Amazing Race 12 Tidbits -- Thoughts and Outlook

Amazing Race Tidbits

CBS' The Amazing Race 12th Edition

Thoughts on Amazing Race 12 Episode 11, the Season Finale

Teams have $392 for this leg of the Race, and they needed it!

Episode Eleven Start Times
Members	Team
Ronald and Christina	9:47 AM
TK and Rachel	10:30 AM
Nicolas and Donald	10:37 AM

No Airport Shuffle

All teams got tickets for the same China Airlines flight to Anchorage Alaska. Ron and Christina used their savvy travel skills to simply ask for the free upgrade to the airport lounge to use Internet access. Other teams became anxious in the boarding area wondering where Ron and Christina disappeared, but they were upstairs checking out their next destination.

First Route Info

Teams had to travel from the Ted Stevens International Airport into Anchorage by taxi to Sixth Avenue Outfitters to get their gear. In the first huge break of the day, Nicolas and Donald forgot to pick up their gear. In a rare display, Don scolds his grandson, Nicolas--he turned out to be right. The clue instructed teams to go to Ship Creek Boat Lines. TK and Rachel had tough luck with their cab, and had to backtrack as much as five miles.

Detour

When they first arrive at the boat landing for the Detour, Nicolas and Donald realized their mistake in not claiming their gear at the outfitters and returned to the store before they could begin the Detour.

Cut the Cod

From the website: Teams had to cut through several 50-pound Ling Cod, using the knife from the outfitters and search for a miniature clue hidden in one of the fish. The task could be disgusting to some, but Teams with the guts to dig into their work could finish fast.

Two teams quickly recognize that this is the faster option.

Grab the Crab

Paraphrased from the website: Teams had to jump into the hold of a boat swarming with over 500 live crabs. Then, they had to search through the nipping crustaceans for a crab banded with yellow and red Race colors. The task wasn't as disgusting, but Teams would have to deal with hundreds of writhing crabs, and Teams without fast hands could find themselves in a pinch.

Only Rachel and TK are brave enough to try this, and they were thinking about switching.

Episode Eleven Detour
Members	Detour	Result
Ronald and Christina	Cut the Cod	Despite Ron's complaining that he knows nothing about fileting fish, they do well enough as the clue appears in the first Ling cod.
Nicolas and Donald	Cut the Cod	Don quickly opens up the first cod fish to reveal the clue to the searching Nicolas.
Rachel and TK	Grab the Crab	Rachel had terrible time, and TK was not faring much better. They discussed what to do as they needed to make a decision right away about switching. They were preparing to quit, when TK found the right crab in the nip of time!

Second Route Info

Next they all had to go by cab 60 miles to a boat landing on 20 Mile River, then by jet boat upstream to the 20 Mile Glacier. When they reached the iceface, they were instructed to climb the cold wet iceface of the glacier using pickaxes and mountain climbing boots up 90 feet to receive their next clue. Of the six climbers, Christina had the most trouble, almost falling off the glacier at one point. She eventually learned to trust the equipment enough to swing her left leg up over the first angle of the iceface. That delay allowed the trailing teams to get within sight of the lead team. From there, Christina was OK. Ron did well as he overcame his fear of heights. Good for a first timer, the handlers told him. The other Racers, even Donald and Rachel, did OK. The athletic TK made perhaps the best climb.

Third Route Info

Took helicopter ride to Merrill Field, then taxi to Goose Lake Park

Roadblock

Teaser Clue: Who wants to relive their exterience?

Paraphrased from the website: One team member had to face a field of objects they encountered along the racecourse. Each Team was given fifteen recognizable items from different legs of the race. With stress and exhaustion at an all-time high, they had to place on a stage ten specific items that matched a complex set of requirements:

There could only be one item from each of the ten legs of the race.
Only three items could be animals or animal by-products,
One item had to be a U-turn,
Two items had to be items either at or brought to the Pit Stop,
Two had to be items of transportation with wheels, one of which was used at a Detour, and
One had to be an item of transportation resembling the shape of a stick.

Making it even harder, the last five in this list were lumped together in one Gordian knot sentence as a second requirement. While there were several ways to fulfill the requirements, only one correct group of ten items fulfilled all of them. This was perhaps the hardest final roadblock ever.

