Thought I’d kick off this post by sharing a more travel-related Amazing Race blog – The Pratical Nomad. Edward always has an interesting take on improving travel – or what the Amazing Race should have done. He goes in-depth.

Ok, onto to this week’s installment.

On one of our first cross-country road trips, Jen and I went through southern Utah. The rock formations make it one of the coolest parts of the country – and nearly makes up for Nebraska’s ‘Attack of the Killer Corn Husks’.

Detour: Ride Down or Drop Down?
This is actually tough. Sure, mountain biking through Mowab sounds like fun. The Amazing Race producers usually offer a task fairly location-appropriate and one that feels more like a stapled on hairpiece. That being said, where’s the rappelling gear?

A little googling uncovers that this ‘Bart’ isn’t The Bart. The original Bart the Bear died 5 years ago – even for a reality show, that’d be tasteless.

Roadblock: take a ski jump into a swimming pool.
I’m doing this one. No question.

This is a non-elimination round? No. Phil, please just put the Weaver’s out of their misery.

Current Standing of Garrick’s Favorites:

• Lintz – #1 (about time!)

Looks like the Detour is painting wheels or hauling bamboo (needless to say, I’m not paying as close attention as other weeks). Loading bamboo seems much less tedious than painting wooden wheels.

We’ve watched enough Amazing Race to know the game is won and lost at the airport – finding the right seat on the right flight. As we saw tonight the earliest departing flight doesn’t always arrive first. My favorites – the Lintz Family – caught a flight arriving in Phoenix at 9:35. Everyone else, found a different flight leaving later, but arriving 15 minutes earlier.

Now if you’ve flown at all – you know 15 minutes doesn’t really matter- especially when you have an unfriendly, sour puss attitude towards the people between you and a million dollars. In the Amazing Race, 15 minutes is lost searching for your marked car in the parking lot.

Jen’s taking the 50 laps in the SuperCart.

If you’ve watched enough Amazing Race, you notice how the teams develop cute, patronizing nicknames for each other – like; “ChaChaCha”, “Team Smiley”, and oddly in this season – “Desperate Housewives”. Since the team was in the lead on this leg, that phrase must have been stated a dozen times this episode.

Yes, it’s cool that iTunes is offering next-day downloads of the hit ABC series. It’s even more interesting that CBS is doing free advertising for them on their hit series.

Wow, a 2-hour episode, I really didn’t expect that. Um, just dawned on me – the ‘pause-live-tv’ of Tivo was made for parents. I’m sure all of you already knew that.

360 in a combat fighter plane? I’ve got this one. I need to see how useful my hours of Chuck Yeager’s Advanced Flight Training were.

Current Standing of Garrick’s Favorites:

• Lintz – #2

We’re just past the first commercial break and nothing interesting to report, other than the bickering irritation of road-weary families. Blah.

Wait, they’re visiting Costa Rica’s Doka Estate Coffee Plantation. Totally makes up for it.

Roadblock: Find the red coffee bean
Jen: “Digging through 800lbs of green coffee beans, that’s all you babe.”

Detour: Relic or Ripe?
We’d harvest bananas – the pulley system seemed interesting and it’d be nice to know the story of my morning fruit. That, and I’m not in the mood for a vertigo-inducing bridge walk.

Rather than the great armchair travel adventures previous Amazing Races have been, this season is turning out to be the worst family vacation ever.

Current Standing of Garrick’s Favorites:

• Lintz – #2

“I’m so excited we’re getting out of the country.”

Yeah, me too. What fun is the Amazing Race if you’re only touring the east coast (midwest *cough* midwest). Then again, the Amazing Race producers have double the people this season – so much higher airfare costs. But here’s the real reason families haven’t left the US yet:

“Hable inglés?”

“A little”

“Burrito.”

My favorite thing about the Amazing Race is how a multiple-hour lead can evaporate waiting for an airplane or the next destination to open. It keeps things interesting for everyone.

Detour: Rhythm or Coos?
Coos – spying fake birds seems more interesting than running around town collecting instruments. I think I’d find a greater sense of progress with the birds.

Based on the edit we watched, the fake birds in the trees we in the same position as their representation on the sheet-of-birds. Position seemed like at least as effective way to identify the birds as color – though color is probably easiest to communicate to someone else.

How do you dress for a non-elimination round? Let’s have Phil respond,

“Did you know it was illegal in Panama to wear underpants on top of underpants?”

Current Standing of Garrick’s Favorites:

• Lintz – #4

The 7-person PartyBike has got to be the dorkiest thing in the world…it’d be perfect on ElimiDate. But in the real world? Dorky.

Between the log sawing and blackjack – what would I do? Log sawing. Cards and me just don’t get along. The closest I normally get to a poker hand is Wil Wheaton’s audioblog.

Current Standing of Garrick’s Favorites:

• Lintz – #3