Urban Dare

So on August 23rd, Tammy and I participated in an event called "Urban Dare." It was essentially a grown up version of a scavenger hunt in Santa Monica where you had to find certain places. You had to complete some really easy tasks at certain of the destinations. And in other destinations, you had to get your picture taken to prove you made it there, which meant tracking people down to do so. Fortunately I am not shy. I made one guy walk across the street and another I don't think spoke English, but he got the idea when I handed him the camera. But I think the worst of it getting our picture taken with Saint Monica at a church. It appeared that a wedding was going on - people seemed happy. (Although I guess if someone died someone did not like people might be happy. But I digress.) We ended up convincing someone to quickly take the picture. Here it is:

And no it is not like we dragged someone out of the church during the ceremony. They were just standing outside, so we were not very intrusive. But I can say is good thing it was not a funeral or I probably would not have made the same request.

But all of this is a way of saying that I am not so vain as to want my picture taken in each spot, it was just a rule of the game. So pictures are provided for your entertainment - glamour shots they are not! Tammy's goal was to win. I was not so ambitious. My goal simply was to have fun and enjoy being in the sunshine. We definitely met my goal and definitely did not meet her's. But it is always important to have high standards! The big upside was that it was although it started off a bit cloudy, it ended up being a beautiful day in Santa Monica and along the beach.

So while we were running around looking silly and making strangers take our picture, it was a gorgeous day.

We essentially traveled from the far south side of Santa Monica (at a liquor store technically in Venice) all the north way past the 3rd Street Promenade AND back. (Back being the key issue and the bigger pain.)

Our first stop:

The Third Street Promenade:

On our way out, we stopped at a few parks and the pier, where we took a picture with the game that turned Tom Hanks into a kid in Big and Tammy scored big at skee ball). Then we worked our way down the beach, across the street to take a picture with a statue of Santa Monica where Wilshire dead ends into the ocean.

The downside - at least for Tammy - was that I was dragging her across the City of Santa Monica. I am sure she was tired of hearing me say, "Let's hurry, we need to make this light" or "Let's run then next block and then we can walk," or "Only a few blocks and we are there." But the words I think she dreaded most was when the bus did not come (which we legally could have used under the rules), and I said we had to run all the way back because we did not have 20 minutes to sit and wait. Now in my defense, the bus never passed us. So jogging back was the quickest route. In the end we covered about 6.75 miles in a couple of hours. We got everything right and finished in the top half, but overlooked one of the bonus questions. So the lesson of the day was: make sure we both double check everything. But it was a fun day of exercise, thinking, and exploring. Oh and a big shout out and thank you to H.R. who was our resident Santa Monica expert and internet searcher. (Again, a legal part of the game.)