Amazing Race: Flying & Typing

It was an odd season. None of the teams really excited me and none really annoyed me. They all seemed relatively pleasant, which can make for a non-exciting season overall. It might have been different if some of the earlier eliminated teams had made it farther in the race.

As the finale began, teams found out they were flying to Atlanta. Sandy declared that sucked. I first thought she was not a fan of the city, but she thought it gave the NFL team an advantage since they lived there. This has helped teams in the past, but other times it hasn’t made a difference.

After the teams landed in Atlanta from the same flight, they went to Flight Safety International and had to land a simulator aircraft successfully. One person on the was the pilot and the other was the co-pilot. Boring dating couple arrived first and Jeremy decided to be the pilot.  Control Freak decided Ernie would pilot. I was confused why Cindy didn’t want to do it since she does everything better than Ernie, according to her. What surprised me even more was Marcus said he hated to fly and then was the pilot. Errr, why not have Amani be the pilot then?

Proving that Jeremy is really good at driving/flying thing, they did it perfect on the first try and were out of there. The Control Freak team failed the first time, but not because of Ernie! Cindy didn’t maintain the necessary air speed velocity so their plane was falling out of the sky from going too slow. On the second try, they passed. Marcus had a really hard time landing the plane and keeping it on the runway. It took him 12 tries before he was done. Not once did he decide to let Amani fly. They didn’t state that they couldn’t switch once they decided who was piloting the plane, but maybe that was a rule. Either way, Amani was the calmest person alive while Marcus became more and more frustrated at not being able to land. He did a lot of punching of the cockpit ceiling when he failed.

The next clue told teams to find a former residence called “The Dump.” It was where Margaret Mitchell wrote “Gone With the Wind.” The dating couple asked a guy where The Dump was located and he sent them to a furniture store with the same name. The Control Freak team borrowed their taxi driver’s cell phone and called information. They also mentioned “residence” when looking for it so they went to the right place. That is how the Control Freak team passed the dating couple who spent quite a while wandering around the furniture store looking for a clue box before they finally decided, it was not a “former residence.”

Once teams were at The Dump, they had to type out their next clue on an old fashion clickity-clackity typewriter. It was so old, it didn’t believe in the number 1! Teams had to type a 1, but had to figure out to use the lowercase l in its place. Oh so tricky! Ernie decided to do the roadblock, but then Cindy fretted a lot after they found out it involved typing since apparently Ernie sucks at that and Cindy would do so much better. While he slowly typed inside the house, Cindy freaked out about how long it was taking, even though they were the only team there and Ernie finished before any other teams showed up. When dating couple showed up, Sandy did it and seemed to do it quickly. Marcus did it when they eventually showed up, but it was so far after the other two teams, you just knew how the race was headed.

The next clue made the teams figure out what 44-715-74, which was Hank Aaron’s jersey number, how many homeruns he made when he broke a record and what year it took place. It all lead the teams to Turner field to find their next clue. Control Freak went to a hotel and asked to borrow the front desk computer to research it. The front desk guy said they normally couldn’t do that but he would let them, then he wandered away. I’m guessing he thought it was an awesome time for a break. What if someone wanted to check into the hotel? He did eventually come back when Control Freaks found the answer. Dating couple also found the answer out at another hotel. The NFL team were never shown doing this part of the race.

The clue at Turner Field led the teams to a map challenge. One team member had to hang from a big billboard size map and connect in order all the countries they went to on the leg and none of the countries on the map were named. The other team member was on the ground and could shout out help. Cindy climbed up and didn’t need any help from Ernie. She did it fairly quickly and they were headed to the pit stop. Dating couple had Jeremy up there with Sandy helping him. They almost got it right but forgot Indonesia. When they were told it was wrong, Sandy asked where he put Indonesia and they realized they had forgotten it and fixed it. They took off to the pit stop too. Once again, NFL wasn’t shown doing this task at all. Guess what will happen??

While driving to the pit stop, the Control Freak’s cab could see the pit stop location but was having trouble finding where to turn to get onto the property. The editing made it look like the dating couple were right behind them, but the Control Freak team made it to the map in first place. They were very excited and Cindy informed Phil that her parents expected her to win. Good grief! Then they said they were starting a charity with their winnings, which I guess is nice. In second place was the dating couple and at some point the NFL team showed up. What I’m surprised about is that they weren’t in last place in the finale due to getting lost. It was for some other reason!

Questions

  1. Were you happy with who won or do you wish another one of the final three teams won the competition?
  2. Do you wish another team had made the final three and won the race?
  3. Did you think the map challenge was a little too easy since the teams didn’t get stuck there like they have on past similar final challenges?

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