Scene 7 — Cal

After more jogging, with the customary blindfold swap at the midpoint, Cal and Lindsey arrived at the next obstacle. Cal was completely baffled when the obstacle came into view. There was a pit filled with juice again, although this was the first time Cal had seen one, that they had to get across. There was a low wall on the opposite side, he guessed it was to prevent people just trying to long jump across as the pit was not very wide. It would also make climbing out of the pit doubly difficult if they fell in. Above the pit was a large metal hook, like a meat hook, which was attached to a sturdy wooden beam. It seemed obvious to Cal that the idea was to use a rope to swing across. There was one problem though: they had no rope and he didn’t see any viable options.

“Lindsey, I have bad news, I have no clue how to get across this obstacle without going through the pit,” Cal verbalized his frustration.

“If you think we need to just take the time penalty that’s fine, I don’t mind, I’m already filthy,” Lindsey said. She had misunderstood his comment as asking her if she didn’t mind getting dirty.

“That would be a 10 minute time penalty, no idea if we can take that and still win. It also looks like it would be quite difficult to climb out of, there’s like a 2 or 3 foot high wall on the opposite side we’d have to get over,” Cal explained, he couldn’t help but let a little frustration seep into his tone.

“That’s ok,” Lindsey said in calming voice, “don’t get flustered, we’ve overcome all kinds of crazy obstacles this weekend. There’s a solution, we just have to find it. Talk me through the problem, even though I can’t see talking about it might help.”

“Thanks,” Cal said. Lindsey’s kind words helped him re-focus. He began explaining the obstacle and how he couldn’t see a solution. They talked through a couple possibilities, including backtracking to see if they had missed something. Then they heard a noise from back down the trail the way they had come, people shouting. It had to be another team. Cal thought both voices sounded female, that would make it Cara and Bailey - the team they couldn’t lose to. He looked at Lindsey, fear in his eyes at potentially letting them down, then realized she couldn’t see. Maybe it was the fear of losing, maybe it was looking at his partner, but suddenly Cal knew exactly how to get across.