BlindVision Blog

Sure, we would have liked to win. But we were pretty happy coming in second to our friends, the Gypsies. They certainly deserved to win; after all they were first at nearly every stage and helped us squeak by several times throughout the challenges. However, Team No Limits was determined to make those Gypsy boys work for it! And we did get a lot of pleasure beating them in the sailing stage.

We all knew at the start this was going to be a hard day with a lot of twists and turns. By now, we all knew Mark Burnett and his crew are devious sadists who would have no pity on the four remaining teams.

The day started out with a brutally hard race across the lake in tin buckets that masqueraded as boats. Jeff was the man on this section and he beat himself up hard for an hour fighting a heinous headwind. He did an awesome job but paid the price by royally messing up his back.

While we knew the Footballers are not “water boys,” we were still surprised that they were only half way across the lake as we scrambled to shore. It turned out that they were so heavy that their boat was literally sinking. With shouts of “Mayday! Mayday!” they abandoned ship and jumped out in the middle of the lake. A rescue boat had to bring them a replacement so they could continue.

With Jeff’s back severely strained, a fair amount of the shoveling at the next challenge fell upon me. Jeff and Ike were laughing over my shoveling skills; admittedly, I’ve barely shoveled anything in my life, but I made a fair dent in that pile once I got the hang of it. Of course, the producers only showed me missing the wire sifter. We soon found our geodes and ran to the Arabian stallions.

After the horse ride at full gallop, we said farewell to our friends the Footballers and braced ourselves for the next round of racing. This time we got a short breather as we drove to the outskirts of Marrakech.

And then, my nemesis, camels! This section didn’t get aired, which is a bit surprising because it was a wild and precarious ride. There were nine giant camels that were connected with ropes into groups of three. Each team had a string of camels but they all moved at the same pace and our camels were smashing into each other.

Here we were, riding these huge trotting beasts, with constant risk of entanglement, as we careened through city streets with mopeds and taxis flying by. It was actually quite dangerous and scary. I imagined all the camels and riders going down in a massive rope-entangled heap. To make matters worse, Jeff and John from the Gypsies were in utter agony because of saddle sores from the horse ride. I could especially hear Jeff behind me howling aloud at every camel bounce. At one point, with a camel smacking into me, I reached out to push it away and heard Taylor from the Gypsies, shout, “Hey E! That’s my thigh.”

After my last camel experience, where I had a full-on panic attack, I was determined to suck it up and redeem myself. I squeezed my legs together and got my butt off the camel and rode like a star. That said, it will be a long time before I get on one of those beasts again!

Then we plunged into the pandemonium of the market. By now, everyone’s adrenalin was maxing out and the confusion of racing through the maze of streets caused us to make a mistake. There was one point where if we had gone right instead of left, we could have beaten the other teams. Ah, hindsight is 20/20, even for a blind guy.

It was a brilliant move by the Gypsies to run past one of the checkpoint doors in order to confuse the Fab 3 who were leaching on and following them. Once they had ditched Fab 3 and circled back, they still had a head start on us. In fact, it was those Gypsies who once again helped us by telling us our map was not the right one, and it hit us that we had missed the last check point.

At the end, when we realized the Gypsies had unlocked their box before us, all three of us were shouting them on. It was great fun to watch our friends climb the final ladder and then hear the big round of applause as they crossed the finish line!

I am incredibly proud of Jeff and Ike! We were the underdogs going into the race and surprised a lot of people. Then we squeaked by in the eighth stage of the race. And were nearly eliminated again in the ninth stage. Together, we dealt with adversity that no other team had to face. And we used that adversity as fuel to power us to the finish.

This sprawling adventure took us a month to complete and was certainly no picnic. Here are some highlight clips from the entire show:

The best of the Ikenator!

I had a few moments on the screen as well:

And last but certainly not least, the best Jeffisms of Expedition Impossible!

Thanks for watching and supporting Team No Limits!

Erik

PS Be sure to check out Jeff’s blog: http://mountain-vision.blogspot.com/

I couldn’t believe it! What the heck just happened?! There was no way we were going to beat the Cops. Despite Ike hobbling as fast as he could, they had passed us on a brutal cross country push and had a 15 minute lead. Yet…somehow…we did it!

But lets go back to the beginning. Only the day before, we had had the unlikeliest of wins over the California Girls. We woke up the next morning, partly in disbelief that we were still in the competition yet still facing the reality that a team with a blind guy and a badly sprained ankle didn’t have much chance.

