers went through the questions and you had to show them the picture. Here's a few of them.

Get a picture with someone eating a hot dog.
great urban race challange, eat, get picture with
Picture in front of the Ghirardelli store.
great urban race challange, get picture with
In front of the Roscoe Bike store you had to solve 3 number questions and use those numbers to open up a padlock. Then get a picture under the sign.
great urban race clue, get picture
Picture of you and two others doing the YMCA
great urban race clue, YMCA picture, chicago
9 person conga line.
great urban race clue, picture, chicago
The first place team finished in 2 hours and 28 minutes. We finished in 118th place out of 396 teams with 4 hours and 22 minutes. It was a LOT of running.
the great urban race finish line, picture, chicago, tired
The next day we were very sore but decided to go walk around the downtown.

Here's the view of the city from the Daman train stop.

chicago daman train stop, city
My favorite sculpture in the entire world is The Bean. (actually called Cloud Gate) It was raining and thunder storming in the morning so no one was suppose to go near it because it might get struck by lightning.
the bean, chicago, cloud gate, in the rain, sculpture

the bean, chicago, cloud gate, in the rain, sculpture
the bean, chicago, cloud gate, in the rain, sculpture, no people
Then we walked all the way to Navy Pier, stayed there for an hour or so and went up the ferris wheel.
view of chicago from the ferris wheel at navy pier
We took a taxi back to the city, stopped a clothes store, then stopped back at the Bean which was now crowded with people.
city reflection in sculpture, the bean, chicago, cloud gate

Salvation Army Baseballs

I went to a Salvation Army and saw these two baseballs in a cabinet. They had the Detroit Tigers logo on them and a bunch of signatures. I couldn't really read the names but the balls were only $3 so i bought them.

After looking more closely i started to recognize some of the names. One of the balls had '93 written on it so i checked the names with the 1993 Tigers
.

This is the first ball. I labeled the names that i recognized, but there were a bunch more that i couldn't read.

  • Sparky Anderson
  • Alan Trammel
  • Lou Whitaker
  • Cecil Fielder
(click to enlarge)
detroit tigers, 1993, entire team, signed baseball, sparky, trammel, fielder, whitaker
The signatures on the second ball have faded more, but there are a lot of the same names.
detroit tigers autograph baseball, entire team, 1993, salvation army, sold, bought
At the same store i also bought a rocking chair for $30
. It was practically new, it still had the plastic cover on the ottoman. It's really comfortable and sell's online for around $170.
smooth rocking chair and ottoman, salvation army, padded, cushon