We read about an event called Urban Challenge, about a week after it happened in Los Angeles (where we lived at the time). It sounded like a local version of the Amazing Race and we thought it would be fun to try. Another event was coming up in San Francisco, so we made it a long weekend visit and tried it out.
Teams of two people have to solve clues that lead them to a location in the city that they need to reach by foot or public transport. Once there, you snap a selfie at the spot, and solve the next clue to go on to the next location.
It was great fun, but we had limited success on our first outing. We got more friends interested and submitted multiple teams to the August San Diego Run and John participated with Dave Pfitzner at the Las Vegas run in October. For these, we had a phone/internet research crew operating at home to help solve clues, and map the quickest routes to each destination. This resulted in a couple of teams qualifying for the National Finals Competition held in New Orleans on November 15, 2003.
We celebrated our 20th anniversary in May with 20 gifts, one representing something from each year.