An Amuzing Day

Saturday was so much fun! It was the Amuzing Race 3! I don't have all the photos yet, but I'll post what I have now, and add more later.

It went well, with only a few glitches. Like we found out in the morning that 3 of the parks we were going to had changed their names, and were no longer on the map! All the glitches got resolved just in time for the racers to start arriving.

Some members of my electronic community joined forces.

Teams started out at the church building a house of cards. I am amazed at how fast some completed it! From there, they went to an obscure park and chose between doing a Sudoku puzzle and a Japanese ring toss game.

Then the workout started. I don't think any of us (planning committee) realized how far we were going to make the teams run at the next station! They had to find 5 people along the path from Old Orchard Park to Rocky Point Park. I think it was about 2 km of running! Sorry!!

After being exhausted so early in the race, they went up the street to a field to hit a target using 3 person slingshots and water balloons. We only had 20 balloons leftover! Phew! That was close.

Next event was an idea I got about a week after the Amuzing Race 2. They went into someone's backyard and had to search through a yard full of 1300 plastic easter eggs filled with a message that said "Sorry, try again" until they found one of 20 that said "Get your next clue". Again, they finished surprisingly fast.

Then the event devoted to commuting. They went to all 3 West Coast Express stations in the tri-cities. At each station, there was a small ribbon at a numbered parking stall. They had to note down that parking stall numbers at each station. Those 3 numbers, in some order, opened a combination locked box at the PoCo station, which was filled with the next clues.

Pit Stop #1 was next, on a pedestrian overpass over a highway. They're half done, and the first team took 2 hours to get this far!

Next was the messy station. They had to choose one person to search through a box of flour, using ONLY their face, to find a red gumball. What a mess!!
The lucky chosen ones were blowing white out of their noses for at least the rest of the day.

What a pretty Easter basket! So colourful and filled with nice eggs....so you'd think!

At this station, they had to choose between running through PoCo to find answers to a series of questions, or eating a preserved duck egg. The duck eggs were hardboiled. The white part was black, and the yolk looked mouldy! They are perfectly safe to eat, though. All of the teams ate the egg (much to our surprise), and some had no problems at all! Others are caught gagging and dry-heaving on tape!

Time for some refreshment! Everyone went to a small park and found a table full of brown paper bags. They each chose one. In it was a beverage (V8, grape crush, lime pepsi, cream soda, flavoured water, fruit punch...). They had to pour all the beverages together and drink it out of a bucket.

After drinking a large amount of...swamp water...it's time for another run! They had to search through a large community garden to find the flagged gardener. Then from there, they had to search a trail to solve a riddle on the clue. There were many glistening brows at that point, and many people begging for no more running (and I'm sure, cursing us under their breath).

The next event was a "help the church community" event. They had to go to Superstore and fill a shopping list. The items purchased will go to families that need it.

Almost done!

The last event was utter CHAOS! Usually by the end of the race, teams are spread out. Last year I think there was an hour between first and last. But THIS year was different.

At this last event, they had to choose between jumping into an unheated pool OR fishing with a magnet and string to retrieve a dime from a specific year at the bottom of the pool. There weren't enough "fishing rods" for everyone, since half of the magnets broke before the event even started, so almost everyone dove in to get nice and hypothermic.

One team told me that they got so cold that they couldn't even really make out the years on the dimes anymore.

We really didn't think it was going to take as long as it did. As a matter of fact, the first team to arrive was still there when the last team arrived...so there were about 30 people in the pool and 20 fishing into it!

They slowly found their coveted dime and began trickling into the finish line at Mundy Park.

The team who won were also the champions of Amuzing Race 1!

Thanks to all the planning committee and volunteers who put so much time, effort and thought into it. And thanks to the teams for racing and making it all worthwhile!

As for Amuzing Race 4? Well, I think it's time for me to pass the torch on to someone else, for obvious reasons! But who knows...I say that every year.