This last episode was another two-days-compressed-into-one episode. The first day featured very technical whitewater—we had to hit the rapids just right or we’d risk a flip—so we were glad to have a guide to steer the boat. The rapids were fun, but I was yelling “Stroke!” every second, and in hour three, I lost my voice and was barely croaking. We were paddling so hard, it was a little difficult to get the full enjoyment factor of this amazing whitewater.

For the riddle challenge, we were stumped for about fifteen minutes. (“Sometimes you pass by them and sometimes you go inside of them, but lately you’ve been spending a lot of time in between them.” The answer was “banks.”) Anyway, our Gypsy pals helped us out with a vital clue. As they ran by, Taylor said, “Where do you keep your money?”

And the Fab 3 straight up gave the answer to the Football Players. I didn’t realize at the time that this annoying “alliance” was forming at the instigation of Fab 3. I suppose some people could accuse No Limits and Gypsies of doing the same thing. But ours was truly a natural friendship that grew between like minds. None of us were conniving to steal the win; we just helped out friends when we could.

In fact, we had such a good bond, the Gypsies jumped at the chance to come to Boulder for the last show. Hopefully Taylor will do his Jeff Evans impression! After the finale, we’re going to go hike and climb and have some more fun together. So we really weren’t making backroom deals. It was just two teams who respected each other and shared a spirit for adventure and good work.

I must admit I was a little bummed out by the Football Players for falling into Fab 3’s game of making Survivor-like alliances. The Football Players are such good guys but they let themselves get talked into taking the low road. We really liked them—along with the other teams: Cops, Firemen, Cali Girls, Fisherman, and Country Boys—and worked together with each of these teams at different points of the comp.

Anyway, after the lock challenge, where we collected food for camp (freeze-dried, blech), the river mellowed out but went through a spectacular gorge. Jeff was steering but he’s more of a mountain dude and we went in circles a little bit. Still, we held our ground.

The next day we rowed across the lake in the tin boats. No time bonuses, everyone starts with the time they finished. With a motor like Ike on the oars, we probably could have waterskied across the lake. Then we hit the shore….

Suffice to say, it was ugly. The rugged, rocky terrain was brutal for Ike. We were passed, and passed again until we were dead last when finishing the rappels. That meant we had a long wait to get through the cave tunnels since only one person could crawl at a time and there’s no way to pass.

Once we all got inside the cave, it was a frantic free-for-all looking for the darned appropriate vase—not that I could help much. Next time, let’s do a pitch black cave and we’ll see how all the sighted people do! When Jeff finally found our instructions, we were on our way. As you saw, Rob from the cops grabbed a correct vase, but it didn’t have a finish line map inside it. I think this was because another team had already plucked out the map.

After swimming the river, once again, we were preparing ourselves mentally for finishing last. And then we came around the corner and there were the Cops running the wrong way! Suddenly it dawned on the three of us that we gotta run, we gotta run hard! I ran through a nasty bush and blood was flying all over the place. I didn’t even care. Ike was hopping along behind us like Forrest Gump.

Then I heard Jeff fall down. And then he popped up and was bouncing around running circles and howling and laughing! I didn’t realize what had happened at first but then it clicked that we had actually crossed the finish line…and beat the Cops! People told me I looked a little stunned, which was definitely the case.

So now, defying all odds, we’re in the finals. We actually got a rest day before the last wild and crazy stage. This gave Ike the chance to cut off that awful clunky cast, rest up, and evaluate his ankle. And then we go at it again, with more devious twists and turns to the plot. I will say that on the last day, one team gets eliminated halfway through so only three teams will be competing for the pot of gold. Will you be watching?

Jeff’s blog: http://mountain-vision.blogspot.com/

Gypsies’ blog: http://www.themoderngypsies.com/blog/

Cops’ blog: http://www.aconcordcarpenter.com/category/expedition-impossible

So now it can be told…the Gypsies are coming to Boulder! Not only that but also the host of Expedition Impossible, David Salmoni, and the Executive Producer, Lisa Hennessy, too. It’s going to be an exciting night at the Lazy Dog! And we will raise money for No Barriers (my charity) and Free The Children (Gypsies charity).

But here’s the thing, the Lazy Dog only holds 500 people. So get your tickets now! If you can’t make it, please consider making a donation via the same link. We are hoping to raise at least $10,000 for these great causes as we celebrate the end of an incredible adventure.

Thanks for your support!
Erik, Jeff, and Ike