A few weeks ago, I saw on the CMU Explorer's d-list an e-mail about a Groupon for the Pittsburgh Urban Dare. I'm an Amazing Race aficionado (mostly in that I really want to be on it with my sister Valerie), and since this was described as "Amazing Race in a day," I was super excited.I asked my adventure buddy, Danielle, if she wanted to do it with me, and it was an enthusiastic reply once she figured out what it was as well.
The competition started at a pub by Southside Works. Public transportation there is iffy, and we were on a bit of a time crunch, so we rode bikes down to the river and across the Hot Metal Bridge.
We got there a bit late, but got out team number (156) and listened to the instructions before the craziness to get the clue sheets. Here was the sheet of clues:
The rules let you use whatever technology you wanted. Danielle began calling people, and I started surfing the web to start getting some clues (or checking our guesses) to the clues. The clues weren't in a sensible order for location, so that was part of the planning as well.5:00 Minute Bonus - Take a picture of a group of five people posed as if they were shooting a box and arrow.
- Jack Nicholson won the Academy Award for Best Actor in this 1975 film. Get your picture with the magic shop that has part of this film's title in its name.
- The field is no longer there, but part of the outfield wall remains. Bill Mazeroski hit a home run over this wall to win the World Series in 1960. Go to there for your spellbound dare.
- If you can't run with these, stay on the porch. Get your picture in front of the coffee house that goes by this name.
- PHOTO HUNT: Get a picture of two people not in the race reenacting the famous WWII photo by Alfred Eisenstaedt. Get a picture of three people doing see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. For photo hunt and bonus, you may not use the same person more than once.
- He defeated Muhammed Ali in the fight of the century. Get your picture in front of the saloon that goes by his nickname.
- He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954. Get your picture in front of the cafe that goes by his name.
- Nobody knew who Mel Gibson was until he appeared in this 1979 movie. If this picture were shot in Tijuana instead of Australia, maybe it would have been called this. Get your picture in front of the restaurant with this name.
- Go to the park overlooking the river next to (a device for establishing a horizontal plane. It consists of a small glass tube containing alcohol or similar liquid and an air bubble.) (LI DIVIDED BY XVII) for your three-legged dare.
- Get your picture with a neon sign that says Free Smells.
- Since we are in Steel City, go to the Steelworkers Monument for your wheelbarrow dare.
- Get your picture with a WWII torpedo.
(If you want to try to solve these for yourself, I suggest stopping here. Good luck!)
So we began to piece things together. Once we got a few that were down Carson Street we took off (running) and began. However, we were stuck on the #11 with a torpedo. I suggested that we follow some people (since my guess was that there was a torpedo on the submarine downtown), and we ended up across the 10th Street bridge and going up the never-ending staircase to Duquesne University. We headed back into Oakland via bus (you were only allowed to use public transit) for some of the clues we knew about. By this time, we had found a picture of the torpedo with Pitt campus in the background, so we knew it was near where we were. It just took a friendly group of Pitt students to point us in the direction of Soldiers and Sailors Hall.
Our "spellbound" dare was adding up the numbers corresponding to the word on our Passport (which was parsimonious). We found a bus back to Southside to finish up our last couple clues, and ran in for our finish time at 2:04:27 (but with the 5:00 minute bonus). However, we had forgotten to run across the river for our final dare!
So, out we went again, and spent 18 more minutes getting across the bridge, chewing some bubble gum, and coming back. I was pretty exhausted, and my cross-country running partner Danielle was kind enough to let us walk for a bit. Our actual final time was 2:22:25.
They sent out everyone's times. By my count, there were 270 teams; our first (though incorrect) time put us at 47th. Our actual time would have put us in 95th. I'm still awesomely proud of us.
We found a place that had beer, ice cream, and outdoor seating, and celebrated our completion. My shoulders are sunburnt and my calves are still complaining (and we had to bike back up to CMU), but I would do it again in a heartbeat!
For the curious, here was our final submissions in the order we went to them in (and the answer to the clues):
1. Jack Nicholson won the Academy Award for Best Actor in this 1975 film. Get your picture with the magic shop that has part of this film's title in its name. The Cuckoo's Next Magic Shop
5. He defeated Muhammed Ali in the fight of the century. Get your picture in front of the saloon that goes by his nickname. Smokin' Joes Saloon
(Probably not proper to put strangers' pictures on the web, yeah?)
9. Get your picture with a neon sign that says Free Smells. Jimmy John's Sandwiches
5:00 Minute Bonus - Take a picture of a group of five people posed as if they were shooting a box and arrow.
(These were the same great Pitt students that tracked down that torpedo for us!)
6. He won the Nobel Prize for literature in 1954. Get your picture in front of the cafe that goes by his name. Hemingway's Cafe
11. Get your picture with a WWII torpedo. Soldiers and Sailors Hall (which was having the non-Pittsburgh Pitt student's graduation that day)
I was pretty happy with how well I know Pittsburgh by the end of this. And pretty impressed with how well I kept up with my peppy little partner!
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