Great Urban Race Atlanta 2011

When I was getting ready Saturday morning, I had no idea exactly what I had in store for my friend Kareen and I's adventure doing the Great Urban Race. We met up and made the drive to downtown Atlanta's Sidebar where the race was to start. We picked up our tees and numbers, adjusted our tiaras, got our finger mustaches drawn and had a lot of fun looking at all the incredible costumes. Before the race even started, Kareen and I were already talking about costumes for next year.

Who are these girls with those clever disguises?

We received our clues and the race started. We sat down and tried to come up with a game plan. It would have been a lot better had I not messed up and sent us on a wild goose chase to finish one of the clues. We wasted an hour but it didn't matter because it was hilarious and we were having a great time. We even stopped at Dunkin Donuts to get a bite to eat and re-work the game plan.

This was one of the photos we had to take... they seemed confused as to why we wanted this picture

Once we figured out a plan to get us back on track we were off, but we had to stop and take a few pictures along the way. Also, on our way to the Fox Theatre for one of the clues we got to experience something that I never thought I'd see. We were walking along and minding our own business when we heard someone yell out "shoot him, shoot him, he has a knife", which obviously scared the snot out of us. What ensued was two homeless men fighting and then taking the fight to the middle of one of Atlanta's busiest streets. There was no way we were going to stick around and watch the whole thing unfurl but we did see enough of it to make it clear that this day was going to be unforgettable.

We made it to the Fox, and continued to finish up a few other clues that were close by. One of the things that we had to get was a paper job application. When we stopped to take the picture below, Kareen asked the people at a food stand if they had paper job applications. The gentleman that owns the store pictured in the back, said he had some and I followed him to get it. Well, he couldn't find one and I was in the store for a bit while he looked. When I came back out, Kareen said that she was worried that I had been kidnapped or chopped up or something. Love that she didn't come looking for me and that her excuse was that someone would have to tell the story. LOL 

We continued, and hopped on the MARTA to get to the next clue. We waited so long for the subway train that we could have walked to where we needed to be and gotten there faster. We got a lot of odd looks and a lot of questions at the station and on the train. I can only imagine the looks and questions that the people who had the super crazy costumes. We made our way to Ri Ra Irish Pub to do a little jig and on our way out, someone stopped us to ask us about the race. His drunky pants girlfriend wanted to take a picture with us, and we obliged. When she went to put her arm around me she slapped the crap out of me. I was laughing but she was near tears about it, she offered to buy me a drink and I took her up on it. So we sat at the bar with our new friend Miss Drunky Slappy Pants and looked at our clues and looked at the time. We came to the conclusion, after sitting at the bar for a while that there was no way we were going to be able to finish it all, so we enjoyed our drinks and decided to finish one more clue and head back to Sidebar.

The back of our awesome shirts

Thank goodness we left when we did because we barely made it back to Sidebar in time. According to the official results we weren't last but eek, it wasn't good. Oh well, we had a ton of fun, a ton of laughs and some funny stories from the day. While we sat at the bar we came up with a plan for next year, want to hear it? First and foremost our costumes will incorporate tutus because as we all know everything is better with a tutu. Secondly, we are going to come up with a better game plan. We threw around the idea of having our husbands participate as a team as well.