Cowboy Tough - the aftermath

The race was over, yay!

Time for a nap:

John set about to gear sorting and drying, what a huge help!  He couldn't assist us during the race, but he was ready to jump in as soon as we were done.

I woke up long enough to eat a snack and take a shower, then I ended up back here - one of many places in our truck where we can comfortably sleep:

We gathered that evening for the post-race celebration.  Vegetables, yum!!  We had fun hashing out tales of sleep deprivation and duct tape.  They showed some great photos on the big screen.  And we assembled for one last team picture:

Big thanks to the race organizers!

And all the staff and volunteers!  You were awesome!

More sleep.  More food at Eggingtons the next morning (eggs!  fresh orange juice!).  Then we all had to go our separate ways  :(  Bye team, it was great fun racing with you!

John and I started our long journey west, retracing some of our race steps across the plains.  Obviously, we had to stop at one of our bike checkpoints and verify that the hand driers were indeed turning randomly on and off (they still were - not a hallucination):

My one post-race sugar splurge - it was huckleberry and it was awesome (and I gave John his little serving back after he took this picture:

I slept and John drove.  We followed the Oregon Trail and the path of the upcoming eclipse, across Wyoming and Idaho, into Oregon.  I was asleep for a lot of it.  Then there was the part where we almost ran out of gas in the middle of nowhere and had to drop the trailer to be sure the truck would make it to the next town (I slept in the trailer.  John made it to the town without hitting empty).

The rest of the aftermath:

Lots of eating - eventually I had to focus on slowing down, enjoying my food, and not eating quite so much!

Sunburned lips - Tom had been diligent in reminding us to use lip balm, but we kind of lost all motivation to do preventative maintenance that final day of trekking/packrafting.

Sore fingertips - no idea why that was.

Tingly toes - that sensation lasted a while, quite a curious thing.

Dreaming of racing - that took the longest to go away, wow.  At least the dreams were mostly about moving forward on foot or on bike, and I didn't have any nightmares.

Satisfaction in our accomplishment - still with me today  :)