I guess I need to sit down and do this. But by writing it – it puts an end to the race. WAH! Not ready for it to end. And I have to wait for the next race of which I have no clue of when that will be aired. So needless to say, I am not a happy camper. But the hippies won and I am happy for them but to be honest and entirely in the minority - I must confess I was rooting for the frat boys to win.  But I’m still glad they won – they played the kinda race that I liked to watch. Forever up, not too much backstabbing and fun to watch. Let’s get on with the synopsis.

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At the pit stop the hippies were the first to leave and they had about a 2hour head start on the frat boys and Ray & Yolanda. They were able to leave at 11:18pm with the other two teams leaving 1:21am and 1:28am. Their clues took them about 75miles away to Royal Kraal. They were to retrieve from an elephant a T-Mobile Sidekick. The Sidekicks had the next clue. As most locations opening and closing times had a way of taking the time advantage from the teams and this was no different. The Royal Kraal opened at 4am in the morning so the other two teams caught up with the hippies. Once the gates opened the teams ran to the elephants and got their Sidekicks from the elephants’ trunks. The teams then read from the Sidekick where their next clue was taking them. They were going to Tokyo.Â

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They were to fly to Tokyo and go to Shibuya, which is like Times Square with a bunch of electronic billboards. Once they got there they were to locate the next clue on one of the billboards.  The hippies having the distinct advantage here since Tyler is fluent in Japanese due to his Japanese girlfriend, got dealt a setback when they were unable to catch the same flight out as the frat boys and Ray & Yolanda. Their flight came in 2 hours later than the other teams.  Once the teams landed in Tokyo they had to take a shuttle to the Nikko Hotel to pick up a car. At the hotel Ray & Yolanda immediately jumped into a car and took off whereas Eric & Jeremy, using their heads, went into the hotel and asked for directions and were given a map. They were able to find Shibuya easily where Ray & Yolanda struggled reading the road signs and locating Shibuya. Finding Shibuya, Eric & Jeremy scanned the billboards and found their clue which had them locate a beloved dog statue to retrieve their next clue which turned out to be a Detour.Â

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The Detour had 2 tasks, one was called Maiden Voyage. It had the teams go by taxi 7 miles to a Japanese garden where they were to transport a maiden 1-mile to a tea ceremony. The teams had to use this ancient transportation carrier called a palanquin that was used to carry royalty. The other task, Messenger had the teams finding these folding bikes and each person got a messenger bag with a parcel in each. After assembling the bikes the teams would ride through Tokyo traffic to deliver these packages. They had to find the building listed on the packages.Â

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Eric & Jeremy and Ray & Yolanda opted to carry the maiden to the tea ceremony. It was not a comfortable trip since they had to carry these palanquin on their shoulders for a mile, but each team figured this was the best thing to do rather then try to brave the Tokyo traffic and not knowing the language it would be easier than trying to find the buildings. They were able to accomplish it and get their next clue.

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The hippies decided to do the messenger task figuring it should be rather easy since Tyler speaks the language.  This was proven true after assembling the bikes and biking through the traffic. Tyler was able to locate the first building and give the parcel to the person and asking for directions to the next building. They were able to complete this task quickly with no fuss and got their next clue, which directed them to find the Capsule Land Hotel. It turned out that they were to stay in these space ship type of sleeping compartments for the evening before beginning the next segment of the race. In the morning the teams were given their next clue in the order in which they checked in with 15min intervals between their departures. Eric & Jeremy were able to get their clue first with BJ & Tyler leaving 2^nd and Ray &Yolanda leaving 3^rd. They were directed to go to Fujikyo Highlands 80 miles away.Â

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Fujikyo Highlands is an amusement park and it became a Roadblock. After arriving at the park they found the clue box and discovered that one team member was to ride 3 designated roller coasters and try to find a man holding a sign during one of the rides. They would need to read the sign and remember it and report it back to a guy and if they got it correct they got their next clue. The frat boys and the hippies arriving at the park simultaneously had to ride the roller coasters together. Tyler and Jeremy were the designated riders and took off on the first coaster and didn’t see anything and then there were off to ride the second one. Tyler thought he’d mess with Jeremy and said he saw the man during the 2^nd ride. Jeremy not seeing him started to panic and thought he might have to ride the coasters again. So they moved onto the 3^rd ride and they both spied the sign and were able to repeat the message to the man and get their clue. Jeremy after realizing that Tyler tried to mess with him pretended to be angry. Now the race was on since both teams were even and both headed to the same destination, Lake Yamanaka and the pit stop. They drove to the lake and had to peddle these swan boats out to the middle of the lake to a bigger swan boat. BJ & Tyler were the first to arrive followed very closely by Eric & Jeremy. Ray & Yolanda arriving later lost all their possessions but were not eliminated allowing them to participate in the final leg.

