Urban Dare

Last weekend Mom, Dad, Riley and I all participated in an Urban Dare here in DC and WON!!! We were awesome. They came up for the weekend with a bunch of their friends and we created multiple teams for DC's Urban Dare Race. Its the same concept as the Amazing Race on TV, only on a much smaller scale. Its only lasts a few hours, depending on how fast you are, and you only stay within a section of DC. However, instead of racing against a couple of other teams, at the start, it looked like there were about 250 people participating.

Each Team is given 10 clues and 1 photo challenge at the start. The goal is to solve the ten clues and make it back to the beginning. Each clue will take you to a different location within DC. At each location, there will either be a dare to complete, or you take a photo as a team to prove you were there. The clues are not in any sort of order, so you have to figure out where everything is and figure out the best way to get to each clue (hopefully without backtracking too much).



We joined forces with two other teams (friends of mom/dad/riley from NC) in the beginning to solve the clues, and then actually went from clue to clue with one other team.



Naturally you scan through all the clues to see if you know anything and of course, what does Riley catch onto? The Photo Hunt. Part two of the photo hunt is to get your picture kneeling down and proposing marriage to someone not in the race. So of course this is all he could focus on and went off to complete this challenge.

The first spot we went had the clue... "Tatum O'Neal was the youngest ever to win an Oscar for her portrayal of Addie in this film. Get your picture in front of the restaurant that goes by this name." The answer; Paper Moon.

We left the starting line for this spot and Riley informs us that his photo of proposal doesn't count-we all have to be in the picture. Of course, this can't wait. He has to propose again immediately. I'm really not sure that we had to take the photo again; i think Riley just had so much fun proposing the first time, he wanted to do it again.


We made it to paper moon and moved on to the second clue; Go to Rose Park for your wheelbarrow dare. Sadly we made it to Rose Park and there was no wheelbar dare. I was looking forward to mom and dad trying to push each other around. Instead of the wheelbarrow dare, one of us had to dig through a pile of whipped cream with just our mouths, find a piece of gum and blow a bubble. Riley was all over this one.

We also completed the second half of the photo hunt. Get your picture of someone not in the race doing a cartwheel.

On our way to the next clue was the bonus question. Get your picture with an outdoor ad that shows the president of Kazakhstan. We just happened to see it and got a pic.

The next clue was "Get your picture with a full size statue of a buffalo." So we headed to Dumbarton Bridge, just north of georgetown. Does anyone know why there are buffalo statues in georgetown?

Next Clue: This saint, a doctor of the church, was the son of Eusebius. Get your picture with his sculpture. We almost screwed this one up, but found it just in front of the Croatian Embassy. I'd never had reason to go to the Croatian Embassy before, so this was great!

This is when we ran into some trouble. The next clue... "She's the Spice Girl who married the man with the golden toe. Get your picture in front of the restaurant that goes by her stage name." Posh Spice is the answer. So we headed off to the next destination, and ended up at Posh Consignments in Dupont Circle. Needless to say its not a restaurant so we had to rework that. We had gone a little way out of our way, but not too far and the right destination was still ahead of us, so no backtracking.

Next clue. Niki de Saint Phalle's sculptures were installed this week, the first in what will be a series of works sponsored by the NMWA Sculpture Project. Get your picture with her woman on top of a fish. This one was a little bit of a trek but we made it.

Now to not repeat our mistake... we headed to Posh Restaurant. The correct one this time.

Next Clue. Go to this sculpture for your 3-legged dare. It is at a museum. This was the biggest challenge for us. We didn't know the statue. Nobody could figure it out. So i took a picture with my phone and sent it to all my friends in DC. I kept getting responses of "I have no idea." but finally one of my friends figured it out! Brett also searched the internet and found it (you guys are so awesome). We found the statue and had to do a 3 legged race. You would think Riley and I would be all over this and mom and dad would struggle, but mom and dad did it no problem and Riley and I kept yelling at each other. Riley kept trying to hop and run and then slow down and I was just trying to go a steady pace (notice, all the blame falls on Riley for our struggles). This is us making our angry faces at the problems we are having.


Next Clue: Some would say that Graft is an art form in DC. Get your picture with graft, a literal piece of art. Down to the National Mall we went and to the sculpture garden. It took a while of walking around the sculpture garden, but eventually we found it.

Next Clue: He played Wild Bill Hickock in HBO's Deadwood. Go to the fountain that goes by his first name for your spellbound dare. This was next to the Smithsonian Castle and here, each team had a word and had to hunt through the garden to find each letter in the word. letters were randomly scattered throughout the area and each letter was associated with a number. Once you found all the letters/numbers, you added them up for the total value of your word.

The last clue. He recieved Commission number one for the US Navy from President George Washington. Go to his statue for your golf dare. Off to the John Paul Jones memorial. Sadly, the volunteer was gone from this location, so we missed the golf dare, but we did get our picture.

Finally, back to the beginning. This was the longest trek and we were all already tired, but somehow we made it. I was a little worried that we were going to be one of the later teams to finish, but when we got there we found out we had finished first in the family division! Way to go team. Sadly, we beat the team that did the race with us by 10 seconds. Really, we both got first!


Riley had brought up a number of his friends and four of them had created a team. They solved the clues with us, but didn't want to be held up with the old people and struck out on their own. Here they are coming to the finish line...TWO HOURS after we finished. We rock!