Amazing Race Family Edition update – The Weight

Teams departed in the middle of the night for the next city: Charleston, South Carolina. In the first airline trip of the Race, all teams left from Dulles and took staggered flights to Charleston where they needed to find a gazebo at The Battery. Detour: Forrest Gump or Muddy Waters.

In this Detour, teams had the choice to either de-head 200 pounds of shrimp on a shrimp boat, or drive a 4x4 Jeep across a muddy field. Most of the teams headed to the ocean while the Weaver, Aiello and (later) the Gaghan families tried the mud bog. There’s nothing exciting to report about the shrimping; teams performed the task and got the next clue. Oh but there was dirty, dirty drama at the mud bog. The Weavers started out first but after a dozen attempts, simply gave up and headed to the shrimp boat. The Aiello men, however, kept at it and were on their 13th attempt to cross the field when the Gaghan family arrived. On the first episode of the Race, the Gaghan family ran ahead of the Aiellos while pulling Amish buggies most likely because Mom and Dad Gaghan had to pull about 300 fewer pounds than the Aiello men. In the mud field, a Jeep loaded with 500 lbs. of Team Rugrats sailed through the Detour in a single try while 900 lbs. of Team Male Bonding looked on helplessly. Eventually, the Aiellos made it through (I think on their next try, actually) and they raced to the next route marker.

After the Detour, teams headed to the Charleston Visitor Center and signed up for one of two buses, staggered at 3 and 5 pm, leaving for a mystery location. Teams Linz, Schroeder, Godlewski, and Bransen were on bus #1; the rest were on the second. Hopped up on adrenaline and not knowing when they might have to jump and run, teams were restless and exhausted. Little did they know it was an eight hour drive to Huntsville, Alabama and the U.S. Space and Rocket Center. The Weavers in particular were frazzled and bewildered when the bus stopped at a Waffle House for nourishment.

At Huntsville was the Roadblock: two team members must ride in a centrifuge until it achieves 3.2X gravity (3 “g”s). It wasn’t really much of a challenge and teams arrived and departed in the order they arrived at the centrifuge. They might as well have said: “stand on this spot for five minutes before continuing.” The remainder of this leg was the same: teams had to go to some museum and – in a shameless plug – log onto AOL to get the next clue which was “go somewhere else.” Yawn. So after this desultory step, teams had to find the space shuttle Pathfinder which was the Pit Stop. With minimal suspense, the first four teams off the bus arrived in the order they completed the centrifuge. Fun.

(One semi-humorous aside: was that the Star Trek “Amok Time” theme song playing during the centrifuge rides? "Da-da-daaa-daaa-daaa-daaa-da-da-de-da!" I think it was!)

The second bus pulled up two hours later and, after driving from the bus stop to the Space Center, the last four teams all pulled up to the clue box simultaneously. The teams that skipped down to the “first come, first served” section of the clue quickly realized that this would be the bottleneck and raced for the red tags indicating order on the Roadblock. The not-so-fleet-of-feet Aiellos were smoked by the younger teams and pulled tag #8 – not good. What more to say? The TAR editors tried to make it look like the other teams were lost finding the Pit Stop but seasoned viewers know better. Team Aiello lumbered up to the mat last and they were eliminated.

Final standings – Leg #3

#1 – Bransen family – Team Powerpuff (and Wally) – Prize: free gas for life (!!!)
#2 – Linz family – Team Cincinnati
#3 – Schroeder family – Team Nawlens
#4 – Godlewski family – Team Scream
#5 – Weaver family – Team Florida
#6 – Paolo family – Team Joisey
#7 – Gaghan family – Team Rugrats
#8 – Aiello family – Team Male Bonding – PHIL-LIMINATED

Next week – In an attempt to wring the tears out of Team Weaver, who recently lost their husband and father in an accident at the Daytona Speedway, teams head to Talladega Raceway.
Last week’s update.

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