Survivor 2010

**WARNING – This is a LONG LONG LONG post!!! **

This past weekend I participated in Survivor 2010 at Lake Cumberland in Kentucky.  I don’t even know where to start to explain this weekend.  I guess I’ll start with saying that I’m SORE, tired and officially the owner of 4th place in this years Survivor.

Lets start with Friday.  I had to work on Friday so the boyfriend and I couldn’t leave until 5pm.  This was clearly going to be a disadvantage to us when we got there as the challenges started at 4pm.  We drove 4 1/2 hours to Kentucky and got to the camp site around 10:30pm.  They had already completed 4 challenges by then which determined team names, camp sites and dinner rewards.  Pulling up to the challenge was very intimidating.  Everyone was in athletic gear with bandanas around them and looked very intense.  The BF and I were called up to the house for registration.  They took me up there and I learned a little bit about how the game would work, what team I would be on, and signing consent forms for the footage that was taken of the challenge to be posted on the internet or in any other media.  After I checked in, the drama began.  As I was walking toward my team (who didn’t know I was on their team yet), I heard one of the guys say “no matter what, we all need to stick with our alliance”.  GREAAAAAAAAAAAAAT I though.  Me being the late one had already kicked me out of the possibility of making it past the first round. 

My team was called the Rum Runners and we had a camp site that just had one tarp hung rafts as air mattresses and blankets on top of them.  No tents.  We had 6 people on our team, 3 girls, 3 guys.  My boyfriend got put on the other team.  The two other girls who were on my team went to college together, so I figured I was screwed on any alliance with them.  Liquor was allowed all day Friday and apparently my two girl teammates may have drank to much because they passed out about an hour after I got there.  Luckily for me, I was sober because I was late, and the guys in my camp were still up and drinking.  This gave me the time to bond with the guys and do some interviews about alliances with them.  They then informed me that their original alliance was set by the whole group, which was to send me home strictly just because I was late and it was an easy vote. The guys got drunk and decided to change their mind on the other girls, and change their vote to one of them because she got “drunk and bitchy”.  Gotta love guys haha.  So, there’s about a 20 minute drunken interview of me and my 3 male teammates where they are trying to get me to join their alliance and vote in one of the girls. By the end of the night, I figured why not? It’s me or her, I might as well vote in her and stay a while.

The only down side of this was that guys always win Survivor every year with this group.  They basically told me when they were drunk that If I voted in that girl with them, then I’d for sure make it to the 3rd round.  Guys would win again of course…..

I eventually went to lay at the camp site on my partially blown up pool float and didn’t sleep one minute.  I just couldn’t sleep with the warm weather, bugs biting me, drunk people snoring next to me and the weird ass noises that were coming from the woods.  I woke up EXHAUSTED and the challenges hadn’t even started yet.  NOT A GOOD THING that I stayed up all night with no sleep 🙁

After waking up, I was approached by one of the girls on my team who told me that they weren’t voting in me, because they want to create an alliance with girls to make a girl win the challenge this year.  It was funny to me because my team had a TEAM alliance, which both sides were now sneaking to get out of behind each other’s back.  I listened to her ideas and told her I’d think about it.  After thinking, I realized that I might as well go with the girls because I’d have a better chance of making it further in the game.  The guys continued to ask me if I was still going to stick with them, and I just told them that I wasn’t sure but probably.  I decided to take the “middle man” or “under the radar” approach.

Challenge 1-

The first challenge was around 7am on Saturday.  It was already HOT HOT HOT.  This challenge required us to fill up buckets, run to a bucket that was held down by a pully system, and fill it up with our water.  When our bucket fell to the ground, then the second leg started where our designated person ran up the stairs to get to a puzzle..after they completed that, the 3rd leg started which was making two baskets into a small basketball hoop.  My team WON!  Thank God.  My first challenge there and we won! That meant we didn’t have to vote anyone off.

We won breakfast.  We got donuts, orange juice and team immunity.  We then got the chance to hang out until challenge 2 started.

