San Diego TelevisionFour San Diegans are back from "Survivor" and "Amazing Race"
Sierra Reed, Sydney Wheeler, Amanda Blackledge and Kris Klicka are all back at their day jobs now, but their thoughts are elsewhere. Sierra and Sydney drift now and then back to the jungles of Brazil, but they can’t say what exactly they did there. Not until, at least, the 18th edition of the CBS reality show “Survivor” begins airing Thursday, Feb. 12. Amanda and Kris daydream about – well, they can’t really say. Not yet, anyway. They can’t even say where they’ve been until “The Amazing Race,” also from CBS, debuts Sunday, Feb. 15. (Both are on KFMB/Channel 8. “Survivor” at 8 p.m. Thursdays, “Race” at 8 p.m. Sundays) They’re all San Diegans, all contestants on the reality adventure shows, all sworn to secrecy about what happened during the filming, all absolutely forbidden from saying who won each competition. Sierra is a 23-year-old model who grew up in Carlsbad and graduated from Carlsbad High School in 2004, but lives now in Los Angeles. She’s traveled the world on modeling assignments, and is starting up her own design practice. Recent jobs have taken her to Hong Kong, Taiwan, Germany and New Zealand. Not surprisingly, she agreed to be a “Survivor” contestant because, she said, “I’m a huge travel buff.” As for Tocantins, the “Survivor” location in the Brazilian highlands, CBS describes it as “one of the most rugged locations ever visited” by the long-running hit (they say that every time), and that for 39 days the contestants battled “scorching temperatures, torrential downpours and dangerous wildlife.” “I'm a little jet-setter,” Sierra said. “I love to experience new things all the time and this was definitely one of the most rare experiences I've ever had. I'm waiting to see how it looks on TV. It changed my life forever in a really great way, in a really amazing way.” Not that Sierra was eager to sign up for those 39 days of scorching temperatures etc. etc. “They asked me to go on the show,” she said. “I told them they were crazy. It wasn’t anything I was interested in before, but when they mentioned traveling I was all in.” She discovered she liked the primitive life, at least for a little while. “There’s so much pressure here (in L.A.). It was a great experience to have that taken away, especially for somebody like me. I wanted to go back to the basics and just live. It’s something we never do any more.” Sydney Wheeler, 24, also a model, is a North Carolina native now living in Cardiff by the Sea after spending two years in Pacific Beach, which she found to be a mixed blessing. “I would be woken up at 3 a.m. by the sound of beer bottles crashing on the sidewalks,” she recalled. “It was a scary but exciting place to live, for sure.” “Survivor,” which finished filming in early December, had its own, more basic difficulties. “Is the water contaminated?” she asked herself. “And it’s not only the elements, but the people around you. It’s such a mind game, it’s just such a great experience. I still think about it every day.” Like Sierra, Sydney didn’t volunteer. She was at Bar West in Pacific Beach when she was spotted by casting director Erica Shay. “She gave me a card, and she called me a couple of times,” Sydney said. “I went in for an interview, and it came together all at once. I never would have thought of doing something so exciting.” Amanda, 23, and Kris, 25, ran into Erica Shay at the Ivy Hotel in San Diego’s Gaslamp district. They were first recruited for the show’s 13th season, got dropped, and were called back for No. 14. She’s a student at Cal State San Marcos, while he graduated last June from San Diego State and is working at Zenbu Sushi, a La Jolla restaurant. The competition was shot in the first three weeks of November, during which they traveled 40,000 miles. And they have a new understanding of the seemingly lame-brained decisions made by contestants on earlier “Amazing Race” editions. “At certain times,” she remembered, “you haven’t slept, you haven’t eaten. It’s really draining, but really awesome. It moves so fast, you look back and think, ‘Oh my, we did all that in three days.’” “When you watch the show,” Kris agreed, “you’re thinking how could they be so stupid. But when you haven’t had sleep or anything to eat, it’s a whole different thing.” For him “Amazing Race” was a chance to leave a sales job he “hated” and “do the coolest thing I’ve ever done in my life. It made our relationship so much stronger, brought us a little bit closer together. We would never have gone to some of the places we went to. If I could choose one word, it would be amazing, awesome, incredible.”  Robert P. Laurence About the author: Robert P. Laurence was television critic at the San Diego Union-Tribune for 21 years. He previously wrote about politics, jazz, rock 'n' roll and all manner of news. He graduated in journalism from San Francisco State University, and earned an M.A. in political science at San Jose State. He's lived in San Diego since 1971. More by this author Subscribe to Television:
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