Good Luck... Travel Safe... GO!

Well, it appears the producers are determined to counteract the boring family edition that they served to us last year, with surprised filled, action-packed, physically challenging version this fall! We lost two teams, and the remaining ones nearly wiped themselves out climbing the great wall of China. And that’s just episode one! It was sad to see Balil & Sa’eed and Vipul & Arti go. They all seemed like nice people and good teams. However, nice isn’t nearly as exciting to watch as squawking, sniping, and flirting… and we have all of the above left to entertain us! The squawkers? Well that would be Rob and Kimberly. These two are trying to determine if they should be partners for life. Uh, I don’t think they should even be partners in bridge. The times they were nice to each other all appeared forced, and only seemed to occur when they suddenly remembered that they were being filmed for a national TV audience. I mean, there was more than one team that mistakenly drove into the SeaTac airport, looking for where to drop of their rental car… but this little couple was instantly at each other’s throats about it, and this was only 10 minutes into the show! I know that extreme pressure can bring about good things… like diamonds, for example. But for these two, I think the pressure of the race is going to be a very, very bad thing. But oh so entertaining to watch! Now another team we have to put in the squawkers category is David and Mary. Mary started out explaining to us that where they come from, the husband makes all the decisions while the wife just takes care of the kids. But she is sure fired up about this opportunity for them to work “50/50” and have a voice of her own! And boy… did we hear that voice. She was bossy from minute one, second-guessing whatever David did, and not giving him much credit for what he did right or his attempts to help her throughout the challenges. Their bright-eyed wonderment of seeing all of these new sights is kind of fun to watch, but mostly enjoyable because it makes Mary speechless for a moment or two. And the snipers of this season? Most definitely Lyn and Karlyn. These two aren’t pleased at all about the benefits that Peter and Sarah are receiving as a result of her disability. As a team they got to pre-board a fight because of her leg, and Lyn and Karlyn had a snit-fit. “She can run the Iron Man, but she can’t stand in line?” Niiiice, ladies! You know, you too can have the benefit of pre-boarding if you just give up one of your legs. What’s that…? Never mind? Hmmm… thought so. Plus, no one is giving you grief over your advantage in China. You said yourself the people of China love folks from Alabama ever since “Forrest Gump” came out. (WTF???) Uhhh… I’m not going to even try to sort through that one. These two single moms did tough it out though, scaling the wall to the pit stop, which was no easy feat. But if they keep burning so much energy, hating on the other teams, they’re going to run out of steam well before the finish line. (But secretly we will love to watch them in the meantime.) And the flirting starts early this year! The male models and the beauty queens are slowly circling each other, in a dance that will hopefully become more and more entertaining in the weeks to come. Now one of the models has a girlfriend (don’t remember which), so he’ll just have to be the wingman. But it’s always loads of fun when there are some romantic sparks between teams. And these two teams are good! The boys are in first place, and well equipped to stay there. And the beauties are a pretty strong team as well…. fit, fast, and smart. This could be a super alliance, if they decide to get together and trust each other. But this game never seems to enable teams to pair up for any long period of time. There are too many factors random (bad taxi drivers, lucky wins in Roadblocks and Detours) for teams to stay side by side for long. So we may just have to be content to watch the flirt dance. Now, I’m sure flirting isn’t the right term to use, but the other two teams that seem to enjoy each other’s company is the Cheerleaders and the Leprechauns! It can’t officially be a flirt, right… between two girls and two unusually tiny gay men? But they all seem to have the same attitude about the race… like a, “Wheeeee, we’re here!!” type of thing. The Cheerleaders clapped their enthusiasm through the entire first leg. I’m sure if any of the taxi drivers knew enough English to say so, they would have asked the girls to shut the heck up. But luckily for the girls, they didn’t. And their energy was contagious, because soon the Leprechauns were clapping to encourage their drivers as well. Keep it up, ladies! (all four of you) You have the perfect attitude for this thing, and are making all of us at home smile! And Edwin and Godwin, you may be book smart as all hell, and have enough degrees between you to wallpaper the walls. But you whipped out toy guns to run around with in the airport? Are you crazy??? You two make my head hurt. Finally, my sentimental favorite, Duke and Lauren. These two just make you want to pull for them. There’s all this internal drama going on, and yet this totally obvious desire on both of their parts to bridge the gulf between them. These two should come with a hanky warning, because there is still so much raw emotion between them that you can’t hardly help but get pulled into it. I loved how well they did this first leg, and how genuinely thrilled they were to be there, as well as how strongly they supported one another. I hope that lasts, regardless of how they place. I’m pulling for these two!