Bell City Chase

It was a great day overall! Firstly thanks to Chirlene who let me borrow her cell phone (it's good to see someone who's not totally addicted) and to Geoff who we called for help a few times. Oh and of course my teammate Jay.

Started off seeing Carol as well as Ellen at the registration area. I knew Ellen would be there, it's from overhearing her a year and a half ago that I even knew there was such a thing as the bell city chase. But Carol was a surprise. After seeing someone get $50 gift certificates while someone else lost an eyebrow in a demonstration of a new 'friend or foe' part of the race, it started at 10:00 with a scavenger hunt. Clues were read out by the host. Once you got 10 of the 17 items, you got the clue sheet. It was pretty tough actually... we went to Jay's brother-in-law's place to get a few of the items since it wasn't too far away. Still, I think it was about 10:50 by the time we were done that, and got our clue sheet. (the scavenger hunt counted as checkpoint #1).

After looking where things were on a map, and getting Geoff to help with locating some things, we started by heading to the outdoor resource centre at the north end of 10 st for some blind croquet. I wore a blindfold and hit a ball around as directed by Jay. Next, went to mewata armouries, did an obstacle course, then went to the roof to rappel down the outside. That's where our mistake was... there was a huge wait for people who were ahead of us, cost us half an hour I bet, if not more. We even had a 'fast forward' to skip the line, but didn't think it would take long and might need it later (we didn't). Oh well. The rappelling was cool. At least the wait let us chat with other teams - got some clues about other locations, and got to chat with a pretty girl. Next we headed to the calgary tower and ascended the 802 stairs. It wasn't nearly as bad as I expected, maybe all the hill running at SoF is paying off. Got to take the elevator down, and then went to a nearby art mall that someone had tipped us off about (were supposed to find out after doing other things). Put some shredded paper together to form a clue, then searched the place for the answer to the clue. Back out to the C-train to head NE. Essentially had to choose between NE and S, cause we had to do one of two specific checkpoints. And there were a couple others nearby those. Decided the NE ones would suit us better. From the c-train, we took our only bus trip, over to village square to do some trampoline basketball thing against other teams. It was quite quick actually. And the silliest thing was the few teams in front of us in line decided to use their fast-forwards, but didn't go anywhere cause they were already at the front. From there jogged a couple blocks, had to run a little and swing a hula hoop pathetically for a little bit, then shoot a paintball at a pylon... if we both missed, one would have to shoot the other in the ass. Luckily, Jay hit. Then to sunridge mall for the required one. Saw Chirlene there, which was kindof neat! Got a bell photo-phone (temporarily), had to photo 4 of 6 choices. It was surprisingly difficult, even things like a "do not enter" sign, it'd always seem to be "staff only" and such. Someone with rollerblades and someone with ice cream were easy, and we eventually found someplace selling crackberries and got a stranger to pretend to be using one. Never found someone with braces or a volvo xg80. Back at the c-train stop we ran into Ellen, and all headed back downtown together. By that point it was 3:30, and Jay and I needed two more tasks. One was just dropping off a completed puzzle (a sudoku) at petro-can (this was Ellen's final one) but to do another we'd have to head to talisman, riley park, or fort calgary. After some tough decision making, we realised there was no way we'd make it to one of those and do the activity and get back to eau claire in time, so we just headed to the finish line with our 9 completed checkpoints. Kindof disappointing, but that's ok. It was still tons of fun!

The challenges we didn't do: Some kind of exercise at goodlife fitness (south) (alternative to sunridge), eat nasty stuff at chinook (south), ride a mechanical bull at ranchman's (south), something about ball hockey at talisman (central), something about inflating and moving a raft at ft calgary (central), transporting a bucket worth of water using a sponge and no hands/feet at riley park (NW), assembling a SMED desk at SAIT (NW), and begging for money at the centex gas station (NW).

It was amazing how fast 6 hours can go by! If only work could go by that fast! Lets see what were some of the best parts... The funniest part was when a corporal at mewata tossed a 6 pack of water up to the roof - a ribbon-barrier thing caught it and tossed it right back at him so perfectly, it's the sort of thing you could never do if you tried! It was also cool running into different people along the course, especially people who you'd seen and chatted with earlier. And overall just everything about it was cool! Well maybe that's just me, I've always been crazy about the amazing race, and this is kindof similar, so it's natural I'd be crazy about this. Racing as a team, overcoming obstacles and challenges, etc.

After the finish line, hung around with Ellen and friends a bit at the Garage wrap-up party (no Carol cause she twisted her ankle). But eventually they left. Also chatted with pretty girl I mentioned earlier, but once her group also left there wasn't much for me to stay for. As soon as I got home, felt ultra-lonely. Always after stuff like this I feel like that. After spending the day as a team, overcoming challenges and stuff, like new years banquet at tai chi. Or after spending tons of time with people for a couple days, like out-of-town dragonboat or going to Brad's cabin many years ago. Oh well, that's just the way it is.

The conclusion: I'd happily do this again, and I encourage other people to do it to!