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INSIDE AURORA: Amazing Aurora Race


By Scott Johnston

“The worst part was when we got to Aurora.”
It was the end of another leg of the Amazing Race Canada. Having criss-crossed the country performing challenges over the past week, the remaining two person teams were comparing notes over a drink before the next segment of the race began the following morning.
“You got that right,” agreed a fellow contestant, slumping further into his chair.
“Landing at Pearson and driving up to Aurora was easy,” noted a woman near the end of the table.
“But then it took us forever to find the clue box. You'd think in a small town, directions would be easy, but that area northeast of Yonge and Wellington is diabolical, with all those one-way streets.”
“And dead ends,” a contestant in black agreed.
“And speed humps,” chipped in someone else.
“Who designed that place?” questioned a bearded man.
“We asked for directions three times, and it still took half an hour.”
“So, when you finally got to the clue box, and had the option of the two tasks, which one did you choose?”
“We attended the Aurora Council meeting.”
“Us, too. Was that ever a mistake.”
“Yeah, all you had to do was sit through the entire meeting. We thought it would just be an hour or so.”
“I never would have believed that people could say so much about so little. And the frustrating thing was that they never actually decided on anything. It was all just deferred to staff to come back later with more reports.”
“You obviously paid closer attention than us,” said a lady in green. “We both nodded off for 45 minutes, and when we woke up, they were only on the next agenda item.”
“Boy, they warn you that endurance is required when you're getting ready for the Race, but nothing prepares you for that.”
“You should have followed our lead,” said a man on another team. “We saw how it was going early on and just left. It cost us a two hour penalty at the end of the leg, but we were still faster than all the other teams that stayed the whole six hour meeting.”
“Did anyone do the other challenge?”
“You mean the history one? Yeah, we arrived in town a bit late for the Council meeting, so tried that,” sighed another person.
“We did, too,” said another team. “‘Find the item listed below in the Aurora Historical collection.' We thought we'd be speeding through a museum, and just identify something in a display case in no time.”
“Who would have thought a town's entire historical collection would be stored away in a zillion boxes? Man, it took forever to go through them. What did you have to find?”
“A ‘Municipal Way' street sign. And you?”
“The tie Dick Illingworth wore when he became mayor. At least your item was metal. This one was in with a bunch of other fabric. The tie was okay, but some of the rest of that stuff was in bad shape. I can still feel the carpet beetles on my hand. Ugh!” she concluded, with a full body shudder.
“Well, at least this leg is over,” said the bearded man, raising his glass in a silent toast, “and tomorrow we'll be on our way to another town, maybe even another province.”
“Not necessarily. “
Heads swiveled towards the speaker at the end of the table.
“They could have us doing more tasks here in Aurora.”
This was met with a series of groans.
“There's no way I'm going through something like that again,” said the woman in green, as her partner nodded his agreement. “If we're still in Aurora, and the tasks are anything like what we've done today, we're just taking all the penalties up front, until the Race heads out of town.”
“Good idea.”
“Us, too.”

Feel free to e-mail Scott at: machellscorners@gmail.com
Post date: 2013-07-24 17:23:58
Post date GMT: 2013-07-24 21:23:58

Post modified date: 2013-08-14 15:11:12
Post modified date GMT: 2013-08-14 19:11:12

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