Amazing Race I

Yesterday, mom watched the kids for the afternoon while Liz, Veronica and I drove for the teen teams participating in the WWBC Amazing Race. The teams began with a couple challenges at the church and then randomly chose the envelope that held the name of their driver. My envelope was found by Emily Hodgdon, Josh LaPointe and Jubal. Teams complete, we were off to start this crazy race that Greg set up!
* Greet the homeowner of 35 Weston Rd, Woolwich in a foreign language and then compliment her. (she gave us a non-descript key)
* Go to the Wiscasset Rec. and have one team member swim 3 laps in the pool. (follow directions Matt!)
* Ask for the Wiscasset Shaws store manager. (she had the team bag groceries for 2 customers)
* Head to the Lincoln County Animal Shelter and perform a task (our team brushed a room full of cats)
*Locate next clue at Marsh River Preserve in Newcastle
*Drive to the Bath Savings Institution in Damariscotta and perform a task

.....at this point of the race we were ahead of the other two teams by about 5 minutes. We were given a LARGE container of coin to count. We all set to counting it in our own way with no team organization. That was the first mistake. The second mistake was not keeping all the change in their groups when we arrived at our total. The third mistake was not realizing that if we did not have the right amount, it must ALL be counted again.......We had to count it again. This time we organized all the coin in the event of another recount, which there was. By this time the other teams had arrived to count their containers, much smaller containers we later learned. We were on to count #4, with Paparazzi James making visual record of our torture. We finally barred the door only to have him go outside with the video and film through the window. We learned later that he was going to film through a window on the other side for a different angle but saw a cop and thought that perhaps a man filming through a bank window might have some explaining to do. Through the frustrating counts #5 and #6 we maintained our humor but all agreed that we can do without seeing change for a LONG time! In the end we were only about a dollar off the mark, the tellers felt sorry for us and let us guess the total which ended up being about $131.

*Back to Wiscasset to use the key to unlock a car at Grover Auto for the next clue
*Return to the church for the end of Day 1

As I referenced above, upon arriving back at the church we learned that the other two teams counted about $43 and $79 at the bank....WHAT?!

The last leg of the race starts in a couple hours and revenge shall be sweet.