DAY 46
(June 8)
Episode 8

I'm up early today, before the alarm.  I drew Uruz, a good rune I think because I suspect today's challenge will be a bit more physical, and the vitality and strength of Uruz will come in handy.

I am looking forward to this episode.  After this episode it is just the semi-finals, and then the finals.  I feel episode 8 is a critical milestone and I am looking forward to the challenge of it.

After lots of secrecy and some driving, we finally found out that we will be staying at a Norwegian RV Park.  I guess the idea of it is to see first hand how Norwegians spend their leisure time, apparently camping is a big deal here, nice to know.  I am on the red team, with me are Jessica and Jonathan.  Team blue is Todd, Amy, and CJ.

We had our first team challenge...absolutely everything went wrong that could ever go wrong, it was a disaster, and we were slaughtered.  The challenge was that we had to drive a small SUV pulling a camper trailer, we had to park it exactly in the red lines that were on the ground.  Then we had to unhitch the camper, pull out table, chairs, a grill, meat, and a couple other things.  We had to start the grill, put the meat on it, and all of us be sitting at our place settings...OH, we also had to erect a little fence around our "yard".  The team that did all that in the shortest time would win.

I am a very good backer...I am a truck driver after all.  I can back up anything so it only made sense that I would drive and back the RV into the space.  I was doing that, intending to correct the angle at the last minute, I think I was on target.  But to Jessica and Jonathan it looked like I was coming in crooked, so they were yelling corrections for me, which really screwed me up.  I'm not blaming them...we were all trying to do the best we could.  Eventually we got it in the space.  I was waiting for them to get me unhitched so I could drive away.  It seemed to be taking a long time.  Then they called for me to help so I jumped out and ran back.  I thought they were having problems cranking it...so I grabbed it and cranked the shit out of it.  It was raising the RV up, that's when I realized the locking mechanism was still engaged.  I undid the lock and pulled and the RV fell several inches and was free.

Next I was supposed to crank down the back legs while they did something else.  I had just got them down when they yelled for help again.  I ran to the front and to my horror saw that in my zeal I had cranked the frame right off of the wheel shaft.  We had to get it back in.  I tried lifting the tongue so they could insert the shaft back in the hole...but it was so heavy!  I couldn't understand why it was so heavy, it wasn't a big RV and the legs were in the middle.  So then I grabbed it, and with all my might lifted the tongue up so they could put the stupid wheel back in.  I strained my back a bit in the process.  I didn't realize it at the time...but I had forgot the back legs were down, that's why it seemed so heavy.  In the end I was almost lifting the whole thing off the ground!  No wonder my back was strained.

Not only am I a truck driver...I was also a fence contractor.  I have built miles of fence.  I was never so disappointed when I saw that the "fence" we were supposed to build was a flimsy wire thing.  There were no posts, nothing.  We were supposed to just stick the little wire ends in the ground and expect it to stay.  This was the most frustrated I had been on this show...the stupid thing kept falling over.  We only got it up after Jessica and Jonathan both helped.

(the trailers we were living in this week.)

 

(a view at beautiful Bevø camp grounds)

Jonathan was lighting the grill and scorched off some of his hair...the whole thing was a nightmare.  Eventually we got done and sat down...tired, breathing hard, angry and sweating.  I knew there was no way we could have won, and I was right.  The blue team beat us by a sizable margin.

After the challenge we had to walk through the campgrounds and invite strangers to our "party".  I was in no mood for a party after that fiasco, but I shook it off and got into the spirit.  The party was actually a lot of fun.  We met lots of really cool people and had a real nice time.

Later I wound up in a camper with Todd and CJ, talking and having beers with some Norwegian guys.  It was a good time, almost like being back home.  One of the guys was a truck driver, so we had a lot to talk about. 

Today sucked!!  But, I cannot complain, I am still in Norway after all, and still having the time of my life.  Tomorrow is a new day.