Hello all! Thank you for your support, W & T, S & P, Frank and whoever else checked in on us. We (Ally and Bob) had a lot of fun, made new friends and got SMOKED in the competition! The first three days were grueling hitting Frankford, Kolblenz, and Amsterdam. We really enjoyed the last three days (in Brussels, Brugge and Paris) after the “game moderator”, Steve, ended the original competition early to start a new game with different rules which made it a lot more fun!

Would we do it again? Yes … with the revised format the chances are more likely that we would do this trip rather than something else. The motivation for us is not to win the first place prize (although that would be just fine!); rather, the reward is the whole experience of the trip (its the journey not the destination). We have really enjoyed meeting our fellow competitours with whom we share a trait in common: a craving to experience new adventure. In particular, we have made new friends with one team with whom we have a whole lot in common and hope to have a lasting friendship. In the very least we have made new friends with all of the competitours who are an exceptional group of people and with whom we hope to intersect again in our travels.

To our friends in Dallas: we return late Sunday night. We will be at the lake house in the hot tub!

When I received an order for a logo thong as part of our broad offer to clothe and supply other types of travel necessities for the FlyerTalk sponsored teams, my first thought was, “Gee, what an inventive way to pack lightly for this scream across Europe. Less weight, faster times to the train, the taxi and maybe even the the top of the stairs. But then again, I’m thinking it might be an inventive way to distract other teams. That would certainly be clever and of course, these teams do want to win.

As you follow along on this blog for the travel competition, let’s all be on the lookout for when this particular item will be used … and how:

While our teams finish their last day of work or current road trips and begin positioning themselve to be in New York by Sunday for the start of this travel challenge, we get to look over the team lists and begin picking who we think will be the winners. I don’t know at this point, I’m still laughing at the various team names and of course re-reading the team applications on why they wanted to be in this competition.

I’m kind of thinking  the team with the “washed up air traffic controller” (his words!), but if there is anyone that really know directions it’s got to be the sailing guy team. But when it comes to “bragging rights,” we’re likely to never hear the last from that Stimulus Package and those crafty Thelma and you be Louise ladies. At this point, they really are all my favorites and there are some underdogs as enter our own version of (travel) March Madness.

If you’ve got some ideas on who you think may be the winning team, why not post in the “comments” by clicking on the number listed below the date on the left hand side of this post.