Wynonna & Chuck Eliminated from The Amazing Race After Cheese Sled Penalty

I don't often find myself laughing whilst watching The Amazing Race, but I did find myself letting out an amused guffaw when Chuck literally head-butted wife Wynonna to help get her up the slippery snowy slope which lead to 200 pounds of cheese in the form of 4 fifty pound cheese rounds.

This week's leg of The Amazing Race, in Switzerland, delivered one of those Amazing Race moments that is the reason this is one of my favorite TV shows. That being, showing me something I did not know existed.

As in the 4.5 mile cog railway that climbs inside the Eiger formation, to the Jungfraujoch railway station, it being the highest railway station in Europe. From there an elevator takes one to the Sphinx Observatory.

Train tunnels and elevators taking people to the top of a very high mountain formation is something I had not seen before.

The Jungfraujoch Roadblock set my acrophobia off to full blown queasy knees mode. The racer doing the Roadblock had to put on rappelling type gear, attached, via clip, to a cable. Then climb out a window, walk on a narrow board, un-clip a Travelocity Gnome and then get back to safety via another window.

This clipped walk on the wild side took place above a multi-thousand foot steep cliff dropoff.

Wynonna got stuck when she got to the Travelocity Gnome. The elevation was in the 11,000 feet above sea level zone. I have been that high before. One gets exhausted easily.

I re-watched Wynonna's dilemma multiple times. I could not quite figure out how the clipping and un-clipping worked. It appeared the clip had to be un-clipped and moved to the other side of the bolt to which the cable was attached. Did this leave the Racer temporarily un-clipped? I suspect not. Were there two clips? I could not tell, but the more I watched the more my acrophobia ratcheted up.

All the other Racers, except for Wynonna & Chuck and the YouTubers, Joey & Meghan, made it to the first train off the mountain. Wynonna & Chuck and Joey & Meghan followed an hour later.

When I saw how difficult that next challenge was, as in haul a sled up a steep snow covered hill, with the final ascent with the help of a rope, well, I figured Wynonna & Chuck would be in trouble.

Eventually Chuck was able to get Wynonna to the cheese rounds. But, apparently these natives of the South had never seen a sled before. So, they turned the sleds upside down and loaded on the cheese. This, predictably, did not work well, which had Wynonna telling Chuck she'd roll one round of cheese down the hill while he managed the other three.

Meanwhile, Joey & Meghan had completed the task and were on their way to the Pitstop. Directionally confused, as usual.

Wynonna & Chuck finally delivered the cheese, go the Pitstop clue, then found taxi to take them to Phil, who told them they had incurred a 30 minute penalty due to not following the instructions correctly when they did not use their sleds to transport the cheese.

As the 30 minutes clicked down Joey & Meghan failed to find a cab, with the exhausted Meghan eventually in tears as they slowly trudged through the snow, on foot, making it to Phil before Wynonna & Chuck's 30 minute penalty had expired, thus keeping Joey & Meghan in the Race and eliminating Wynonna & Chuck.

The Amazing Race Eliminates The Cowboys With Zev & Justin First Again to the Pitstop

I don't like the U-Turn and Double U-Turn on The Amazing Race.

I don't like Detours that involving a difficult eating challenge on The Amazing Race.

I don't like it when someone helps another team by giving them the answer to a difficult challenge on The Amazing Race.

The most recent episode of The Amazing Race had all three elements that I don't like.

The Cowboys, Jet & Cord McCoy, were U-Turned by the Globetrotters, which eliminated the Cowboys by making them do the other half of the Detour, eating a big fondue pot full of cheese. The Cowboys had fallen behind due to Jet having trouble with the Roadblock.

The person doing the Roadblock had to ride a motorized bike called a Solex, using the bike's odometer to measure the length of Liechtenstein. Cord got lost and was way off with his first guess. Justin was the first to find a Liechtensteiner Olympic skier named Marco Buchel and tell him the correct distance of 22 kilometers.

Jen lost her map, then hooked up with Justin, who then told Jen the answer. Jet gave Marco a wrong answer, on his way back to the starting point Jet  passed Flight Time, who then accidented upon Kisha & Jen and Zev & Justin waiting for the bus to take them to the train to take them to Zermatt, Switzerland. The two teams in the lead gave Flight Time the 22 kilometer answer he needed.

Flight Time then ran into Gary and gave Gary the 22 kilometer answer. I don't remember how Vyxsin got the answer. She seemed quite lost.

I think it sort of ruins the whole premise of a challenge like a Roadblock where you are instructed to ride a bike and use the odometer to measure something and then get your answer via other means. Why not just stop locals and ask how long Liechtenstein is?

The Detours in Zermatt were the cheese eating or delivering 20 pieces of luggage to 5 different hotels. Only Zev & Justin chose to eat the cheese. Kisha & Jen quickly bailed on the cheese. When the Cowboys got U-Turned and headed back to the cheese, we really did not see them eat all the cheese. I suspect they were told to just go to the Pitstop.

Zermatt is the resort ski town at the base of the Matterhorn. Could they not have thought of something snow/mountain oriented rather than the lame cheese eating and luggage delivery?

That Kent & Vyxsin are still racing, with the Cowboys out, seems all sorts of wrong. The Cowboys always stay good-natured and level-headed no matter what was happening. Kent & Vyxsin crumble over and over again. It was pretty funny when whiney Kent was moving so slow after delivering all the luggage that Vyxsin put the whiner in the delivery cart and hauled him back to the ticket counter clue giver.

It seems that Vyxsin is the man in that strange relationship.

Last week Zev & Justin each got a 2012 Ford Focus for coming in First. This week they got a trip for two from Travelocity to Curacao in the Caribbean. With the Cowboys gone Zev & Justin are my favorite team.