Episode Eleven Roadblock
Team	Team Member	Result
Ronald and Christina	Christina	At first, she is confident, but started to struggle, then became frustrated. She was positive that the cleaning man from Japan was not an animal. Had she remembered the game of Animal, Vegtable, or Mineral, she might have seen the cleaning man as an animal.
Nicolas and Donald	Nicolas	Started third, finished third. He had a good idea at first, starting with all items on stage, then to remove items as needed. Surprised to see this gamer and pilot stumped and unable to jump ahead.
Rachel and TK	Rachel	Started second, but finished first. She remembered to keep her cool. She figured out that both the tandem and regular bikes were needed, and that the vault pole was not needed.

The items that fulfilled the requirements were:

Correct Items In Order Of Appearance
Item	Country	Notes
Tandem bike	Ireland	Transportation
Regular bike	Netherlands	Transportation with wheels used in a Detour
Camel milk	Burkina Faso	Animal by-product
Chicken	Burkina Faso	Animal, brought to Pit Stop. "No chicken, no check in"
Stilts	Lithuania	Shape of a stick, used in Detour
Gun	Croatia	Appeared at Pit Stop
Blackberry	Italy
U-Turn	India	U-Turn
Cleaning man	Japan	Animal. In the game of Animal, Vegtable, or Mineral, the cleaning guy would count as an animal.
Tea cups	Taiwan

A total of 15 items were in each enclosure on the field. The five distracter items were: the donkey from Ireland, the boat from Croatia, the bike, trailer, and propane tanks from India, a vase of flowers from Japan, and the ditch vault pole from the Netherlands. That ditch vault pole tripped up both Christina and Rachel. The key was to replace the vault pole with the regular bike for Netherlands.

Fourth Route Info

Paraphrased from the website: Teams had to find "the Cook's eye view of the Sleeping Lady." What they had to figure out was that the riddle referred to the statue of famed explorer Captain James Cook. Jumping into their taxi, TK and Rachel asked their driver where to find the "Cook's eye view" and he began driving them up to a hillside where he thought the statue was located. During this time, Christina finally finished the Road Block, and the father and daughter hoped to catch up to the dating couple. However, TK and Rachel's driver realized his mistake and got the anxious pair to Cook's statue ahead of Ron and Christina. According to their interview with Reality TV World, Ron and Christina's cab driver was even more lost than TK and Rachel's.

Fifth Route Info

Rachel and TK ran through the streets of downtown Anchorage asking people who tried to direct them to the Salmon Hooker statue, located near the intersection of 5th and G. After using a couple of locals for directions, the fast-moving pair found the gaudily painted fish with the final clue of the race.

Pit Stop

At the Salmon Hooker statue, all teams were given the final clue that they are to make their way by taxi to Girdwood Airport, about 40 miles outside Anchorage. Ron and Christina were unable to catch up to Rachel and TK, leaving the young pair alone in front as they exited their taxi.

Episode Eleven Order of Finish
Members	Team
Ronald and Christina	2
Nicolas and Donald	3
TK and Rachel	1

The scene at end was one of unbounded joy as TK and Rachel approached the FINISH LINE to the cheers of the previously eliminated teams.

How About Those Teams!

Congratulations to TK Erwin and Rachel Rosales, winners of the Amazing Race 12!

All three teams were likable, perhaps the most of any final three. Don fought fatigue, maybe just more obviously than the other finalists. But this jack-of-all-trades always had the right wisdom for the situation, even when he scolded Nicolas in this episode. Don ran just well enough, when Nicolas carried his pack. Both became dehydrated. Ron corrected a lot of his meanness, and did not complain much of his hernia in the later episodes. He surprised others with how fast he was able to run and do most tasks well in spite of the hernia. His change of attitude and behavior toward Chrisina helped them to build an adult relationship to replace the old parent-child one. Doing so put them in contention to win. Because they were communicating smoothly with each other, Ron and Christina were working as one throughout the later episodes. TK and Rachel used a steady, calm approach to the Race, which proved to be the key to their victory. They had just enough urgency to make the final push and prevail, without being out of character as two nice young people. It is refreshing to see a team win while making friends!