The Amazing Race Ambassadors of Laughter: David and Cherie Gregg

Yakkity Yaks had the opportunity to spend sometime yesterday with David and Cherie Gregg, the second team eliminated from The Amazing Race 20. The interview started out with a HONK HONK as a welcome from the Ambassadors of Laughter. I would like to let you all know that they are just as exuberant and full of joy in person as they appeared on TAR!

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The Yak: Did you get to celebrate your 20th Wedding Anniversary while racing or was it afterward?

Both: It was afterwards.
David: it was actually February 16th.

The Yak: Wonderful 20 years congratulations, what a milestone.

Cherie: Thank you and we survived the race still married!

The Yak: I never had any doubts about that! You were one of the teams that got along better under stress then any others this season and previous years also.

Both: Thank you!

The Yak: Would you do it again if TAR invited back?

Both: Oh Yes!
David: 110% yes, definitely!
Cherie: Call anyone you know that you think could get us back on, definitely. It was too short for us.

The Yak: What was your favorite task to complete?

David: I would say of the entire thing was building the solar kitchen; it was such a joy to get to work with Cherie on a task together.
Cherie: We do well together we are just not good separated.
David: Divided.
Cherie: Divided… laughs… no pun intended with the division! But we enjoyed working the solar kitchen together. I thought you (David) were going to say skydiving for yourself.
David: Oh no, no, no I liked working with you.
Cherie: I wanted to skydive.

The Yak: What was it like to watch the other on the roadblocks where you were doing things separately?

Both: It was hard.
David: When I was getting ready to skydive going up in the plane my thoughts were on Cherie and how she was going to get to the drop site and find me…
Both: …and drive the stick shift
David: Luckily she did it flawlessly and we were able to pass up 3 other teams at that time. All I had to do was use gravity as my source (laughs).
Cherie: Watching Dave struggle at the cattle was so hard! I was so glad he didn’t get upset and could fall back on his humor to keep going. If he had gotten really upset it would have upset me even more because I felt helpless not being able to help him. We work really well together because we are two halves of one person; we don’t function well divided. Dave does everything… he cooks, cleans, does dishes, grocery shops, driving….
David: Cherie does all the math.
Cherie: The clue was “where’s the beef?”
David: I thought I was going to eat a cow!
Cherie: so who had any idea it was going to have to do with math; if we had thought it would have to do with math I would have taken it. Roadblocks were a twist because if it was like who was better with directions, Dave would have been and I would have gotten to skydive. Most people were tricked and the person that would rather not skydive ended up skydiving. Roadblocks had twists and it was crazy watching people try to deal with them!
David: It was AMAZING!

The Yak: How did it make you feel to see the other on the show completing their task?

Cherie: It was really cool. I was jealous watching him diving and he looked great doing it. I did get to see him come down because I found him really quick, so I got to see the end of it, but seeing him go out the plane was really cool and that will be a great memory.
David: It was very exciting to get to be able to watch each other do the individual parts that we weren’t part of.
Cherie: Watching him struggle with the math again on tv was not fun.

The Yak: What city did you like best?

David: Buenos Aries was absolutely beautiful.
(The Greggs enjoyed the drives thru the countryside as they traveled between locations and expressed it as some of the most beautiful views.)

The Yak: You were on the bus that broke, how did the window break?

David: We’re not sure and would love to know the official answer. I think it had to do with stress; it was a double-decker bus and in the afternoon what happened was the lower section of the window where we were was getting very hot. The attendant came down and noticed it was getting hot and it sounded like they turned off the whole AC system and put it back on and it cooled down relatively quickly for about an hour and a half… but then the window just exploded….with a bang sound. I think it was stress of the temperature change it couldn’t take, luckily it was safety glass.
Cherie: It didn’t blow in right away so the people sitting back there were able to get up and then it blew in. I thought something hit it, I don’t think the science way Dave does.
David: We were driving 60-65 mph down the highway so I don’t think anything could have hit it that hard. We really don’t know.
Cherie: It was right behind our heads and so we didn’t get very much sleep. Then Dave trying to do math on very little sleep did not help… on the highway the wind would catch the tape and rip the plastic open. Then we would stop again and you would hear (insert tape ripping noises) of duct tape all night long of them re-taping it up. Then we would go again, then stop again, so it made a really long bus ride that started out as 18 hours. It ended up more than 20 hours and we weren’t able to sleep very well. It was a nightmare.

