Maureen and Heather, you're the 5th team to arrive...

at least, that's what Phil tells us today.

Yup, we met the "Amazing" man himself, Phil Keoghan, host of The Amazing Race. He was in our local mall promoting his book and his latest TV venture (of the same name), "No Opportunity Wasted".

We weren't there for the auditions though. We just wanted to tell him how much we enjoyed the "Race" and show him Heather's mini-scrapbook of her "Amazing Race" birthday we put on two years ago. In that very mall, in fact.

Even though we got there before the store opened, there were already a few people in line ahead of us. While we waited, I teased Heather by saying that when it was our turn, I was going to grab her hand and we were going to run up to him and jump on the "mat" like they do on the Race.

Of course she was horrified at the very idea.... "No WAY! You're not going to really DO that, are you?" She threatened to leave right then and there. I would say no, then yes, then no again. I mean, how many people can say they've done that?

Soon it's our turn; his table is cleared of the previous fans and he smiles at us. We begin our walk up to his table, and I say "...so I WANTED to run up and ask you "Give us the good news, Phil"...."

And he played right along. Quickly glancing at our books which had our names written on them, his face goes all serious and he declares in his best Dramatic-Host-Voice:

"Maureen and Heather.... you're the.... 5th team to arrive!"

Well, at that point, Heather was no longer embarrassed and we congratulate ourselves for still being in the Race.

Continuing in his best Dramatic-Host-Voice, Phil begins his end of leg contestant interview: "So what happened at the Roadblock...looked like you had some trouble there", he quips.

"Yeah" I play along. "Unfortunately we did". I shrug and shake my head sadly.

"And how has your mother / daughter relationship handling the Race?" he adds.

"Well, luckily I have Heather here to do all the challenges that make me queasy." She giggles and agrees.

"Ah... that's good!" He finally smiles and tells us we remind him of a mother / daughter team from Season One.


We show him Heather's scrapbook -- he goes through every page, amazed at what we did, the props we made, and asked who played him. "I did" Heather says proudly. This prompts another big smile from the host.

He signs my copy of his book, one of our Amazing Race clue envelopes

and writes a special note in Heather's scrapbook. He also asks her what her plans are for the future and praises her and tells her he knows she will be very successful.


He really was quite nice -- now if you'll excuse us, we need to race to the next Pit Stop!