Bock bock bock...

It is not everyday that I dress up like a chicken and run through the streets of LA. Contrary to the look on this guys face, the city quite enjoyed our costumes!



GUR is basically a 1 day amazing race. There are approx. 20 events nationwide each year. 500 teams are given 12 clues to solve that take them all over the city of their event. You have to run or take public transportation everywhere (no taxis, cars, skates etc.) My brother and I have never done anthing like this together. In fact, we hardly do anything together, but when I heard about GUR in L.A., I knew he would be the right partner. He is an O&M specialist that works all over downtown. In a nutshell, he teaches blind children how to navigate L.A. on public transportation. Despite us being on opposite ends of the physical fitness spectrum, I knew that he would be a great teammate.

So I give you team "Spring Chickens"

The stories are probably much better told in person so come by with a bottle of wine and you'll get all the good details! Basically...IT WAS AWESOME! We covered Pershing Square, Mc Arthur Park, Olvera St and Hollywood. We probably covered 4-5 miles on foot and the rest on bus and subway. My goal was to come in the top 250. We don't know our place yet but when we came in they said only about 100 teams had checked in. So now we are hoping to be in the top 150! We'll know tomorrow! Most of our stops required digital pictures to prove we were there. Here are some highlights.


We danced with the Aztecs



We talked this guy selling Lakers Jerseys on the train into putting one on so we could take a picture holding up the answer to one of our clues. By "talked into" I mean we paid him 5 bucks.
Missing from this photo are the masty girls who were mad at us for swooping in on him while they were trying to flirt him into a picture. Ha Ha! Suckers!


We took a self defense class





We saw Rocky and Bullwinkle, met a tall man, and hung out with some stars





Not pictured are the boot camp obsticle course, a few monuments and the great big hill we ran up! But here we are in front of El Pollo Loco! Couldn't resist.


There were some other fun costumes, Octomom, one eyed onehorned flying purple people eaters, Miss Congeniality, Curious George with the Man in the Yellow Hat, and Power Rangers to name a few. Here we are with the contest winners (14 year old Chinese Gymnastics Gold Medal Winners) They deserved it...they wore leotards and did cartwheels. But people loved us too! For an hour before and all throughout the race people were stopping us to take pictures with is! We were like celebrities! So fun!



So we looked a little crazy when we were alone on the route, but in Hollywood we fit right in. There's a lot of crazies there. Spiderman even gave us directions...and he wasn't part of the race! We were right in the middle of the Anti-War protest. It was quite nutty! People are being interviewed by TV cameras and two chickens go running by. Nice.

We ran on one granola bar and pure adrenelin all day. It is just like you see on Amazing race, the bus doors open and you take off running. We bocked at every team we passed and anybody that bocked at us from their cars! Children were laughing, people were staring...it was a BLAST! Jon and I are doing the San Diego race in October to celebrate our 10 year anniversary. I think he is a bit nervous after all the stories I told him last night but I am a really nice partner. I didn't yell at my brother once (even when he was walking and I wanted to run! Arg!) We just ran when he could (and when it was crucial!) It will be a new experience for me and Jon. He has never seen me in race mode and we have never done anything physical like this together. I am really excited about it!


One last pic, for Thing Templetons