Mazda Adventure Rally Day 3: Silver Screen Landmarks and More

Welcome back to AutoGuide’s exploits at the Mazda Adventure Rally. We rejoin team Eunos Cosmo (Sami and Mike) as they hunt for big screen landmarks, highway signs and a trip to an historically hallowed ground. Do they still have a chance at first place? We’ll know soon.

Despite the dizzying altitude, wild roads, gusty winds and the sheer worry of not knowing what you’re doing all the time, the thing that wears on me the most this morning is realizing that despite our best efforts we’re just in third place.

But, it’s another day, and there’s another opportunity to get closer to the top of the heap. Credit the Mazda Adventure Rally for keeping things interesting, as we have four distinctly different challenges today, and plenty of opportunities to get bonus points and bring us back into the fight for first place.

Mike and I stayed up long past our usual bed-times figuring out every last detail of today’s events, and are back to feeling good about what the day has in store for us.

Here’s the run-down. The first event of the day has us traveling from our hotel spot in Telluride, Colo. to a gas station just past the Colorado-Utah border. We have to stick to particular set of roads, and make the journey in the fewest miles possible.

The organizers point out that we’ll be traveling through six distinct zip-codes: 81430, 81431, 81423, 81431 and 81422. We’ll have to prove we’re in those zip codes via a photo. We’re thinking of taking a photo of the “Welcome to…” county signs in the area, although we have to stay on the main road, as no U-turns or deviations from the route are allowed.

CLICK HERE TO FOLLOW MIKE AND SAMI (TEAM 52) IN REAL TIME

For the second challenge of the day, we have to snap a photo imitating a scene from the various Hollywood films that were shot in the area. A number of movies were filmed in Moab Utah, including the Hulk movie, one of the Indiana Jones flicks and Thelma and Louise, so we’ll put on our movie director hats on and make the magic happen.

Our third challenge involves plotting a route that goes through a set of counties in a particular order. Points are given for the shortest distance traveled. The route will take us near the location of the 1900 Scofield Mining disaster. We will get bonus points if we can get the exact number of people who died in the explosion, who were from Finland.

For our final challenge, we will be taking a route to Salt Lake City, Utah and capturing the many “Adopt a highway signs” along the way.

We have a pretty sound strategy in place and intend to stay in the top three, ensuring we get some money for our charity, but we’re still gunning for that number one spot.

Thanks for following us this far, we can feel the positivity brewing from our AutoGuide readers, and we’re determined not to let you guys down! Continue tweeting at us at www.twitter.com/mikeschlee and www.twitter.com/sami_ha and don’t forget to follow our progress on our main AutoGuide.com twitter page, Facebook page and Vine account!