RBC Amazing Race III - Day 2

After a 6:00am wakeup, packing up camp, packing a sack lunch and enjoying a full breakfast prepared by Chef Dennis, the first team received their first clue of the day and were once again ‘off to the races’.  

Teams were given their clues for departure at 5-minute intervals in the same order they finished on Friday night.  Today's first clue: 

STRAIGHT SHOT TO DEPARTURE!
Travel by foot to locate the Amazing Race Task Master for your next challenge. 
Upon successful completion of the task, you will receive your next clue.

Using a bow and arrow, teams could use as many players as they chose to shoot at a stack of hay bales that had some balloons on it as targets.  Once a team was successful in shooting and popping 3 balloons, they received their next clue. 
GOING NUTS!
Travel by RBC Amazing Race Taxi

Head south from where you slept to a number between 6 and 8 – the Standard is high.  Turn in the direction to where the sun will sleep and drive to Wildwood Road.  Follow the North Star and travel to 16070 Wildwood.  It is a Prime location, where X marks the spot.
WARNING:  We would all like to take the path that is straight and narrow, but doing this might get you dirty; so you can get where you need to go by taking the long way around. 
Upon arriving, locate the Amazing Race clue box for your next clue.
These directions took teams to the pistachio processing plant for Primex Farms in Wasco.  When teams located the clue box, they received instructions that if followed correctly led them to a set of portable toilets.  Inside one of the toilet stalls was an Amazing Race staff person, who gave them a 1-pound bag of pistachios and their next clue.  (A few race rules that I think I failed to mention in my Day 1 recap are that teams must  keep all clues and must have them when checking in at the pit stop at the end of each leg of the race.  At this location, one of the teams arrived and saw where another team was getting the bag of pistachios from.  They went right past the clue box and to the portable toilets – which caused them to serve a penalty of a missing clue when checking in at the pit stop.)
EXPRESS DELIVERY:
Your next challenge requires you to deliver your 1-pound bag of pistachios to the Shandon Rest Stop.
Travel by RBC Amazing Race Taxi and follow the same route used to get back to Wildwood Road.  DO NOT TAKE AN ALTERNATE ROUTE – IT COULD CAUSE DAMAGE TO YOUR TAXI!!
Start out going north on Wildwood Rd for 2.3 miles, then turn left (west) onto Highway 46.  Proceed west on Highway 46 until you come to Shandon Rest Stop.
Along the way, you will need to make note of the following: 
How many “Cat-in-the-Hat” tanks are there along the route from the time you leave Primex Farms to the point where you cross I-5?  (A Cat-in-the-Hat tank is a large red and white striped water storage tank)

On Highway 46 between I-5 and Lost Hills, how many fast food restaurants are there? Name them.
Upon your arrival at Shandon Rest Stop, locate the Amazing Race Task Master.  If you have the correct answers to the questions above, you will receive instructions for your next task.  If your answers are incorrect, you will be assessed a 5-minute penalty for each incorrect answer before you may receive your instructions to proceed.
At the Shandon Rest Stop, teams had to shell their 1-pound bag of pistachios, saving 40 of the shelled pistachios for use later in the race.  When their pound of pistachios was shelled, they received their next clue. 

(Two of the teams had incorrect answers to the questions above, so they had to serve their penalties before starting.  Another team left their clue laying on a table at the rest stop, which would cost them a penalty for missing a clue when checking in at the pit stop – details, details, details.)
NEXT MISSION:  SAN MIGUEL
Shandon Rest Stop is more than just a place to get out and stretch, it offers plenty of information for the map-less traveler.  Travel by way of RBC Amazing Race Taxi to Mission San Miguel.  Upon your arrival at Mission San Miguel, locate the Amazing Race Task Master by the fountain in the courtyard in front of the mission to receive your Mission Questionnaire.
Your objective for this task is to work as a group to correctly answer all questions in the questionnaire about the San Miguel Mission.  To maintain team unity you must complete the challenge with your entire team attached to the provided piece of yarn. 
The Mission is a working church so decorous behavior is required.  There should be absolutely no raised voices, yelling, running, or disrespect of any kind.  If you are seen by any chaperone behaving improperly you will serve an automatic five-minute penalty.  If any team member lets go of the yarn at any point, the team will also have to serve a five-minute penalty.  Each further infraction will result in another five-minute time penalty. 
You may not work or copy from any other group completing the challenge.  When the questionnaire is complete, bring your answers to the Amazing Race staff person by the fountain in the courtyard in front of the mission.  If all the answers are correct, you will receive the next clue.  If any of the answers are incorrect, the staff person will direct you to check your answers.  The Amazing Race staff member will not tell you what question(s) are incorrect.  You must determine what answer(s) are incorrect and fix them before the Amazing Race staff member will give you your next clue.
If teams took the time to read their clue before leaving the rest stop, they realized that there were maps posted at the rest stop, giving them driving directions to the Mission.  Of course, not all teams did that.  (Details, details, details...)

