Utah residents watching The Amazing Race got a good chuckle tonight at the expense of the Utah-hating Weaver family. After listening to them dis our state, we enjoyed watching them make a major route finding mistake on their way from Heber City to Park City. The editing on the show didn't even begin to do justice to the colossal magnitude of their error, so I'm posting a map and commentary to show you what happened.

Instead of following the green line north from Heber City to Utah Olympic Park (which has a special place in my heart since that's where I worked as a Japanese-speaking interpreter for ski jumping during the 2002 Winter Olympics :-), they apparently followed the blue line back the way they had come from southern Utah. As if that weren't bad enough, notice the point where the blue line turns north-west. From there to where you see the name of the town Highland, they were towing a trailer around the Alpine Loop--a winding narrow road that's absolutely beautiful, but even a little scary to drive in a car for fear that someone rounding a corner the other way might run you over a cliff.

What the editing on the show didn't show you was that even after they got out of the loop, rather than the 25 odd minute drive that every else took, they had about another hour to drive to their destination.

Busted! Sorry Weavers, no sympathy from Utah tonight.