Challenge 2 –

This challenge consisted of a square board that had one small hole in the middle of it.  We had to designate 4 people to hold the board, 1 to be the communicator and puzzle person, and one of us to also be a runner.  We were then blindfolded and a hockey puck was placed on our board.  The communicator had to yell down to us from above to how to move the board to get the puck to fall into our hole.  We were the first to get ours in with great communication.  Our puzzle girl completed the puzzle the fastest (always go for the outside pieces first!! I don’t know why the other team kept starting from the inside and working out!! Dummys! ).  Our ball runner had two sticks which he had to hold a ball in-between and run down the stairs and place the ball in a bucket without dropping it.  WE WON AGAIN!!!  We got to relax some more in our campsite with team immunity.  WOHOOO!

Challenge 3 –

We were taken on a boat to Exile Island which was about 20 minutes away on the boat.  When we pulled up to this little secluded area, I just saw kayaks and buoys out in the lake.  We had to choose from within our team 2 people to kayak.  I was picked by my group with one of the guys.  Bad decision.  I don’t know why they wanted a girl and not 2 guys.  They thought less weight would be good, but I think 2 guys would have been smarter.  They put him in the back of the kayak and me in the front.  We had to kayak far out into the lake by the rocks and around a buoy.  We had to pull the buoy out of the water by pulling up the string with weight at the bottom and bring it to the shore.  On our way back to shore we had to go by another buoy that had 3 numbers on it. We had to memorize the numbers and kayak back to the shore where the rest of our team was.  We had to give them the buoy we pulled up and tell them the numbers.  They had to undo a lock with our numbers (had to try different combinations with our numbers to unlock the lock).  We were a good 3 minutes slower than the other team to kayak back to shore.  It was HAAAAAAAAARD to kayak.  What a full body workout.  My arms were jello.  Somehow even though my team was the last to kayak, we unlocked our lock first! The last leg was to open the buoy we brought back and get the lighter out of it and then burn this string.  We were the first to burn the string, completing the challenge first and winning AGAIN!  AWESOME!  Still no vote offs for my team. 

Challenge 4 –

Kayaks again.  This time the other team voted in one of our teammates and vice versa.  The other team chose me of course since I had just kayaked in the last one and was obviously tired.  I went against a girl on the other team.  We had to kayak out to the middle of the lake, around a boat and back to shore.  I think this may have been the most challenging thing I’ve ever done in my life.  NO JOKE.  It took every single bit of energy from me to kayak.  At one point I just closed my eyes and rowed.  I’d be happy never doing that again.  We were neck and neck the whole way out to the boat the turn around is where I took the lead and never looked back.  I won this challenge and it was by far the most rewarding moment of me in the challenge.  Not only did I make a name for myself and show everyone that I’m a competitor, I also mentally didn’t think I could do it without stopping, and I did.  This challenge was best out of 3.  We chose 2 other groups to kayak out and my team ended up losing both of the next two.  We won 1 and lost 2.  We lost our first challenge.  (Since we were out on exile island, all tribal counsels for these 3 challenges would be done in a row when we got back to camp).  We would have to vote someone off now. 

Challenge 5 –

Best out of 3 tug-o-war in the mud 1 vs 1.  The other team picked who went in first.  I was chosen first and our team decided to throw in my boyfriend from the other team.  There wasn’t even a chance I’d win this..he’s about 100 lbs more than me of pure muscle.  My plan was just to let him pull and then I’d let go.  FAIL.  Didn’t work!  He must have known I was going to do that because he just pulled once and then when I dropped it, he won instantly.  Oh well..our teams plan didn’t work.  Second heat was girl vs girl and we won.  Third heat was girl vs guy and was the BIGGEST UPSET OF SURVIVOR 2010 because our girl beat their guy.  I felt so bad when we all jumped on her in the mud to celebrate the victory.  He seriously looked like he was going to cry.  Can you imagine losing tug-o-war to a girl in front of everyone and on video?  Oh man I still feel bad for him but thank God we won again 🙂  Go RUM RUNNERS!

