I know, I know... that was one heck of a load of laundry that it took me a whole week to talk about the Amazing Home Race. I got a little bit sidetracked......So, two weekends ago now, Robert and I entered into the Houston Amazing Home Race. We found out about this from interviewing a real estate agent who just so happened to be one of the main sponsors of the event. The game is similar to the Amazing Race TV show. Only it's done in Houston and the destinations are open houses or houses to be built. Once you arrive at the house, you have to go on a scavenger hunt to find the answer to your clue.
So, let me fill you in on our day. We arrived at the Barry Center which is in Northwest Houston off of Highway 290 and Barker Cypress at about 9 AM to get all of our registration done. We woke up at about 7 AM that Satruday morning after not getting home until midnight on Friday night because of the Winter Jam concert. We made sure to where comfortable clothes, running shoes and eat a well-balanced breakfast. Okay, I don't know about well-balanced, I had a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch and Rob had some Chocolate Fudge Poptarts. And people tease me about Breakfast of Champions.... little do they know!
Anyways, we drove the 30 miles or so it took to get to the Barry Center and waited in line with the rest of the competitors. Clearly, they didn't know that Rob and I are ALWAYS in the top 1% of everything we do. I just hated to break it to them... haha! You had until 10:00 to get registered and ready. We got some lovely red t-shirts and set out to wait the hour and scope out our competition. The people who brought small children we eliminated as any threat. Seriously, people! You cannot win a race if you everytime you get in the car you have to strap your child in a car seat and vice versa when you get out of the car. Why waste your precious $3.80/gallon gas?! So, that eliminated quite a few. Same for people who brought a dog. Seriously, people!
There were a couple of guy teams that seemed rather threatening...or well, their matching sweat headbands intimated me. And then you had people that stood behind us in line who hadn't even bothered to fill up their gas tank before coming to the race (which they specifically told you to do when you signed up online) and whose phone batteries weren't even full. Losers. Okay... tad bit harsh, but as mom says... "Nice people finish last."
We just waited around until it was race time. At that point they huddled us up all together to do like a team chant and explain the rules. Let me fill you in some more on the race. It was all done via text messaging. The people who hosted the race would send you a system-generated text message with an address and a clue and then you would drive to that address and text back your answer. You had three tries to get it right. The further you had to drive, the more points you got for that answer. The system also knew how many people were at a house and was supposed to direct you to an "unpopulated" house to avoid bottlenecks and such.
So, while they are doing the team huddle Rob and I are making sure to stand towards the back so we can make a clean get away. We had already made sure to park close to the exit and facing forwards so we wouldn't have to put it in reverse. However, during the team huddle, we noticed several people had already pulled up their cars to pick up their other team player (required to play in teams of two). I got slightly worried there and thought we had for sure missed the boat.
Never fear, you had to text "Houston" to the number and that took a little bit to get going so even if you had your car already to pull out, you wouldn't have known which way to turn (left or right) at the exit because it took a solid 3 minutes after the team huddle to receive your first address. Even with the small delay of getting to our car, we were probably the 10th car out and we still had to wait to receive our address.
Oh, I should also say that you had the option of passing a house and getting another address. You might have thought that the distance was too far and would be better to stay somewhere closer to waste less time. Our first clue was in Spring, TX which took us a solid 35 minutes to drive to. Robert really wanted to skip it, but I'm super glad that we didn't. It was a solid 5 point clue. We spent most of the time driving anywhere from 2-10 miles around in Spring and then about the last 30 minutes we had to go to Tomball.
Let me talk about Rob now. He was on his A-game. He was the driver and I was the GPS. Tho, I was on my A-game too because I had to get us there while watching the traffic map and quickly deciding the best route. Luckily, all of our navigating through Houston looking at neighborhoods for our own house hunt paid off because I'm not afraid to veer off the main road if traffic is too bad and head down some neighborhoods. Watch out children!
Rob was a crazy driver. Looking back, I think we only hit one small child. Okay, just kidding!!! But we were flying around Houston. And looking for the clues... my Rob was calm and never got flustered whereas my brain kind of stops working when I'm under pressure. This is why I was always a horrible test taker in school. It's like when I'm under a tense deadline, my brain just goes blank.
We honestly couldn't have done anything any better... other than Rob having to go the bathroom! I could have killed him. I told him to go before we left. We had a whole hour of just waiting around, but about 15 minutes into the drive to the first house, Rob's like I gotta go. He held it until the house, but I told him you can just go by a tree. I don't care what you do... I'm not making an extra stop. He went in an open house bathroom. Is that even allowed?? But, it probably only required an extra 1 minute of time. So, I'll let him off the hook.
We battled traffic and some challenging clues that's for sure. Rob's out on a patio laying his hands across it to determine how many hand widths the patio is. He didn't think twice when he doesn't normally like to get dirty. He counted 39 wine bottles in a house and didn't miss one! Helped me spell the word SMOKING when Z=A, Y=B, etc. He never let me down.
It was an awesome bonding experience, that's for sure. We can work pretty well as a team. He never second guessed my directions (like he could.. he had no idea where we were!) and kept calm as we were running around like crazy people. We had a little pen and notepad to help us (which came in super duper handy!!!).
We were a little sore the next day from getting in and out of the car and running up and down stairs in homes. We were on our way back to Spring from Tomball when the race ended and we had to head back to the Barry Center. We had 55 points. Of course, you have no idea if that's good or bad because you aren't anywhere near a competitor in your own car. So, we just had to wait and see.
We got back and waited a little bit as they said they would give you plenty of time to get back because you had to be present to win the awards. 1st place was $10,000 and 2nd place was a Washer/Dryer combo from Lowe's. I'd say there were about 300 people who were there in the morning but only about 150 that finished the day. Oh.. you weren't supposed to tell your score when you got back so that it could remain a surprise. Of course, Rob felt the need to share when asked and we burst a few people's bubbles. But I told him I didn't want mine burst, so he needed to keep those lips sealed.
Well, they announced 2nd place first obviously.... and I started waving my arms and let out a couple of screams. Rob didn't do much of anything because he apparently was thinking "well darn, we didn't win." But, I mean... 2nd place! Out of 300! My view....In the words of a Bring It On movie "2nd place, Hell Yeah!" We drover over 150 miles to get second place. Pretty awesome to me. The guy was giving my certificate and telling me who to contact, etc and people were taking our pictures. They shook our hands and as we walked back people were telling us congrats. I'll take it.
They announced the winners via a phone call so whoever got the phone call started screaming. Lovel to know that they beat us by only 2 points. We were SOO close to winning. We were one house away from taking it away from them. Of course, I kept hoping that no one would answer and that 1st place didn't show up to claim their prize because you know what that means... 2nd place would become first place. No such luck.
We're pretty sad that we were SO CLOSE to winning $10 grand in cold, hard cash but our washer and dryer were worth $1,200 at Lowe's. That's a heck of a prize. Unfortunately, we had no where to put said washer and dryer except as end tables to our sofa that we never managed to purchase.. so we sold them! We sold them for cash to a co-worker and Rob's work and are putting it towards our down payment. Ca-ching!
So, yes... that was our Amazing Race Adventure. Pretty awesome, right?! It was a heck of a lot of fun and a good "team building" event for me and Rob. Great way to spend a Saturday. If only we had the $10 grand... but I think I still have bragging rights.
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