Chapter 1 - Minor Delays
Chapter 2 - Telephone Tag
Chapter 3 - Alex's Plan
Chapter 4 - Unexpected Surprises
Chapter 5 - Presenting the Proposal
Chapter 6 - Setting the Plan in Motion
Chapter 7 - On Your Marks, Get Set...
Chapter 8 - Prepare For Takeoff
Chapter 9 - On the Right Track?
Chapter 10 - Clue #2 is Found!
Chapter 11 - Railroad Warriors are right on track
Chapter 12 - A Few Bumps Along the Way
Chapter 13 - The Bittersweet End

Chapter 6  

Setting the Plan in Motion
Never before had Stay the Night Hotels ever put together such a huge contest. It was more than just the competition though, it was the cause which was the driving force for this entire project.

The sad truth is, nine out of ten people are affected by cancer in one way or another. Whether they themselves have been diagnosed, or have seen a family member, friend or neighbor endure the diagnosis.

Luckily, nowadays the advancements in cancer research and technology available to help diagnose and treat the disease have helped hundreds of thousands of individuals. Unfortunately, there is still are large number for which there are no further options, all medical procedures to aid in their treatment have been exhausted and they now hope and pray for a miracle.

Alex was a firm believer in miracles and the power of positive thinking. It had helped him immensely in handling health issues in his own family. When his mother was unexpectedly diagnosed with Leukemia, he was devastated for a few hours. He sat by himself digesting the news. Seeing the way his mother was handling the diagnoses, he knew he had to be strong for her.

A few years after his mother, his grandmother took ill. When the tests were run and the results were returned, it was announced that she would experience the effects of stage 4 ovarian cancer. Given her age and the stage of the cancer, it was hard to say what the outcome was going to be.

After many rounds of chemotherapy, the family waited. Alex’s grandmother went through surgery to remove the baseball-sized tumor and then waited some more for the results. She was proclaimed a patient in remission.

With all Alex had gone through with family member’s cancer, he was speechless when he found out about two of his colleagues, well, two of his close friends and their impending battles with the ruthless disease.

His eagerness to get this race in motion was driven by his family and friends, those who he had stood by as they went through their treatments. And for the few who were not quite back, 100%, to themselves yet. He hoped that this race would raise significant funds to donate to the American Cancer Society to support their cancer research efforts.

Alex reached his house and was happy to find a parking space right out front. He collected his laptop and files from the back of his car and made his way inside.

After getting into his apartment, Alex thought it would be best to fix himself some dinner before burying himself in his work. Seeing as he had skipped lunch, he found that he was quite hungry now!

He dined on a very thrown together salad, a few grilled cutlets of chicken and a tall glass of ice-cold water. He was feeling a bit more satisfied and topped his dinner off with a nice bowl of cookie dough ice cream with whipped cream on top!

Now he was ready to get down to business. He logged into his computer and signed into his email first. He figured he’d check to see if there were any urgent messages waiting for him. While not urgent, there was an email from Lara. Alex quickly opened it.

The email was a quick note to tell him that she attempted to fax back the contract, however, her building lost power due to a bad storm and it didn’t go through. She noted that she hoped to get it back to him in the morning.

This was a relief to Alex, with the slight delay in the return of the contract from Lara; he thought perhaps there was a problem and that Get Your Rail Travel would no longer be sponsoring this event. This was not the case and that was great news for Alex! Get Your Rail would be playing a big role in supplying one of the teams with rail tickets and passes for their routes through Europe.

The email blast to send to the consumer database was all set and ready to go, Alex was thinking that he could send it first thing in the morning but thought that he should really have the signed contract in hand before hitting “send”.

The next thing on Alex’s list was to come up with the clues that would be planted at select locations throughout Europe. When the contestants arrive in Dublin, they will receive their first clue. The race will begin when all twelve contestants disembark the airplane.

It was up to Alex now to come up with the route and clues that would be tricky, but not ridiculously hard (after all, this race should be complete in four days!). He had the route and cities picked out already, now he just needed to do some research. He wanted all his facts in order before even trying to come up with riddles and clues.

Also on his list of things to do this evening was to come up with perspective employees that could help him filter through the entries once they started coming in. He needed hard working, dedicated, responsible people and he had several in mind. Alex put together a recruitment email to send to this group of individuals in hopes that they’d all say yes!

Alex finished up his to-do list and decided to call it a night. At this rate, he’d get about four hours of sleep and wake up, ready to do it all over again. He turned his computer off, locked up and went to bed.

The next morning, Alex breezed through traffic and arrived early at the office. There was some construction going on and regular building maintenance. Alex hated days like this, as he approached the front door of the building, an out-of-control hose sprayed him.

He knew this day could only get better. Alex finally made it to his office and met Ruby on the way in. She began asking him what has been keeping him so busy lately and Alex simply told her that she’d find out soon enough.