Oh, this was a challenge! The Mission Questionnaire consisted of 10 factual questions about the history of Mission San Miguel. Most teams spent more than an hour searching for and carefully reading all information they could find at the Mission in order to answer the questions. (Several of the teams had to serve 5-minute penalties because one or more members took their hands off of the string .)

Upon successful completion of the questionnaire, teams received their next clue:

GET ‘YER MATH ON!
Travel by RBC Amazing Race Taxi to the Kennedy Library at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo. 
At the library, find the RBC Amazing Race staff person that is waiting next to the book with call #TD879.P4 H83 1991.   They will give you an engineering problem to solve. Once you have solved the problem, you will receive your next clue.
NOTE: You will be going into a Public Library! DO NOT run, shove, push, yell, talk too loudly, horse around, cause a disturbance, or be disrespectful.
ALSO NOTE: You will be on a college campus.  Make sure your taxi follows traffic and parking regulations and that you and your team obey pedestrian laws.
Upon arrival at Cal Poly, teams searched for and located the library, then received the following engineering problem to solve:
I’ll have to say, teams were pretty creative when it came to solving the problem.  A few teams sat down, went to work, and figured it out.  A few teams borrowed calculators from students in the library.  And a very resourceful team somehow got some college students to solve the problem for them.  Once their problem was solved, teams received the next clue: 
HALL PASS!
Travel by foot to California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo Building #47, also known as “The Maze”.
Find a door with a “12” on it and take 1 (and only 1) of the hints that are taped there. The hint will give you the location of the next clue.
The Hint:
A-MAZE-ING!
Travel by foot to find the hallway that leads to office “32A”. There you will find an RBC Amazing Race staff person. Show them this hint and they will give you your next clue!
The next clue:
ALL ABOARD!
Travel by RBC Amazing Race Taxi to the Grover Beach Amtrak Station. 
At the Amtrak Station, locate the Amazing Race Task Master for your Boarding Pass, then board the 1790 Pacific Surfliner to Carpinteria, California. 
Once the train has departed, you will receive a 100-piece puzzle from the Amazing Race Task Master.  If more than one team is aboard your train, the puzzles will be distributed to teams in the exact order and at the exact intervals in which you arrived at the train station in Grover Beach. 
Teams must complete the puzzle in order to receive your next clue upon arrival in Carpinteria.  Teams will receive the next clue in the order their puzzle is completed, at one-minute intervals.

Fortunately, all teams arrived in time to catch the 2:15pm train to Carpinteria.  (Missing the train would have meant taking the next option -- an Amtrak bus to Carpinteria at 4:45)   Once aboard the train, teams were given their 100-piece jigsaw puzzle (in intervals according to their arrival time at the train station) – but you might say it was a puzzle with a “twist”.  The puzzles had been spray painted black – so there was no picture to guide them, just fitting the pieces together.  (Hey, we had to have something to keep them busy on that train!) As you can imagine, they were feeling pretty tired at this point and some of them even managed to catch a little nap during this time. 
After a short delay because there was a train coming the other way on the track, teams arrived in Carpinteria at about 5:15pm. 

The next clue was distributed in one-minute intervals in the order they finished their puzzles on the train:
WELCOME TO CARPINTERIA!
Carpinteria may be a small beach town, but it is rich in history! 

These five landmarks are located within the marked area of the attached map of Carpinteria.  Your challenge is to travel by foot to locate each of the landmarks.  There will be an Amazing Race staff person in the vicinity of each landmark.  Once you have located the landmark, ask the Amazing Race staff person to validate your find. 
When you have located all five landmarks and received validation, proceed to the pit stop for this leg of the race – located somewhere within the Carpinteria State Beach campground.
These landmarks were spread throughout a half-mile radius in the little town of Carpinteria, but some of the teams did quite a bit of backtracking to find these signs, and then the campsite in the State Beach campground. 

First team to the Pit Stop

 The last team arrived at the pit stop around 6:30 – which gave all the kids enough time to set up camp and enjoy the beach and the ocean before dark. After another good meal prepared by Chef Dennis, we built a fire, had a very encouraging and challenging message from our guest speaker, Prison Chaplain Gary Finley, enjoyed S’mores and rehashed the day around the campfire, then turned in for the night.  

Getting everyone quiet and turned in for the night at a decent time is never hard during an amazing race – they’re exhausted by the end of a long day!  So this ends Day 2.  Start time for Day 3 will be 9:30am.