Best and worst of the summer

State with the most state troopers on the road: Kansas (by a long shot)
Dumbest driving choice: Crossing the border from Michigan to Canada (and back) on a Friday in July when I didn’t have to.
Most roadkilled animal: Raccoon
Most roadkilled deer: West Virginia
Worst thunderstorms: St. Charles, Missouri
Nights spent in motels: Six (Boise, ID, Rock Springs, WY, Gloucester MA, Winchester KY, and Brigham City UT)
Most sketchy motel: Rock Springs, Wyoming
Best goat cheese and goat ice cream: Happytown Dairy (aka Elise's house), Lawrence, KS
Toughest yoga class: Om Time, Boulder, CO
Weirdest yoga class: Ann Arbor, MI
Most expensive deli ($9 bread): Zingerman’s, Ann Arbor, MI
Worst road construction: Odgen, Utah
Best random connection: What Maeluise called “The Debes Coincidence” in Rochester, NY
Most last-minute lunch: Katie Moos in Cambridge
Most confusing place to drive around: the Amherst/Shutesbury MA area
Single most frequent graffiti word in states all over: Impeach!
Most pregnant cousin: Jessica Basmadjian Moos (or Moosmadjian)
Latest baby: Ms. Zoe Moos
Coolest babies that I actually met: Sylvie Grayson-Neff and Ruby Donaldson
Coolest twins: Hazel and John
Best household of kitties: This is a tie, there was no way to break it: Kermit and Stella (left, DC), Miss Kitty and Madonna (Shutesbury, MA), America, Flip, and Gretzky (Bethesda, MD), and Suzette and Gigi (Boulder, CO).
Best new (old) band that I got to see live: The Dead Horses (MA)
Person seen the most number of separate times on the trip: Ms. Alexandra Karnow
Best cover song performed live: George Michael's "Faith" performed by Ms. Tracy Grammer at Falcon Ridge (thank you!)
Person I hadn’t seen for the longest amount of time before this summer: Tie between Cal Andrews (MA) and Carol Thrane (Kansas City) – both 17 years (before my mom died).
Most adorable 80-something folksinger: Pete Seeger
Best day of pure vacation: Fire Island with Lucy, David and Louis
Best tea shop: Tie between TeaDrops in Kansas City (best tea: Keemun Mao Feng), and Tea Spot and Pekoe in Boulder
Best coffee shop: Tie between Rao’s in Amherst, MA, Haymarket in Northampton, MA, The Lone Gull Coffeehouse in Gloucester, MA, and The Trident in Boulder, CO.
Prettiest latte: Cushman, Amherst (see above)
Best cocktail: Tie between Bloody Marys made by Louis on Fire Island, Margaritas on Jim Henry’s porch, and the Mango Jalapeno Margarita at Tahona in Boulder.
Best pedicure: Salon Bellezzio, Blue Springs, Missouri
Keys to houses still in my possession: Rochester, NY and Boulder, CO.
Best podcast discovery: Barnes & Noble’s Meet the Writers
Best new CD of the summer: Lori McKenna’s “Unglamorous”
Miles covered: 8,850 (this is calculated about as close as I can get it for now, and is probably way too low because it doesn’t include getting lost or stopping for gas or other things)
And let’s not even calculate the money spent on gas, OK?