4-22 ARE Challenge day two

We are scheduled to arrive in Bermuda at 1 – but before that – we have the Race.  10:00 at the Sunset Bar.  Andrew gives us the overview of the team standings – we’re in 3^rd place behind Red and Green.  Darn!  But – ok, it’s just day one – we can do this!  We leave 2^nd – 2 minutes after Team Red. And we’re off.

First stop – the dining room where – gulp – we have to count all the chairs! Oy!  Red team is there before us, and they start a couple minutes before us.  We strategize, divide the room up between the 3 couples and head off.  Upstairs, downstairs – we count them all.  1555.  Nope, wrong.  Aw, no.  Really!  Crud – we do NOT want to re-count.  But the Marshalls are good – we ask if we are high or low – they won’t tell us until after our 2^nd guess – ok – 1560.  Too high.  1540 Too high!  1530.  Too low!  1531.  Yes!  Done! Yay!  Next clue.

Now we have to figure out a riddle about betting and tables for 4 – we screw up and go to the casino – but there are no 4 top tables. Oh poop.  It’s the card room – up we go to 9 from deck 4.  Crap – the elevators.  They are a nightmare – always clogged making us wait – and while we aren’t timed in between the challenges – getting to the challenge before other teams gives us an advantage to hopefully be first at the pit stop.  And while a couple of us can run the stairs, a couple can’t, so the elevators it is.

We get hung up behind 3 teams and there are only 2 game slots.  Crud.  So we just hang out and wait – and make too much noise for the card players who are yelling at us to be quiet.  Oops!  Finally we get to play – and we have to form a line down the room with Prim being the “Instructor” and Bev being the “constructor” of a puzzle.  In between it is a game of telephone – where Prim gives an instruction to Randy, who whispers it to Ron, who whispers it to Ed who in turn whispers it to me and I give the instruction to Bev.  It’s a geometric shaped puzzle with different colors and it’s really hard to translate the picture Prim has with what Bev has – and to be honest – we do cheat a bit – I can see the puzzle picture and can then just tell Bev where to put the pieces.  Ron is doing the same thing and we get really good at giving Bev the instructions to finish.  Yes!  Another one down.  The Red team is still there trying to solve the puzzle so we feel good since they are in #1 place.  Next up we have to find the ice cream.

That’s easy – it’s the Oceanview café on the ice cream side.  From 4 to 14 we run for the elevators.  Those things will be the death of us, and again, even though we aren’t timed in between, we still want to get places as fast as we can.  We finally get the darn elevator, but as we get upstairs, somehow we have lost Ron.  And we can’t start any challenges until all the team is together.  Randy and I go searching – and after a couple of minutes we finally find him – and get to the challenge (with a note to ourselves – never separate – and ALWAYS make sure each team member knows exactly where we are going).  It is another roadblock – only 2 can participate and not the same 2 from yesterday.  And it is an eating challenge! Oh no! Ed volunteers – bless his heart! And Ron is his partner.  Ed has to eat and drink from about 40 little Dixie cups trying to find 5 cups with rings on the bottom.  Then once he has all 5, Ron has to put them in the order of the Olympic rings.  Oh joy!  Ed starts the cups – and they are filled with carb hell!  Trail mix (ok the nuts are good – but not the dried fruit!), goldfish cracker snack mix, M&Ms, all the stuff he just loves – NOT! And the drinks are iced tea and fruit punch!  Poor baby.  He clears about 30 cups before we get all 5 colors. Then Ron starts placing and moving until we get it right.  Wow. 

Pit stop – it’s Café Bacio – we’re gone. 

We arrive 2^nd into the pit stop and end up 4^th place overall for the day with 30 minutes.  3 more days of racing and bonuses – we could make a run for it!  At the pit stop, Andrew gives us our port day bonus challenge. The route riddle tells us to go to the Frog and the Onion, then order a sampler of beer. He also includes a riddle we must solve, write down on our route card and then take a picture with the beer, the server and the team – showing the riddle answer for proof.  Cool! We’ve got this.  The riddle seems to be a Vampire.  Most of us agree, but we have some dissension.  We decide to meet to go outside right at 1, go to the pub, get this done and then everyone can go on and do their touring, etc.  We head back to our room to freshen up and I want to Google the riddle, but Bev has the card – so I can’t.  Oh well – I think we’re right.