***SPOILERS***



1. Next Destination: Auckland, New Zealand. Teams are thinking, “Yay, they speak English-o!” Oh, wait - Mirna/Schmirna are gone. It kind of cracked me up how visibly excited all the teams were to go the Kiwi-land.



2. As usual, travel arrangements all depend on your timing. I have to admit that I got a little confused on who was flying what airline and what times they were arriving in Auckland. That said, the Twinkies really irked me when they outright lied to the ticket agent about having a reservation they knew they didn’t have. They also miscalculated a bit by booking the Qantas flight from the git-go, but you never know how flights are going to work, so it wasn’t bad thinking overall.



3. Map Reading - clearly this is a skill that is a must for this game and yet I’m still amazed at how many people can’t read a simple map. I think part of the problem is that they start driving without really knowing which direction they need to go first. I’d take the 20 seconds to orient myself before actually moving the car. And maybe they do that and it’s edited out, but I’m thinking not.



4. Yield - and we. almost. had. a. team. use. the. Yield. Dang. I really wanted Chip/Kim to Yield the Twinkies. But what a tease they were about it.



5. Detour - Clean or Dirty. I’m saying it loudly - Brandon is a wuss with a capital W. (Hey, maybe Kerry could add that to his “W is for Whatever” talking point, in case he’s still looking for W words.) I would have done the sledging which looked fun, if in a scary way. Colin, being Mr. Intensity, opted with gusto for the sledging.



One side note about Colin - he really doesn’t like to be challenged by Christie. He’s got to have the most fragile ego I’ve seen in the male of the species lately. I couldn’t believe how angry he got when she merely asked him if he was sure they were driving in the right direction. Man. However, she was great in her calm and reasoned response to his outburst, which calmed him down to the point of his nice apology. Interesting.



Back to Brandon’s wussiness - really, the mud pits? The only reason you would have picked that task is because you are phobic of exciting things. I’m thinking this is true of Brandon - he’s been reluctant to do any of the edgier tasks. That said, his finding the clue almost immediately after telling God that he believes that He’ll help them was pretty cool. I’m wondering how much time actually elapsed there and how much was edited out.



The Twinkies opting for the mud pits didn’t surprise me - just another example of their poor decision making - you’d rather be warm than fast? Bad strategy, there, hon.



6. Roadblock - Ride the ZORB. Again, Brandon exhibits wussiness with his reluctance to ride the thing. That looked like a total blast! I’m wondering why Nicole didn’t do it.



7. Pit Stop - And Colin/Christie are in first. And they win another vacation, but at least this one is Europe. So that’s 3 vacations to Mexico and 1 to Europe for them. Sheesh. Then it’s Bowling Moms in 2nd. That’s impressive. Despite the mud, Brandon/Nicole in 3rd, which makes me wonder if they might have beaten the Moms and C/C if they had sledged. Chip/Kim, after some serious map reading snafus, managed to come in 4th. So the Twinkies are Philiminated! Whoopie! I was a little afraid that they would really surprise folks with the final non-elimination round, but nope.



And then there were four. Who will be Philiminated next?