The Yak: Was production able to help occupy your time or do something for you to make use of it?

David: Not really, we sat there and waited for repairs to be made and pretty much everyone was anxious for them to get it done as quickly as possible so we could get on the road to continue on the way.
Cherie: We were speculating about the other teams that could be on the third bus… about how much time we were losing
David: But we had no idea quite frankly.

The Yak: Was there any one team you felt a sense of camaraderie with more than the others?

Cherie: In the very beginning, in the first leg, Art and JJ came up to us. They were a little annoyed because they were being called middle aged and they were like us old folk got to stick together but then they were so far ahead of us all the time we never really had any long periods of time with them. Then we were shouting with the twins and the NY boys because we were all on the lower level of the bus. We got along with everybody. We didn’t really have any issues with any teams; again the clown in us is to see everybody for who they are and we only judge people by what they show to us… if they are nice to us we are nice back. We had no problems with anyone.

The Yak: Would you want to keep in touch with the other teams?

Cherie: Yes, it is something that when you go through an experience like this it is a bonding experience.
David: It is a bonding experience!
Cherie: It is like working in the circus with people from all over the world, you now have a rare shared experience.

The Yak: Are you back on the road with the circus?

David: We are back as the Ambassadors of Laughter for Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus.
Cherie: We are traveling about a month ahead of the circus and going to schools, libraries and hospitals bringing free educational programs to the community; to kids that might not get to go to the circus; to hospitals where kids might not be having the best day and letting them forget reality for a while. We are going to be heading up to Kentucky… Pikeville… next we will be leaving Mobile Alabama. We are touring all over, we keep saying we are so lucky to have each other and lucky to have a great job entertaining people and bringing free community programs and lucky to have the opportunity to be on The Amazing Race. We do wish it could have been longer, we wish we could go back again, but we have been very lucky (David was agreeing as Cherie spoke), lucky that Dave survived cancer twice… just lucky people… We know how lucky and valuable life is.

The Yak: Any future plans to do any other reality shows?

Cherie: The dream was always The Amazing Race. Something we could do together and have the adventure of a lifetime and see the world. We have been traveling the country with Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus for 12 years now and wanted to get out to see the world. TAR is the best reality show to us! It is not about fighting and politics, it is about yourself and how you are going to handle your challenges.
David: Yeah, overcoming obstacles.
Cherie: How you are going to handle the challenges and other people, foreign countries and things like that… so it was more about working as a team.

The Yak: Dave expressed interest in going to Japan and Cherie to Australia, any plans for either of those trips?

Both: Hopefully!
Cherie: One of the next dreams is to go to all the Disney Parks around the world.
David: …and do a little sightseeing in between.
Cherie: …and sightseeing the countries as well. There is no Disney in Australia but I still want to see it, it is suppose to be really beautiful. We slowly do our dreams in 10 year spurts; it took us 10 years to get into Ringling Brothers Circus.
David: Hopefully we will do the traveling a little sooner this time.
Cherie: Especially with the TAR dream coming true 10 years later, we always tell people don’t give up on your dreams, you need to make them happen; we will get to travel more. Hopefully we will be able to do another Amazing Race!

The Yak: Do you have children?

Cherie: We love children… everybody else’s.
David: Sugar them up and send them home!
Cherie: Entertain, make them happy then send them home. I would worry too much if I had my own children.

The Yak: I am sure that everyone else appreciates all the love you share with their children. whether they are your family or not.

Cherie: It is our honor and privilege to be able to do that. We feel so lucky to be able to make people laugh and forget reality for a while and have fun and do this for a living. We are just very lucky.
David: Very fortunate.

The Yak did ask if David and Cherie had any information on how to locate the programs or how to contact for possible visits from them. Information is available at http://www.ringling.com/ and Ringling also has a facebook page. David and Cherie report that they are generally in a town about 1 month before the circus arrives.

David and Cherie, thank you for sharing time with Yakkity Yaks; best of luck on all your future endeavors and a very Happy Anniversary!
David and Cherie signed off with a thank you and HONK HONK!!

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So what do you think? Disappointed to see the clowns have an early exit from The Race? Let us know below!