Amazing!

There are two television shows I dearly love and which I try not to miss. One is, naturally, "Lost." (Five episodes in, I almost posted the question on Facebook, "Anyone else wonder what happened to Charles Widemore?" Then he showed up at the end of the episode...ohhhhh "Lost" how you taunt us).

Anyway, my other show of choice is "The Amazing Race." If I could be on a reality show, that would be the one. I love the different types of people they get on the show, and love to see how the stress of travel affects personal relationships.

Their casting is predictable: A few model couples, a few gay/lesbian couples, an older couple, mom and dads and they always cast a pair that just seems unlikely to make it through, most notably a hillbilly couple from Tennessee a couple years ago. I so wanted them to win because, seriously, if anyone could use a million dollars, it would have been them. Alas, they fell short (not first out, though!)

This year, I didn't hold out much hope for The Cowboys, Jet and Cord McCoy when during the first leg of the race they changed all their American dollars to Brazilian reals even though they were flying to Chile. I thought, "Great, they cast the stereotypical dumb cowboys." I am so glad I was wrong!

Jack and I are cheering for these guys all the way. Jack even made a cowboy sign today to wave around during their glory moments. I love that in a game where every other player in every season wears exercise clothes, these guys are racing around the world in their Wranglers, boots, rodeo belt buckles and cowboy hats. Phil even asked them one week if they were comfortable in the belt buckles and one of the brothers said, "My pants would fall off without it." In this week's episode, Jet wouldn't take his hat off to bungee jump. The handlers told him he'd lose his hat. He said, "Nope, we're good." At the end, his jumping partner was amazed that he still had his hat to which Jet replied, "A real cowboy hat never falls off."

They placed first two weeks in a row, slaying the competition last week in, duh, cowboy related tasks in Argentina. They are athletic, polite and good natured. In this week's, episode a few things caught my attention with these Oklahoma boys:

1. Despite never having played soccer in their lives, they suited up and made short work of a soccer goal challenge.
2. At a beer drinking challenge, it looked like they might lose because one of them doesn't drink much and the other "has never had a beer in my life." The cowboys barely survived the beer drinking competition. I love that they fight the stereotype.
3. As they were driving to the pit stop, they saw prostitutes on the side of the road and Jet said, "Cord, we are not in the Bible belt anymore." I just laughed.

So anyway, from casa Lonsberry, go Jet and Cord!

In the meantime, who can I wrangle into getting a passport and trying out with me to be the next year's "mom" team? I've traveled some, I'm passably athletic, I speak functional Spanish which has got to be good in at least a quarter of the known world. Certainly I'm as qualified as the next mom to be on the "mom" team, right?