Prospective co-hosts flaked and dropped out when they saw the amount of work involved; weather patterns and urban construction changed the complexion of sites over a passage of time; clues were constantly corrupted by  passersby, or worst, by the incompetence of third parties to whom they had been entrusted. Worst of all was Hell Week, the sleepless frantic approach to the rally launch where timing was everything. And with one hundred clues planted you thought you finally earned the right to prop up your feet and enjoy a cold beer: wrong again!!! You now had to cater to the drinking, eating and sleeping needs of thirty five people most of whom were frothing at the mouth patiently awaiting your execution or subjecting you to some  form of exquisite torture.

 

However, the Road rally remained alive; by 1995, it had paid visits to the Gulf Coast of Texas and to Fort Lauderdale Florida. Seeing the gauntlet thrown down, and in recognition of the continuing success of this " thing that just would not die," Karl Van Sickle, Sharon Kelley and I teamed up to plan a rally that travelled the virgin corridor from Pasadena to Ventura, with stops through west and downtown Los Angeles, going as far as Santa Barbara only to then turn back. Our themes borrowed heavily from newspaper headlines and film and television narratives. Karl planned one team called the Vintners whose mission was to go from winery to winery in a sort of bacchanale mission for fertility;  Sharon addressed the ambitions of young film production assistants hungry for fame , and lawyers hungry for that personal injury settlement. With my usual morbid sensitivity, all three of my runs followed the path of homicidal criminals whose storylines both real and  fictional left a murderous trail in their wake.

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Sharon scored when she booked our rally destination, a virtual beach party palace with multiple decks, an excellent sound system, an amazing kitchen within a hundred yards of the surf. Ultimately, five more hotel rooms and a smaller house would be used to accommodate the 37 participants.

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Though they had been used sporadically, this was the first year each team had a video that revealed a clue at the end of a skit; typically, the music and scene would try to invoke a spaghetti western drama, or television series, though "The Phobes" gave us an excellent performance by Karl and Sharon, as a mental patient and his psychiatrist who cared for him. The casts were having all the fun in the "Natural Born Killers" video or one where I played an ambulance chasing lawyer faking accidents and injuries for money; Sharon was the hapless client whose injury was anything but fake, on or off screen. I took on recreating the O.J. Simpson trial in a salute to political incorrectness, though it was our version of "Waterworld," and went on for forty long minutes. We wouldn't do Hamlet for three more years; I was  reminded then that brevity was the soul of wit.

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The rally wended its way though train stations, missions, nurseries, beaches, Santa Ynez wineries, and Santa Claus stores. Bars played a huge role, as teams sang, searched and danced for their clues (once on the actual bar), sometimes in drag or displaying gang signs. Clues were hidden behind wine labels, stuffed into  pill capsules, tucked into the lining antique hats, scrambled in hollow plastic eggs, and pasted to the steps of moving escalators.

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The rally was not without mishaps; the Production Assistants were detained by Technicolor when they were caught snooping around the grounds by camera surveillance. Luckily some deft explanation and the rally clue sheet went far in exonerating them of any malicious

design, and they were soon released. This incident brought home a lesson that has stayed with all of us for three decades, and made even more cogent in the post-911 era. Do not place teams in peril in a world where suspicious actions can lead to over-reaction by authorities. I recall hearing about  a man who was arrested and traumatized by the FBI at the Lincoln Memorial for secreting his fianceé's  engagement ring there at the end of a treasure hunt in a version of a marital proposal.

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The learning curve had kept on going higher: longer distances were mastered, accommodations were finally reaching a new high, and videos brought in a new production value. There were things to improve, such as making the clue sheet writing universally consistent

and the clues not as apt to be corrupted.

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