Territorial Bloggings

I’m getting this out tonight, just in case I don’t get the chance tomorrow because of my having to report for jury duty…

Lots of posturing by the 6 remaining teams, with most of the drama resulting from 3 of 6 teams (ErGo, KarLyn, & KY) banding together as the “SixPack” Alliance. I don’t mind ErGo (although they should be too smart to hook themselves up with anchors like KY & (especially) KarLyn…) all that much, and even KY doesn’t annoy me the most (mainly because of David). KarLyn, however, needs to be banished from my tv post-haste!

A nice set of challenges this week, in a very nice setting — the island Republic of Mauritius. The Blondes deserved 1st place this week (even with the weak reward of scooters), if only because they were the only ones smart enough to not waste any time on the crapshoot that was searching through the piles of salt! That type of challenge has a long TAR history of being a huge gamble. Thankfully this time it wasn’t a roadblock, as these types of “luck-of-the-draw” tasks are quite unfair as roadblocks, but not so much as detours.

KY went from worst to first, and now back to worst — only to be saved again by a non-elimination leg. The only thing that could’ve made it better would’ve been them having been directly sold out by KarLyn or ErGo on a race to the finish. I’m blown away by Mary’s naivete concerning the “friendships” & the race, particularly as manifested in a willingness/willfulness to plan on waiting for the other members of the SixPack Alliance before moving on. I’d be interested to know her reaction when she saw/heard that such a willingness was not reciprocated by the others, especially KarLyn. If ErGo is smart, they’ll dump the SixPack Alliance, and do it early on in the next leg!

Those little Nissan cars were pretty darned cute, and they sure seem sturdily built, what with how well one survived the Blondes’ little fender-bender! Ah, but it served as an opportunity for Dustin to show off her red shorts again, so all wasn’t lost…
All in all, not a bad installment, although no team other than the Blondes is showing an ability to race a clean leg (fender-bender notwithstanding) free of mistakes, blunders, or meltdowns. Unless someone else can step it up, the Blondes might actually be the first all-girls team to win TAR!

Next week: A new race twist — The Intersection!

-ghp