"It's so much harder than it looks!": an Interview with The Amazing Race 5's Dennis & Erika

Dennis & Erika were the "once engaged" couple on The Amazing Race. Even though they were eliminated first, they still had the adventure of a lifetime and learned so much about one another. Within this interview, they discuss new rules concerning the Fast Forward, what they thought about the whole "Yield" concept, and what was up with Erika skydiving naked to end their engagement? Find out right here!

RNO: Well, I guess lets get the obvious out of the way: Are the two of you engaged again, dating or not really sure?

Dennis & Erika: We are definitely not engaged again! We will wait awhile before giving that another try. But we are currently dating and very happy to be together again. We had lots of time after the race to work out our problems, so we guess that could be a positive of being "Philiminated" so early.

RNO: Dennis, if you had to do it all over again, do you think you would have been nastier, or at least more aggressive, at trying to get a taxi?

Dennis: Regardless of what I would have done, it would have been a lose/lose situation. The five teams that were at the taxi stand together had mutually decided the order we would take the cabs based on the order we had arrived at the taxi stand. Before any cabs came, I had told Colin & Christie we could switch our order (we were third and they were fourth) because Erika and I had taken a cab earlier that both of our teams arrived to at the same time. This still put us in fourth with one team behind us, so at least we knew we wouldn't be in last place but also wouldn't be pissing a team off that could yield us later. Everything changed when the fifth place team jumped the line and stole the second team's taxi. This suddenly put Erika and I in last place. We had two choices: suck it up and take the last taxi, or jump the line and steal Jim & Marsha's taxi. I can guarantee that if I stole the cab from the ex-military man with 25 stitches, Erika's Marine Corps father would have never let me in their house again! Erika and I discussed it, and she agreed that she did not want to steal the cab from Jim & Marsha and we would just hope that a pitstop wasn't in the near future.

RNO: Why didn't you wait to hear from the twins or Alison & Donny before you bought your tickets for the American Airlines flight to Uruguay?

Dennis & Erika: We had already checked with a ticket agent to be sure the American flight got in earlier, and then Colin & Christie came over to our counter because they had also received confirmation from a different source that the American flight landed earlier. At that point, we were pretty confident that we were on the faster flight, but we were holding the line to get tickets for Kami & Karli and Ali & Donny. We had already decided that Ali & Donny would go to United and the twins would be the go-between team, while the teams at the ticket counters would hold three places. The twins had been gone for so long at this point (they had to run a half-mile each way between counters) that the ticket agent wouldn't wait any longer. We either had to buy our tickets or get out of the line, which then would have put as at the end of the other eight teams waiting at the American counter. We weren't about to go to the end of the line when we were 99.9% positive it was the faster flight, so we bought the tickets for the American flight.

RNO: Was everyone familiar with who Alison was, and did it play a factor in any part of the race?

Dennis & Erika: Some of the teams knew of Alison from Big Brother. Everyone was surprised to see someone who had already been on a reality show.

RNO: Was there any single team that surpassed your expectations during the first leg, like Linda & Karen or Bob & Joyce?

Dennis & Erika: We know this show well enough to never underestimate anyone. The only team that surpassed our expectations on the first leg would be Jim & Marsha, but only because of his leg. We knew before the race began that they would be a tough team to beat, but the way he kept going with all of those stitches was nothing short of spectacular.

RNO: Were you aware that two teams didn't get their clue before they went to the Pit-Stop, or did you think that everyone was on a level playing field?

Dennis & Erika: We knew that at least one team had missed the clue. It was very difficult to find the clue box, and the first thing you saw upon arrival were the flags marking the entrance to the casino. We ran up to the casino first and realized we didn't have the clue, so we ran back down and just searched the area until we came across the clue. We knew people had missed it because there was a bag drop by the clue box, and we could tell there weren't as many bags there as there should have been. When we finished the zip-line and got out of the pool, we could see across the street that a cab had pulled up at the clue box. We saw the twins jump out and grab the clue and get back in, so we figured they had to come back from the Pit-Stop to get the clue. We knew we couldn't catch up because we still had to run from the hotel (which was a steep incline and then stairs) across the highway to the clue box to get our bags, and then run all the way back across and up the incline to get a taxi. We were still thinking that the teams may have to perform the challenge again after receiving the clue or a time penalty would occur, so we were still holding out a little hope.