{"id":3283,"date":"2013-07-24T17:23:58","date_gmt":"2013-07-24T21:23:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=3283"},"modified":"2013-08-14T15:11:12","modified_gmt":"2013-08-14T19:11:12","slug":"inside-aurora-amazing-aurora-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/inside-aurora-amazing-aurora-race\/","title":{"rendered":"INSIDE AURORA: Amazing Aurora Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Scott Johnston<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe worst part was when we got to Aurora.\u201d
\nIt 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.
\n\u201cYou got that right,\u201d agreed a fellow contestant, slumping further into his chair.
\n\u201cLanding at Pearson and driving up to Aurora was easy,\u201d noted a woman near the end of the table.
\n\u201cBut then it took us forever to find the clue box. You\u2019d 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.\u201d
\n\u201cAnd dead ends,\u201d a contestant in black agreed.
\n\u201cAnd speed humps,\u201d chipped in someone else.
\n\u201cWho designed that place?\u201d questioned a bearded man.
\n\u201cWe asked for directions three times, and it still took half an hour.\u201d
\n\u201cSo, when you finally got to the clue box, and had the option of the two tasks, which one did you choose?\u201d
\n\u201cWe attended the Aurora Council meeting.\u201d
\n\u201cUs, too. Was that ever a mistake.\u201d
\n\u201cYeah, all you had to do was sit through the entire meeting. We thought it would just be an hour or so.\u201d
\n\u201cI 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.\u201d
\n\u201cYou obviously paid closer attention than us,\u201d said a lady in green. \u201cWe both nodded off for 45 minutes, and when we woke up, they were only on the next agenda item.\u201d
\n\u201cBoy, they warn you that endurance is required when you\u2019re getting ready for the Race, but nothing prepares you for that.\u201d
\n\u201cYou should have followed our lead,\u201d said a man on another team. \u201cWe 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.\u201d
\n\u201cDid anyone do the other challenge?\u201d
\n\u201cYou mean the history one? Yeah, we arrived in town a bit late for the Council meeting, so tried that,\u201d sighed another person.
\n\u201cWe did, too,\u201d said another team. \u201c\u2018Find the item listed below in the Aurora Historical collection.\u2019 We thought we\u2019d be speeding through a museum, and just identify something in a display case in no time.\u201d
\n\u201cWho would have thought a town\u2019s 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?\u201d
\n\u201cA \u2018Municipal Way\u2019 street sign. And you?\u201d
\n\u201cThe 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!\u201d she concluded, with a full body shudder.
\n\u201cWell, at least this leg is over,\u201d said the bearded man, raising his glass in a silent toast, \u201cand tomorrow we\u2019ll be on our way to another town, maybe even another province.\u201d
\n\u201cNot necessarily. \u201c
\nHeads swiveled towards the speaker at the end of the table.
\n\u201cThey could have us doing more tasks here in Aurora.\u201d
\nThis was met with a series of groans.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s no way I\u2019m going through something like that again,\u201d said the woman in green, as her partner nodded his agreement. \u201cIf we\u2019re still in Aurora, and the tasks are anything like what we\u2019ve done today, we\u2019re just taking all the penalties up front, until the Race heads out of town.\u201d
\n\u201cGood idea.\u201d
\n\u201cUs, too.\u201d<\/p>\n

Feel free to e-mail Scott at: machellscorners@gmail.com<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Scott Johnston \u201cThe worst part was when we got to Aurora.\u201d 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3283","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-QX","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-10 08:33:51","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3283","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3283"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3283\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3283"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3283"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3283"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}