Matt, Kate, Emily and I were so cautious about those first two checkpoints. So very paranoid—looking over our shoulders constantly, overthinking our route. At checkpoint two we went down a rusty, spiral staircase right next to the Teachers that everyone else seemed to be ignoring. We strolled unmolested along the railroad tracks, watched steam shooting from valves, waved to Amtrak passengers, played in mounds of shredded paper. We were so proud of our cleverness in finding this shortcut. A lovely walk that lulled us into a false sense of well-being and safety.

Leaving the railroad yards we approached Canal which was crawling with Chasers. We saw a chase in progress and realized we'd be spotted soon. I outran my pursuer and he gave up. I cautiously headed back to Canal and ran into Kate. We saw Emily and Matt up ahead, now sporting pink armbands. Their greeting of "We've been compromised!" drew the attention of more chasers and we were on the run again. We evaded capture again and realized that Matt was the navigator of our group and we really weren't totally sure where we were. We snuck back to get a look at the street signs and were spotted again. Another chase, and this time Kate didn't make it. I ran back to a stairway up to 18th street and found a hiding spot in a small parking lot. I waited a couple of minutes and when the coast seemed clear I started on my way again. It wasn't long before I was spotted and ended up flying back down the stairway. I spent the next 45 minutes being chased, evading capture, hiding, being chased again, &c. I finally got out of that dead end.

The chasers had moved on so I started heading towards checkpoint 3. I saw a couple of guys up ahead who asked if I was a blue. It was now dark and really hard to tell from a distance what armbands people had on. I was cautious about yelling out my status for fear of alerting any lurking pinks in the area. I approached cautiously and they waited suspiciously. We were all blues. We walked along sharing stories. It was cool to run into some comrades after 45 minutes of being alone and being chased. Then we came across 2 pinks: Matt and Emily! I told my new cohorts to run and chatted with Emily about the fun we were having. I decided that I'd had tons of fun eluding chasers by myself, but now I was ready to see how fun it was to do the chasing. I accepted a kiss from Emily and she took my blue ribbon.

We walked to the Chinatown checkpoint hoping for some good chasing. Wow, there were pinks all over the shop. Pinks were scaling fences, sneaking around corners, huddling behind trash cans. There wasn't a blue in sight. We walked up to the checkpoint and there was Kate drinking a bubble tea. We hung out for awhile waiting to see if there would be any chance of chasing some blues. Finally some blues started arriving: some just strolling in. I guess a lot of the chasers had moved on by that point. I met a girl who was plotting to get a group which included her husband. She asked me to get him, so when they finally broke for it I locked in on him and chased him down. As I tagged him I saw another from the group and took up the chase with her. I tailed her, tagged her, got her ribbon and headed back to pick up my trophy from the first guy. He was standing there waiting for me. He gave me the ribbon and I tied his pink one on. He was a cool guy and I hope he had as much fun once he became a chaser as I did.

Emily, Matt and Kate went to try and get people over by the red line station. Was it lame for me to lurk around the safe zone just waiting for blues to make their break? Maybe, but I figured they shouldn't just get to walk out without any challenge. I tagged 3 more and then it really started to seem like there wouldn't be many more chances for tags so I went and met up with Emily and Kate. Matt had gone off on his own and got sprayed with mustard, but I'll let him tell that story.