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The next morning BJ & Tyler leaving at 12:18am got their clue and it directed them to get to the Hotel Nikko to take a shuttle to the airport. When BJ & Tyler got to the hotel they asked to use the internet to secure a flight to Alaska. They asked the desk personnel to tell the other teams there was no internet connectivity in the hotel. When Eric & Jeremy arrived they asked and were told no internet so they found a phone and were able to get a flight that left earlier than BJ & Eric, but that really didn’t matter in the long run since everyone got bunched together in Taipei. Once in Alaska everyone was even.Â

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Landing in snowy Anchorage they teams got their clues on their vehicles and took off for Mirror Lake about 30 miles away in the snow. Mirror Lake turned out to be a Detour, which had 2 tasks but since it was so snowy they could not do the second task. The frat boys and the hippies arrived together and Ray & Yolanda had another directional malfunction which prohibited them from being competitive in these final tasks. So from here on end they might not get mentioned much. Anyway the 2 tasks for the Detour were Drill It and Deliver It. In Drill It they teams had to drill 10 holes in the ice on the lake and then push a fishing shack over 2 of the holes to set up a ice fishing camp. In Delivery It the teams were to load a bush plane full of medical supplies and then once that was done get on the plane to deliver the supplies. They were supposed to guide the pilot to the airfield using maps so the first aid supplies can be delivered. But as I stated earlier none of the teams could do this due to the inclement weather. Ray & Yolanda were the only team to want to do this but had to do the drill it instead. The frat boys and hippies were neck and neck during this task but the frat boys completed it first and got the clue to the next destination.Â

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The next destination proved to be another wilderness task. They were to go to Kincaid Park to don some snow shoes and using a map find their next clue. The frat boys being the first team there were able to find the shoes and the clue in what appeared to be rather quick interval. The hippies were not so lucky. They totally bypassed the snowshoes and ran around the lodge looking for them. They finally found them after a few passes around the lodge. They put on the shoes and using the map found the clue location and got their next destination, Denver.

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Denver, back to where the race started. The frat boys and hippies hustled on over to the airport to book flights to Colorado. But again, the airport being the big equalizer that it can be, came through for Ray & Yolanda and allowed them to catch up to the frat boys and hippies. Everyone flew on the same flight to Denver and made their way to Golden where they had to search for the next clue. The frat boys and hippies found the clue and it directed them back to the future, their future millions. (how dramatic!)

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With Ray & Yolanda out of the race to the finish, the frat boys got to the amphitheater first and had to complete the final task, which was to put country flags in the order of the visitation during the race. This proved to be difficult and to make it even more difficult the show had some bogus flags interspersed with the real flags. Even though the frat boys were in the lead, the hippies managed to get the flags ordered correctly and were able to run to the finish and claim the million-dollar check. It was a good and exciting race and I will surely miss the show until it comes back on the next time.

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Again, I will reiterate I was voting for the frat boys, my son was voting for the hippies and we both vote for more shows!Â

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I’m starting to get scared now.  I feel like I am in a Twilight Zone episode, you know the one where the kid wishes people out to the cornfield who displease him?  Everyone that I would like to get booted off the race has succumbed to my wishes.  This usually doesn’t happen there is usually a team in the top three that I despise.  But not this time – I may be in the minority – but I still like the frat boys and I will be fine if any of the 3 remaining teams, BJ & Tyler, Eric & Jeremy or Ray & Yolanda win.  So  MoJo bit the dust, and I couldn’t be happier.  But let’s backtrack a bit and get caught up on the race and then I can gloat.

 

In this leg Ray & Yolanda were finally able to pull off a first place finish and start out first from the Pitstop.  The clue they were given sent the teams to the Darwin airport to get a flight out to Bangkok, Thailand.  All the teams started within 8 minutes of each other and were able to get to the airport without any hassle.  BJ & Tyler did not book the flight to Bangkok until they hit the city of Darwin at 2am in the morning to hustle up some money from the late night/early morning revelers.  At the last pitstop they had what little they had left confiscated and started out this leg with no cash or clothes.  Yolanda left a pair of stretch pants for BJ to use and the frat boys left a pair of flip-flops for BJ too.  MoJo didn’t leave anything.  After hustling for cash BJ & Tyler got back to the airport to book their flight but were unable to get the same flight that the other teams were on, it was full.  They lucked out and were able to get another flight out that arrived in Bangkok 15min earlier than the other teams.  But that didn’t happen, the other teams arrived 45min ahead of schedule and the hippies were delayed on their flight.  But all teams upon landing in Bangkok got a taxi and headed to Moshi Bus terminal to take them to the town of Lapburi where they needed to find the Three Spire Pagoda, which is home to sacred monkeys. 

