City Scape Urban Adventure Race - Denver

The Mango Escapaders were back for the weekend!!!  Maria got to come to Colorado for a visit, and we knew we had to take advantage of the opportunity to do a race together.  We decided to go for a fun adventure around Denver.

City Scape Urban Adventure Race - Denver

Of course we had to get fueled up with all things mango for it to be a true mango escapade.  We enjoyed a big bowl of mango cereal with a side of my favorite mango yogurt!  And sliced mango traveled around with us throughout the day.

 

Breakfast of mango champions!

Mango highlight: made right here in Colorado
This aussie yoghurt is worth trying when you get the chance!

Fueled up on mango, it was off to the adventure!  We started out downtown just across the street from the Rockies Stadium.

About 250 teams of 2 gathered inside to wait for our first clue to send us off.

With the recent move, Maria couldn't find her mango shirt, so we defaulted to the only other matching shirts we had: Jack Quinn's.  Even without our normal tie-dye we were ready to race!
These races are getting more and more hi-tech.  Our first clue came as a text-back sending us to Coor's Field.  When we got there we got our first set of challenges.

Texting the answer to this riddle gave us another challenge: The more you have of it, the less you see.  What is it?  We texted the correct answer, so it texted back that we need a picture with a big blue ursidae.
Then scanning the QR code gave us 3 more challenges.
Our strategy was to figure out what they all meant first and then take off.  We were able to figure them out pretty quickly except for a couple of them.  We decided to go ahead and take off because we knew we had a long way to go and could figure out the last two by phone calls on the way.
Challenge #3 was very easy for us: take a pic with your team chugging a beverage.  Luckily I had thrown a cooler in my trunk with a few mango beverages.  It was a no brainer to just run across the street and chug one of those down before running off.

Thanks Scott!

Our first destination was the birthplace of round monetary objects that make a jingle in your pocket.

United States Mint

Just down the street is the Colorado state capital building marking the famous mile-high elevation.  But it wasn't as simple as the two of us taking a picture together on the steps.

It has to be 3 random people acting out the three wise monkeys

Hear no evil, See no evil, Speak no evil

On our way we also accomplished another challenge: take a picture with someone in a Colorado college t-shirt.

This poor guy had no idea what he was getting himself
into when he put that shirt on in the morning ;)

Back down the street I knew we could find our large blue ursidae.

The Big Blue Bear!!!

While jogging along we also figured out that we needed to dress old school and find a statue of Branch Rickey.  16th Street Mall was only a couple of blocks away.  We knew we could knock out quite a bit there.  We were so thankful that we happened to be on the same street as Ross.  Ross is a great place to find some crazy clothes!

Rockin' the old school look!

Across the street was a Walgreens where we were hopeful we could find some pet food.  Part of the race was supporting the Maxfund Animal Shelter, so we had to show up with dog/cat food or toy.

Some kitty is going to enjoy a tasty
salmon dinner

Right outside we found our victim for a picture with someone with an animal tattoo.

Keepin' it classy Denver

It turned out that the Branch Rickey statue was back at Coor's Field right where we started.  Oops!  Back we went.

Giving it our best baseball pose

We thought we were done and ready to go back for our next set of clues.  Then we suddenly realized that we had missed one.  We needed to perform the Adho Mukha Svanasana in front of the place where you would do this mover.

We needed a yoga studio to do the pose more commonly
known as the downward dog

With that we were actually done with the first set, and it was time to go back to Lodo's for more.

Once we handed over our cat food they had us scan another QR code which gave us 4 more challenges.

Challenge #1: Take a picture with an out of state license plate.  

Not a hard thing to find around here

Challenge #2: Text the last name of the main character of the main character in last week's top box office movie.

Answer: Stark from Iron Man 3

Text back: Get a post card and write a thank you note to our troops.

I really liked that they used the race as an opportunity to give back.  We were happy to get a postcard along the way.

Challenge #3: Hot yet?  Take a picture of your team at the big milk jug serving delicious frozen dairy treats.

I immediately knew what this was, but couldn't believe they were going to make us run all the way over there.  It wasn't far from my former school of employment.  But it's also a great place in town that I had always wanted to go.  This was my chance.

Yumm!  Ice cream for a long awaited warm day
in Colorado.

Challenge #4: Find the popular spot for outdoor enthusiasts that sits in the 1901 Tramway building.  Take a picture of your team in front of it.

I don't know how you would do this without a smartphone.  We quickly were able to figure out that this is REI.  And not just any REI.  It's the biggest and best one I've ever been to.  We were very happy to see the building just across the bridge.

Definitely a popular spot for outdoor enthusiasts

While there we also picked up a nice postcard of Denver and wrote a quick note while waiting to check out.  We could tell that the friendly greeter had answered the question, "Where are your postcards?", quite a few times that day.  Haha!

With that, we had accomplished all of our challenges.  Then it was just a matter of making the run back to Lodo's.  We were feeling good as we saw other teams still making their way out to Little Man's and REI.

We got back to Lodo's with a time of 2:22:30.

We passed all of our challenges.  No penalties!  And we were even told that our pictures were some of the best!  We should get an award for that right?!

