Quextival or Bust

April 2014

 Quextival:

Cotopaxi Quextival is a 24-hour outdoor adventure race where teams of 2-4 people compete by completing challenging and fun activities for points and document them via social media.  

Jess told me about this a week or so before he left for Hong Kong. And even though he had major jet lag AND had just missed a week and a half of school AND had finals to study for....being the awesome husband he is, bought us matching shirts, water bottles and we set off for 24 hours of AWESOMENESS!!! YAY!

The start time was 6:00 p.m. in Provo where we signed in, were given backpacks, and a list of the challenges.  We'd charted the things we thought would be fun the night before and tried to plot them so we could maximize our points.  Scott and his friends were a team, and we buddied up with them for a bunch of it.  (extra points were awarded for camping with another team and a few others to boot).  

We probably did at least 50 different activities but here are some of the favs:

Scott's apartment had a pool which is where we started.

'Jump into a body of water with clothes on"

Row across a body of water + Float on an air mattress on water 

(see how we combined those two--woo woo)

Eat a hot dog with hot sauce wearing hot pants in a hot tub- 6 pts.

Later we 'Played a pick-up sport with strangers (played a water polo game with some guys at Scott's pool)

6 second handstand in a public place- 3 pts

(Jess planked for 30 seconds outside the BYU art museum and we videoed it as people walked in and out.  It was hilarious....) 

We ate at a Peruvian restaurant-, watched the sunset then bought ourselves some fancy spandex from the window of a costume store for our hike!

Hike the "Y" mountain-  10 pts.  (extra 5 points for hiking in spandex-woo woo!)

The hike was amazing.  The weather was nice and cool and we had our awesome headlamps.  Jess has horrible HORRIBLE feet, but luckily they weren't that bad that night.
He was making his blueberry spandex work!  Ha ha--he's so so funny.

That night on the way to the campsite Jess "yodelled in a public place" --inside the gas station.  We picked up donuts and hot chocolate to share with Scotts team for our 'random act of kindness, where we warmed up chatting and talking with Scott, Nate and Alyssa--sooo nice and fun--huddled by the car for extra warmth since we didn't start a fire--ha ha.  Then set up our camp.  (which we promptly moved about 5 seconds before we all fell asleep because apparently we were on someone else's reserved campsite. They got there about 1:00 and just asked us to scoot over a bit so they could use the trees (extra points for sleeping in a hammock). The campground was soooo crowded that night!

Shared a campsite with another team,

Slept under the stars,

woke up and 'observed nature for 30 minutes' before getting out of our snug warm bags.

Then started a fire without matches (so this worked AMAZINGLY well for Scott who used flint and stone, and my battery method sorta worked....but not to fruition--just to get some good sparks.  Way way cool though that either of those started a flame! Watched the sunrise (sorta again--it was overcast--who really knew when it came above the mountain for sure...)

Roasted pop tarts over said fire...

Drew a picture of a llama with charcoal- 2pts.

How amazing is that drawing?! For reals.  That boys got mad llama skills.

Went sledding 

(we were going really fast...and I wasn't sure about how our ending was gonna go on that hard icy snow.  That's legit fear on my face right there.)

That morning we saw the sunrise, saw a waterfall

 Hit Sundance Ski Resort and then we all stopped for Breakfast at McDonald's--then back to the race.

 We stopped home for a quick shower (we're not animals :),
Put on Cotopaxi Llama tattoo's! BAM!-- 2pts.

planted a flower, swung on a rope swing

Saw the kiddos that mom was soooooooooooooo nice to watch during the race.
For reals though. She's so so nice.

Went to a local sporting event (Go Viking Baseball!), went down a slide at a park, picked up 10 pieces of trash on a trail, 

Hiked the "G"--which I think is a lot harder then hiking the "Y"

Ate from a street vender 
(BEST 'street vender' EVER-- We had the most delicious Monte Cristo
and for dessert had a Strawberry Smore Sandwich.  mmmmmm)

Went to the capital 

Then hiked the 'U'
HA HA--hiked is a very loose term there.  It's like right off the road....so...it wasn't super 'strenuous'....

Visited This is the Place Monument, Went to the zoo and had our picture taken by the llama's, Went to the natural history museum to have our picture taken by the Allasaurus , then Trolly Square, then to The Leonardo Museum to donate a dollar

"U" "G" "L" "Y"
Got 20 points for finishing all 3 hikes and making this fancy "L" shape in Lehi.

And to finish off the day:

Milk a farm animal-5pts.
I was soooooo happy about this one.  I have always wanted to milk a cow for some reason. I didn't know anyone with cows so I didn't think we could do it. We pulled into the parking lot at Thanksgiving point and tried to find the finish line.  Jess pulled over so I could ask some fellow Cotopaxians (there really was such a fun bond with anyone you saw around town doing the race!) where it was.  They told us and also said that we could milk a cow right where we were- WOO WOO!  Apparently it was a little petting zoo and they let people milk a cow for like an hour each day.  Special special day for me. :)

We had something like 250 points by the end (Which was pretty average.  The winning co-ed team had 629 and the lowest teams had 1).  We had soooooo much fun!  Running all over town being so random, and just hanging out.  I love this guy.  If they ever do this again we're totally bringing the boys with us.  We Loved It!

Mom was a SAINT and watched the boys so we could do the race.  

She even made tye dye shirts with them. How adorable is that!?  Adorable.  She's great. 

Thanks mom!