 

Eric & Jeremy and Ray & Yolanda were able to get to the bus terminal in time to take the last bus to the Lapburi.  But MoJo and the hippies got there too late and had to wait to take the first bus out in the morning.  MoJo went to find a hotel to sleep and BJ & Tyler opted to sleep at the terminal and were awake to notice a bus getting ready to leave at 420am and were able to get on it for the trip to Lapburi.  MoJo got to the bus terminal around after the hippies left and caught the 5:20am bus out, which unbeknownst to them put them in the back of the pack. 

 

All the teams but MoJo arrived at Three Spire pagoda and had to wait for it to open.  So the frat boys spent time playing with the monkeys, Ray & Yolanda just waited like the hippies.  When it opened they found out the Fast Forward was offered.  The hippies and Ray & Yolanda took off in pursuit of completing the Fast Forward first while Eric & Jeremy had to do the Roadblock.

 

The Roadblock had the teams preparing a ceremonial feast for the monkeys that are similar to what the locals prepare for the monkeys.  Eric had to cut fruits and vegetables and artfully arrange the product on the table.  He had to contend with the monkeys stealing the food but he kept working on it. 

 

The Fast Forward had the teams going to a local hangout and feasting on the typical afternoon fare, which turned out to be fried crickets and grasshoppers.  BJ & Tyler getting there first were less than thrilled with the cuisine but felt compelled to pursue it since it would be their ticket to first place.  They sat down with a big bowl of each crispy critter and started popping them in their mouths.  They did not go down to easily.  Meanwhile Ray & Yolanda arriving there to witness the feast were a little less than pleased at the task.  They decided to go back to the Roadblock and try their luck there.  The hippies struggled with consuming these insects and questioned their decision to win the Fast Forward.  But they agreed that it would be in their best interests to stick it out and finish.  So they plowed on struggling to get the insects down and struggling to keep them down.  But they did manage to both finish their bowls and got their clue and made their way to the Pit Stop in first place.

 

Meanwhile back at the Roadblock, Eric was joined by MoJo and Joseph was creating his feast, but he was having the same problems as Eric where the monkeys were stealing the food off the table.  Ray & Yolanda came back and Yolanda was working on creating the feast.  They all finished in the order of starting and they got their clue taking them by ferry to Koh Kret Island, where they were to find the Buddha Garden.

 

The clue at the Buddha Garden was a detour.  The teams had 2 tasks to pick from.  The first one was Move It.  In Move It the teams were to go to a pottery factory and carry 72 pots through the streets to a ship.  And in Alter It the teams had to assemble a shrine to Buddha and gold leaf a Buddha.  Eric & Jeremy being the first team there decided to do Alter It.  It turned out to be a tedious task and not one that could be completed quickly.  But with both members of the team working on it helped move the process along.  Ray & Yolanda also did Alter It.  MoJo arriving at the garden and seeing the other two teams doing the Alter It task decided to do the Move It task.  Their first trip to the ship was hard and slow and when Joseph asked a local for help to the ship the local said it was too far and refused.  But they were able to transport a goodly amount on the initial trip and it was during the 2^nd trip that things started to unravel.  Monica dropped all but 2 of her pots and melted into a puddle of tears.  Joseph told her to suck it up and keep going.  They had to make 3 trips to the ship in order to deliver the correct amount of pots. 

 

After completing the detour each team got their clue directing them to the Pit Stop at the Marble Temple and Eric & Jeremy made it over there to capture 2^nd place and a spot in the final 3 to compete for the Million Dollar prize.  The battle was on for Ray & Yolanda and MoJo.  Ray & Yolanda were able to arrive there 3^rd and earned the last spot in the final 3 and MoJo was ELIMINATED!

 

I’m wondering how much of a head start the Fast Forward will give the hippies?  It may be enough to keep them in 1^st place throughout the race or it could be that the ingestion of the insects was a very time consuming task.  But all I know is I am very anxious to see who wins but dreading the finale.  It has been a fun race and it has almost wiped out the Family Race from my memory. 

 

 

The hippies are hanging on by the hair on their chinny-chin-chins.  Coming up short in a 3-way footrace to the pitstop caused them to lose all their worldly goods – AGAIN.  ‘Nuff about that now and let’s start at the beginning of this leg.

