So after the end of the 4k I stayed with Ellen and Mike in Oakland for a couple of days. I had a really great time seeing them and playing board games and got to see some cool places around Oakland, like Berkeley.
And then I went home. It was nice to come home again and to finally be able to sleep in the same room for more than two nights in a row. And seeing parents, friends, and family is also a plus. It was definitely an adjustment not being on the 4k, though. I miss my fellow 4kers, as well as a lot of aspects of the whole 4k lifestyle (eating 5000 calories/day, always having people to hang out with, seeing new things every day). It was weird when I went for a bike ride and decided to go up a hill that before the 4k nearly killed me every time I rode it. I have to say, I was a little taken aback when I saw the hill again. In my head, the hill was a huge, steep wall. Instead, I found a hill that was short and shallow, even by standards of flat states like Nebraska.
Finally, because I'm bored I'm going to assign some superlatives to the places we went:
Favorite state: Colorado (Beautiful scenery, great people)
Runner-up: Nebraska (Awesome people)
Least favorite state: Utah (Team caught the plague. But it did have nice scenery)
Hottest place: May have technically been Utah, but the humidity made Kansas seem like the hottest, with heat indexes topping 110 every day.
Coldest place: Top of the Rockies, 38 degrees. Brrrr...
Strangest place we slept: Michigan City, Indiana, in the haunted church with the dead birds and the creepy bedroom in the rectory, where I slept. Also, view of a nuclear powerplant from the church.
Scariest place we slept: Elkhart, Indiana, where the team had a 4AM run-in with a peeping Tom outside the girls' window.
Best state sign: Nevada. Very colorful and it meant we were out of Utah.
Worst state sign: Utah. They get creativity points for making it a stone pillar, rather than a traditional sign, but they lose points for bullet holes and graffiti, and missing letters.
Most unique dinner: Arapahoe, Nebraska. Our dinner was cooked in a giant cream can and served out of a trough. And it was delicious.
Place I'd most like to live: Boulder, CO. Coolest city ever!
Best arch: While the St. Louis Arch was pretty cool, Delicate Arch, in Arches National Park is the clear winner in this category.
Scariest place to bike through: Biking down the switchbacks of the Rockies terrified me, but they were nothing compared to the gun fight we passed in Richmond, California.
Place that provided the best alternative to beds: Sweet Springs, MO. The host here went out of their way to provide the team with 27 army cots from a local base. They were surprisingly comfortable!
Smallest town we stayed in: Probably Baker, Nevada, with just around 200 residents.
Best town slogan: Eureka, Nevada: Bills itself as "The Friendliest Town on the Lonliest Road."
Worst town slogan: Somewhere in Kansas or Nebraska. The claim to fame on their town sign: "Fine churches, accredited schools." What a claim to fame!
Most corn: Kansas
Most cows: Nebraska
Most horse and buggies: Michigan
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