Road Rules 11, Episodes 1-2: College Daze

This season of Road Rules, which MTV has subtitled “The Campus Crawl” because they will be visiting various colleges along the way, kicks off with our six strangers wandering a random highway in the North Carolina mountains – which, as a resident of that state, I can tell you is about as dangerous as any mission this gang will encounter. Let's run down the cast:

• Eric, 20, is our all-American male on this mission. It took him less time to hook up with self-described girly girl Kendal than it did for me to find his school, Cornell University, on a map.
• Kendal, a 21-year-old University of Iowa student from Seattle (wow, that must have been culture shock) has a coat that reminds me a lot of the one Angelina Jolie wore in Girl Interrupted. Let's hope she doesn't turn into a sociopath and run off with Winona Ryder. Winona has enough trouble right now as it is.
• Rachel is a bisexual student at the University of South Florida. She hopes her relationship with her girlfriend isn't going to define her on the trip. That's going to be hard, since the first serious question out of Kendal's mouth to all on the trip was, "Are you gay?" Rachel also professes her hatred for fraternities and sororities. Considering this group is going from college to college – and that fraternity and sorority poster kids Eric and Kendal are on the Winnie – that could come back to haunt her.
• Next is Darrell, 22, our amateur boxer from Oakland. It's always interesting to me how the cast members who aren't in college on Mom and Dad's dime interact with those who are, and I'm going to predict now that this could cause some drama here. It'll probably be completely wrong but I'm just going to throw that out there.
• Now there's Shane, from the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. I read in an interview his mom was concerned that people would be mean to him if he came out as gay, but he didn't care; he just wanted to have a good time. Good for him.
• Last up is 19-year-old waitress Sarah from Edmond, Okla. Here's the one who's going to have the drama against the spoon-fed college students. I'm definitely safe in saying that because it was the focus of the second half of the show. But I'll get to that.

The gang piles on a school bus and the chatter begins. Sarah immediately ticks off girly-girl Kendal by saying she hates girls... haha! The group pulls into Appalachian State University in beautiful, yet hard to get to, Boone, N.C. They are told by the "mission mayors" that like last season, there will be prizes for each mission, held at 15 different campuses, and if the group fails two missions, they can either forfeit their prizes or vote someone off. That killed the buzz until they pulled up to the yard full of college students. Eric immediately jumped off the bus and went to say hello to all the screaming chicks.

In continuing the tradition of making nothing on the trip easy for the Road-Rulers, the group is told that their keys to the Winnie are on one of six buoys in the middle of the lake. They have to jump in the lake and get the keys to find which one fits.

"Fully clothed?" asked Kendal. That made me laugh.

Despite her reservations, Kendal and Sarah have no problem stripping down to their bras for the mission. Darrell is the first one to jump in, not even waiting until the count of six.

The group gets the keys and makes their way to the Winnie, where the details of their trip are better spelled out. Kendal says for her this is about the trip and not the prizes, and that voting someone off would be shallow. Speaking of shallow, the group discusses making a pact not to vote anyone off, then decides to wait to see what the prizes are. Cute.

Our group of six tucks into the Winnie for the night, and Kendal and Eric examine the fishbowl full of condoms. Those Bunim-Murray people think of everything.

The next morning finds the cast back in Boone, where they get two tries to walk across a rope nine floors up while college students gape and gawk from every window. Rachel and Shane go first and actually make it across, making it look easy. Sarah and Darrell go next and make it about halfway across before Darrell makes the mistake of saying "lean on me." Sarah's trust issues come welling up at that point and the two fall off the ropes. It's nice how they arranged it so that the guy's safety rope was longer than the girls and when they fall it looks like the guy is about to plunge to his death.

Eric and Kendal are next and also make it about halfway across before falling. Kendal is so stressed out about seeing her new boy go plunging to the ground that she doesn't even wait for the two to make it to the bottom before kissing him.

Sarah and Darrell get their second chance at the ropes but Sarah is so cold that she falls off. Still, she blames it on lack of trust of the others. Back in the Winnie, she explains that she's only known the people for two days and she's been so self-reliant that trust has to be earned. This all makes sense to me. However, when the group goes to a party she refuses to dance and then continues to distance herself from the group by sleeping while they drive to the next mission. As a person who's driven back and forth from Peoria, Ill. to Las Vegas, Nev., with three other chicks, I can testify to the fact that sometimes sleep is your best defense mechanism. Then again, I didn't have missions and prizes riding on my behavior and cameras documenting my every move. Well, there are some pictures but I think they’ve been destroyed…

Anyway, when the other five go for a run, she stays in the Winnie. "I'm the kind of person who just says, ‘Let's sit around and have some chips,’ " she says. I hear ya, babe.

While she's in the Winnie she starts a diary on the group computer since she doesn't have any paper with her. For her sake I hope there aren't any hackers in the group.

As punishment for losing their first mission, the group has to go to South Carolina. Just kidding.

The group is treated to a nice meal at a nice restaurant, then told they have to go on to their next mission: To gain the "freshman 15" as a group. They all are weighed in and then split into two groups to forage for food among USC's residence halls. While sitting in a dorm room enjoying a hot pocket, Kendal lets out a belch that would make any man proud. The group makes their weight, and then some, and then everyone goes to puke. Lovely.

Back in the Winnie the group tries to talk to Sarah about her antisocial behavior. Sarah says she has trouble trusting people because she got shafted by her parents. After one year of college, her parents didn't like how she acted in her one year of freedom and cut her off financially. Poor thing. I know how much that sucks. She's been on her own ever since and isn't used to dealing with people. Her tears during her speech prove to the group she does care about the trip and they decide to cut her a break.

Next week: They didn't show a preview but we do know that sometime during the season the group fails their second mission and has to vote someone off. Will they think about a pact or will Jisela from Road Rules 10 finally have someone to identify with?

Jennifer Shrader is a reporter at a community newspaper in rural North Carolina who is waiting to be discovered.

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