 

Leaving first from the Freemantle Sailing Club Eric & Jeremy left at 11:47pm to go to the Swan Bells Tower across town.¬† They were only separated from last place Ray & Yolanda by ¬? hour.¬† So all teams were all tightly bunched and the Swan Bells Tower did not open until 8am.¬† While waiting for the Swan Bells to open BJ & Tyler, smarting over the cold shoulder offered by the frat boys and MoJo, started noticing the growing friendliness between Eric and Monica and decided to start sowing seeds of dissension between Joseph & Monica.¬† They are hoping that Joseph would allow it to sink in and cause him to be not too focused on the race but on his girlfriend and Eric.¬† Time will tell if that strategy pays off.¬† Everyone hunkered down for the night and was waiting for 8am to grab their next clue.¬† Before the building opened Ray & Yolanda and the hippies called and arranged for taxis to be waiting.¬† Eric & Jeremy observing this called for a taxi for themselves and MoJo and cancelled the taxis for Ray & Yolanda and BJ & Tyler.¬† This is not something that I liked and thought it was rather nasty of the frat boys to stoop so low, but karma is a funny thing and it came back to bite them in the butt.¬† MoJo were able to grab their waiting cab but the frat boys‚Äô cab did not come and they were stuck trying to find a cab and watching while Ray & Yolanda and the hippies realize their cabs weren‚Äôt coming and arrange for transportation and blaming it on MoJo since they were the only ones who had a cab.¬† Everyone was racing to get to Darwin.

 

They were all to fly to Darwin to go to a crocodile farm for their clue.  The taxi cab shenanigans really didn’t have much of an effect on the race since all the teams were able to get to the airport and get on the same flight to Darwin.  While waiting for the flight BJ & Tyler took the opportunity to launch their plan, they commented on the vibrations between Eric & Monica.  Eric laughed it off and Monica & Joseph got pissed.  But it may lodge itself in Joseph’s brain and come up later while they’re fighting.  The crocodile farm was intimidating.  They were all to wade into crocodile pools to get a clue which sent them onto the Roadblock.

 

The Roadblock was for them to go to an airfield in the town of Batchelor.  Knowing the yield was coming up and BJ & Tyler getting out first to Batchelor, MoJo passed BJ driving and actually arrived at the airfield first but the hippies were quicker out of the car and beat them to the mat and made good on their promise to Yield Monica & Joseph, which made Monica cry and Joseph to get angry.  The Roadblock entailed one member of each team to skydive in tandem from 1200 ft.  BJ, Ray & Eric did the jump and while Jeremy and Yolanda were waiting for their teammates and Jeremy took the opportunity to hit on Yolanda.  Yolanda looked kinda stunned but did not try flirting back or comment on it.  I think my frat boys are a couple of horn dogs.  BJ & Tyler after completing the roadblock had to pass by MoJo and tried to apologize but MoJo was not having it.  Joseph threatened them.  

 

After landing each team got their clue and proceeded to the next clue which was at a Litchfield National Park and find the Magnetic Termite Mounds.  Each team made its way over there to retrieve their next clue.  The clue was a Detour and it consisted of two tasks.  One being called Wet.  Wet had the teams drive 6 miles to a spot where both team members were to hike and swim down a river for a mile.  The river had large spiders and poisonous plants.  The hippies and the frat boys did this detour.  They found it was a lot harder than anticipated and soon found that a mile was farther than thought. 

 

The Dry one was the teams had to drive 6 miles on the road and 6 miles off the road.  They came to a spot where they had to pick a didgeridoo, (an aboriginal flute-like horn thing), and follow the sounds to an aboriginal native and compare the designs on the instrument to find the player that matched their instrument. Once they located the right aborigine he then had to teach each of teams to play the didgeridoo.   MoJo and Ray & Yolanda did this and it proved to be quicker than the Wet task.  Ray & Yolanda were able to master it and got their next clue which directed them to the Pitstop at Lake Bennett.  Ray & Yolanda for the very first time were able to get to the Pitstop first.  They were followed by 3 way race to the finish.  The frat boys came in second and MoJo claimed third with BJ & Tyler coming in last.   They would have come in 2^nd but BJ running in bare feet fell coming down into a ditch which allowed MoJo to scoot on in there.  The hippies, thankfully, were not eliminated but had their recently acquired goods taken from them and they have to start over.  But BJ, at the close of the episode, commented on the true hippie lifestyle, they don’t need things, everything they need is within themselves. 

 

So my disappointment in the frat boys is there but I was happy to see that they were bitten by the “what goes around comes around” adage.  I haven’t given up on them yet, but they have fallen from grace to 3^rd place in my estimation.  But I will be looking for redemption from them and hopefully they will come through and compete at an honest level and not an underhanded, sneaky way.  But this season is unfurling in an exciting way and I can’t wait to see the finish, but with that comes the end of the season and I have to await the next installation.