I have this problem sometimes of forgetting my camera for these things. The worst part is that I really had no excuse this time. I was acting as a secret agent, so I can't blame it on needing to run. I remembered to pack it when I departed to attend Journey and A&U, so I can't claim I left it in St. Louis. All I can fall back on is the fact that I had been up all night, unable to sleep on the bus from Minneapolis. When I got to Chicago, I took a bit of a nap at Dax's. ZerØgee showed up a bit later, and I ended up going to help her set up the finish line before taking my post as a secret agent. In fact, I blame this on me forgetting to bring my camera. Had I not been distracted, I'm positive I would have remembered my camera before heading out the door to my location. In place of my camera, I am going to draw recreations of the night in paint. I'm pretty awesome at paint.




After hauling all the gear up those stairs, which was quite tiring, I started making my way towards my area.







































I was just a little bit late, so the game had started before I was fully in place. I was in the play area though, and within moments I started passing a few players. I walked by them all without incident. At this point I had a game map in clear view in my hand. I wasn't expecting to see any players this early, so I didn't bother putting it away. I figured that the map would have given it away that I had something to do with the game, but alas. In fairness, I can say Dax and I sort of ending up cheating with my picture. He used one of me when my hair was longer, and this day, my hair was much shorter. It ended up tricking a lot of people.
























Once I arrived at my set area, I discovered that it wasn't very well lit. This cramped my style a little bit, as I planned to sit on a bench a little ways north of a checkpoint and read nonchalantly. I adapted by picking up my phone and telling my friend that I was stealing them for a long conversation. The first hour or so was completely uneventful. One group came by, glanced down at me, but decided to go the other way. I'm not sure if they thought perhaps I was someone who could chase them, or if they thought I lived in the condos right by me and was just outside on the phone. This started to be a theme, with most players avoiding coming towards me. After a while I started picking out groups to engage. I'd ask for the time (while holding a cell phone that clearly says the time), ask for directions, or question what they were doing. This proved to be a mild improvement. Once I begin engaging the groups, about half of them would recite the secret phrase to me (Beneath the pavement, the beach!). I still don't think they did it because they recognized me, I think they just did it as a precaution, just in case. A couple groups came through with people I know in them, Indy's group and Terpsichore's group, so they obviously knew who I was.
























Around this time, I was starting to run out of extra names, so I decided to stop engaging the groups, but to make myself look mildly odd. So I begin to read, as well as I could, in a place that was not very well lit. This seemed to work quite well, as people put together the fact that it wasn't a great reading environment, and there was something odd going on with me. My favorite thing about this is the way that people would say the secret phrase to me. Almost all of them wouldn't actually say it to me, they would just casually stroll by, and say it as they were walking, hoping for a reaction. I found this both amusing and cheap! It would have been much better to have had groups of people walking up to strangers and saying the phrase to them only to get blank stares in return, then to have groups of people walking around randomly saying the phrase aloud. I debated ignoring the people that didn't say it directly to me, but the game was getting close to ending, and I needed to give away my last few names, so I let it slide.
My walk to the finish line was uneventful, but it was nice to finally arrive there. I said my hellos to everyone, stayed for the awards, and made my way back to Dax's fairly early. I was completely exhausted from my trip to Minneapolis, and from the lack of sleep I'd had that night. A couple of days later I was able to see a good amount of the course as Dax and I biked around to gather all of the stamps. Sadly, one of them was missing! We can only hope someone is putting that stamp to good use.