We got back to the camp and went into tribal console for the first time.  It was held in a room with candles that had each of our names on them.  The camera went around and asked us all questions about how we felt at this time and if we thought we were going home this round.  We were then taken out of the room individually and write a name on a paper of who we were voting off and tell another camera our reasoning before we put the vote in the box.  After all the votes were in, they read them off to us in the tribal console and that person immediately was done with the competition and their candle was blown out.  There were chances throughout the challenges to win “immunity idols” but I won’t get into that at all.  In the end, we voted off one of our guys.  GOOD FOR MY ALLIANCE so far!

At that point we had 5 people and the other tribe had only 3 left.  We had to decide on one of our teammates to go to the other team.  We sent one of our girls so that the other team would have more girls than guys. It was then 4 vs 4.

Challenge 6 –

Slingshot.  We stood far away from 3 targets and shot marbles at targets that each had different points.  It was hard and it was the first time I’ve ever used a sling shot.  Only 1 person on either team hit a target and it wasn’t our team.  We lost our second challenge.  At this point, we convinced one of the guys to join our side and vote the only other remaining guy in.  We all voted for one of the guys in tribal console.  Then, there were 2 girls vs 1 guy on our team, and 2 girls vs 1 guy on the other team.  At this point the girls FINALLY HAD the advantage in numbers as long as we stuck together.

Challenge 7 –

All 3 teammates on each team stood in a row with 3 different metal tubing.  The official put a ball in the first teammates tube and she had to transfer it to mine, where I had to transfer it to the 3rd person’s tube and finally he had to get it through his zig zag tube and put it in the bucket. This was best of 3 and my team WON!  The other team sent their last guy home.  It was now 3 on our team and 2 on their team.  I was still surviving.

Challenge 8 –

Before this challenge, the other girl and I on my team decided we’d throw it so we would lose and vote the final remaining guy off.  We did the same type of thing as challenge 2 with the board and hockey puck. This time we only had 2 people holding the board with 4 hockey pucks.  If one puck fell off the board, all 4 were put back on and had to start over.  The other team ended up getting all 4 of their pucks in before us. 

Challenge 9 –

With the 4 of us girls remaining, we all had to hold out a glass stein in front of us that was filled with water.  You couldn’t touch your elbow to your body and had to not spill the water or let it fall.  One girl only lasted about 30 seconds.  I think I lasted about 5 minutes before my arm was completely shaking and couldn’t hold it any more.  Right after I went down another girl dropped hers so the remaining girl won.  I was told I lasted about 5 minutes.  I thought my lifting would pay off in this, but apparently the other girl was lifting a lot too before this and she beat me straight up! 

That tribal console was where I got voted off.  I told everyone I knew I’d be me because the remaining 3 girls have known each other for a lot longer than they’ve known me.  I gave them all hugs and left peacefully. 

Challenge 10 –

Shoe Flick.  The final 3 girls had to flick their shoe and make it land on the target.  They went 3 rounds without getting it on the target.  The girl who won had immunity and would be in the final 2.  Her vote decided who she would go against in the finals.  She picked to go against the best girl competitor in the finals just because it was her close friend.  Dumb move on her part. 

The two finalists then gave speeches to tell everyone who had been voted off why they should vote for her.

Everyone who was kicked off prior to this went in and voted one last time and told the cameras their reasoning.  The girl who won wasn’t the one who had immunity in the last challenge, it was the one who she picked to go against.  She would have won on votes if she would have chosen the other girl. 

Overall, I’m happy with getting 4th place.  All of us girls said that we didn’t care who won in the end, as long as it was a girl.  I can’t believe I went from being the target to go home FIRST and made it all the way to the end almost.  I only missed out on one challenge.

I was so tired and hot after the kayaking that I felt like I had to puke for all the afternoon challenges.  At least they werent’ as physically exhausting as the exile island was. 

After the ceremony for the winner we watched some of the footage from the video crew.  It was hilarious.  Not only were the competitions great, but people were also drunk and gave hilarious interviews.  They are going to edit the footage and make the dvd that should be ready in July.  I can’t wait to see it..even though I hate seeing myself on camera. 

Now…I have to just get through this Monday work day and go rest my aching body!!!!

Sorry this post was so long!!  If you stuck with me the whole time, THANK YOU for reading!