We're quite happy with our race!  Plus getting back before
a lot of teams landed us a spot on one of their comfy couches :)

We hung out to wait around for all the awards: raffle, costume contest, and overall winners.  The winning team had a finish time of 1:19:00.  Wow!  I don't know how that's possible.  Needless to say we were not in the top 10 finishers.  The costume winners were Teenage Mutant Ninja Teachers and Raiders of the Lost Temple.  They were pretty great!  We were still just enjoying ourselves and thinking it was a lot of fun to be able to race together.  We had been paying attention to everything, but happened to get distracted for just a moment.  During that time they were doing another one of the raffle drawings.  I missed the first number but then heard 0-2-0.  I turned to Maria and said, "Did he just call our number?  I think he called our number!"  An important side note is that we're literally sitting right in front of the guy doing the drawing.  Unsure of whether we really been called, we didn't say anything.  Then the guy calls again, "20-20?"  It was us!  We jumped up and totally surprised the guy.  He just laughed at us for such a delayed reaction and we were still so shocked I don't think we knew what to do.  We won a free entry to any City Solve race of our choice over the next year!

We won!

So look forward to the return of the Mango Escapaders to City Scape sometime in the near future.  What city will we choose?  Where will the adventure be?  You'll just have to wait to find out!

*Answer to the riddle in case you've been stumped all this time: Darkness!

Celebrations!

My many celebrations continue!  Over the past month there have been many things to celebrate.  Probably my favorite celebration during that time was a Gender-Reveal Party.  I've heard all about them, but this was my first time to get to go to one.  Chris and Kelly, good friends from college, are having their first baby.  It was so exciting to be there with them to find out if it's going to be a precious little boy or girl.

Such cute decorations to keep us guessing
whether it's a boy or girl

Excited parents!  What will it be?!?!

The proud grandparents are also anxious to know!

It's

.

.

.

.

.

a

.

.

.

.

GIRL!!!!!

I'm so excited for them to be parents of a precious little baby girl!  Can't wait to meet her!

My other celebrations have been a mix of traditional holidays and random holidays.  That same day was also St. Patrick's Day.  I was glad that someone sent me a link to the story of St. Patrick to remind me why the day is celebrated aside from all things green.  Here's the story in case you would also like a reminder of the origin of the day: http://networkedblogs.com/Jlh9C

It also meant that I ran in the St. Pat's 5k downtown and followed up with a green smoothie.

I've missed the running community of
Colorado Springs

Kale is a great addition to any smoothie and
guarantees that it will be quite green

The other traditional holiday was of course Easter.  The best celebration of the year!   I recently made some new friends who got me connected with an organization here called The Springs Rescue Mission.  Every year they do an Easter event which I got to be part of this year.  It opened my eyes to the great work God is doing through them.  It was a great experience of the redemption and transformation of life that Easter is all about.  I was also thankful for the relationships I have here that  make it a little easier to be away from family during holidays.  The two years I lived here before, I always had an Easter picnic/feast with Meredith and Scott.  We decided this year would be no different and were excited to get to do it again.  

We know how to do quite the random, delicious Easter feast -
Build-your-own spring rolls, deviled eggs, brisket (smoked
by Scott), rolls, and finished off with chocolate fondue

The rolls were no ordinary rolls.  As I was looking up ideas for things to make I stumbled across Resurrection Rolls.  Since I had recently made a fresh batch of homemade marshmallows, I knew this would be a great use for them.  They were quite messy, but symbolic and tasty.

Start with a marshmallow (body of Christ) 

Cover with butter & cinnamon (anointed with oil & perfume)

Cover with a crescent (wrapped in cloths)

Bake in the oven (placed in the tomb)

Open it up to eat and it's empty (Resurrection!!!!)

All in all the whole weekend was just a great time of fellowship and celebrating the life that we've been given.

As for the random holidays, there have been many.  What I like about random holidays is that it gives me direction on what to make or do for different events.  I have a really hard time making decisions when given endless options.  But when I'm going to a game night, for example, and I know that it's caramel popcorn day, decision made!  I don't have to think through millions of other options.  No, I don't try to celebrate every single day, but when they work out it's a lot of fun and saves me a lot of decision making time.  Here's what I've celebrated recently.

Ravioli Day

Pickle Day
Yep I made my own and they were great!

Oatmeal Cookie Day
I forgot to take a picture before and this is all I came home
with.  I guess they were good!

Cinnamon Croissant Day
Another big hit at work 

Peanut Butter & Jelly Day
This day made me realize what a great breakfast
a PB&J with a glass of milk makes

Coffee Cake Day
Easy decision on what to take to the church brunch

Caramel Popcorn Day
Yes, I really made this for a game night

Pecan Day

Licorice & Grilled Cheese Day at girls' night

Grilled cheese and mom's homemade tomato soup - winning
combination!

I just had to include her because she's precious and I found
it hilarious that she opted for ramen instead of the grilled cheese.
It brought back fond memories of Pohnpei, but she wansn't keen
on the idea of adding any kool-aid ;)

Peach Cobbler Day
(and Scrabble Day so we played Speed Scrabble
right after eating our peach cobbler)

I greatly appreciate all the friends, family and co-workers who humor me and go along with all of these silly ideas.  They may think I'm crazy or quirky, but deep down I think they all have fun with it too.

Unrelated to random holidays...

Not too long ago I had a friend over for dinner.  She moved here from Iraq just 6 months ago.  I decided to go with my staple introductions to American things - pizza and s'mores.  She had never even had a marshmallow.  So imagine trying to explain a marshmallow and that we are going to put in in the fire and then eat it.  It was priceless!

Learning how to evenly toast the marshmallow

And enjoying the gooey messiness of a good s'more

I'm also decidedly the queen of cheesy gifts.  To appreciate all of the people who have been working so hard on state testing to get it back to me on time, I made some little gift bags.  Cheesy, simple, but they let people know they're appreciated.

So if you ever need a little appreciation gift, I'm your girl. :)

I'm still waiting for spring to actually arrive.  I long for the warmth of the island.  Instead we keep getting days like this...

But I'm not going to complain about getting a day off for school closures :)