We begin this week at the pit stop, with the usual cell phone call before dawn. To find the fourth clue, our teams would have to unlock the code that protected America's most secret journey. For once, this is no exaggeration! No less an authority than the NSA (National Security Agency / Central Security Service) has a web page about this code, and this journey! NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) has their own web page explaining the journey's navigation.
Our teams begin their search... outside their hotel doors with an old newspaper article written by author Walt Whitman describing the Atlantic Avenue Tunnel in Brooklyn. This tunnel was the first underground subway tunnel in the world. It was built in 1844 by the Long Island Rail Road. The last train ran through in 1859. In 1861, the tunnel was sealed up, and became lost for 120 years.
Walt Whitman wrote:
The old tunnel, that used to lie there under ground, a passage of Acheron-like solemnity and darkness, now all closed and filled up, and soon to be utterly forgotten, with all its reminiscences...
Click here for the story of rediscovering the LIRR tunnel.
Our teams consulted their laptops and ask.com to determine that the only tunnel entrance is through a manhole in the middle of the intersection of Court Street and Atlantic Avenue in Brooklyn. Near the entrance we see a Black gentleman with a guitar, singing Follow the Drinking Gourd, clearly a folk song of some sort. I figured the singer would be providing an important clue, but none of the teams ever spoke with him or paid any attention to his singing.
Team Miss USA first figured out how to enter the tunnel. They tipped off Ex-CIA. The teams wandered through the dark tunnel, picking amongst Civil War-era artifacts. All teams except Miss USA picked up the clue hidden in a blanket. Miss USA, however, was hanging around topside, saw that other teams came out with something in their hands, and went back to retrieve their clue.
The Brown Family was the first to correctly guess that this challenge was about the Underground Railroad. However, most teams got it wrong: The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel itself had nothing to do with the Underground Railroad. That tunnel was the world's first literal underground railroad. That is, it was the first subway tunnel. Since it was an underground railroad, that was the clue that this challenge was about the Underground Railroad.
The Atlantic Avenue Tunnel had numerous clues hinting at the Underground Railroad. "Follow the Drinking Gourd" was chalked on the wall just inside the entrance, and again at the pile of artifacts. All artifacts related to the War Between the States, which ended the Underground Railroad. We were told Walt Whitman wrote his newspaper article just before joining the Union Army.
While traveling to and from the Tunnel, we see the Southie Boys bickering, and the Geniuses complaining about Sam's asthma holding them back. These scenes are a foreshadowing of the challenge to come.
Upon exiting the tunnel and figuring out the clue, the teams got their phone call. Somewhere along this challenge would be a $30,000 prize waiting for the first team to find it. What motivation! The clue included a flag and the hidden message (to be read with red glasses hidden in the book) to go to a plantation in Georgetown, South Carolina.
With $30,000 worth of motivation, all teams pushed straight through from Brooklyn to South Carolina. They arrived exhausted, naturally. I see no indication that anyone did enough research into Follow the Drinking Gourd even though they were sitting in the pickup all day and all night! When they arrived in South Carolina, exhausted, it was 101 degrees and 98% humidity.
The Southie Boys were first to arrive at Georgetown's Beneventum Plantation where they learned that plantations like that one were departure points for slaves fleeing through the Underground Railroad to freedom. Sometimes, they embroidered maps onto quilts to hide their routes. The teams had to find such a quilt that would lead them though a swamp to a box containing little keys. The Southie Boys were off and running in no time to "follow the drinking gourd" to a hidden key that would unlock a box containing the $30,000.
What, pray tell, does it mean to "follow the drinking.....
