On Saturday, October 17, GirlPower Fitness represented at the Austin Challenge Race, hosted by Challenge Nation. The race bills itself as the “Ultimate Scavenger Hunt” and it’s not kidding. Y’all, it was hard. Thank God for Google and smartphones because that is the ONLY way we could have figured out these clues!

Joining me (Whitney) in the race was Aaron (Mr. GirlPower Fitness) and D’Lana (GirlPower Client Extraordinaire). We had a blast!

First off, we had to find the star of John Nance Garner (known among his contemporaries as “Cactus Jack”, was an American Democratic politician and lawyer from Texas). I’ll be honest, I had no idea that Austin had sidewalk stars prior to this race. But we found it! 

Next up, find an Austin landmark older than the time period in Back to the Future 3 (the Wild West) and act out something from the Back to the Future movies. We found The Cotton Exchange Building from 1874 and we’re — obviously — on hoverboards.

Next, find the Zoltar machine in the Austin Museum of the Weird. You remember Zoltar – from the movie “Big”? Well, apparently there was one in the back of this museum but the museum employees were having NONE OF IT. They instructed us to get out until there were no paying customers in the store because the race participants were being nuisances. Well, here we are in front of the main sign, at least.

From there, we had to find the “mixed up area code of the Granite State mixed with the Texas border river”. So, the Granite State is Delaware and the area code is 306. Your first guess of the Texas border river is, of course, Red River – wrong! The establishment we needed is at 603 Sabine and is called Waller Creek Pub House. The employees there were super friendly – quite a bit of fresh air from the Museum of the Weird! Our task was to shake hands with a dog and give the thumbs up. Here’s our proof!

As cute as the puppies were, we gotta keep on keepin’ on. Next up, find the stone steps behind 603 Sabine, write in chalk your favorite thing about Austin and pose with it. Duh, BBQ!

It was getting pretty warmish in the ATX by this point but we had to do the ATX (instead of the YMCA) in front of an Austin landmark – how about the famed Driskell hotel?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Next up, find the clock on the street that has a 10% approval rating (or something like that) — Congress! And then do a jump in front of the clock. Well, that took a few tries and here’s the best attempt.

And, finally – find a monument to the Austin floods from the 1800’s. And here we are. 

The awesome thing about this scavenger hunt is I learned things I didn’t know about Austin and found establishments that I otherwise wouldn’t have known about. 

We didn’t win — no surprise there — but we did have a lot of fun. That’s what it’s all about anyway, right?