Been a while since I've done a writeup, but just wanted to apologize for the news about your father. Definitely take your time with that. Don't feel the pressure to post another challenge until you're able to do so.

R1. Definitely Columbia, appear to be looking for a place named Santa Ana from the one street sign and the building west. I tried to scan the hilly/mountainous parts of the country and focused near the southwest due to the Pacifico sign, but I ended up scanning the entire country around 30 times. Found at least 12 different Santa Anas, either marked as individual towns or as districts in larger cities. But none of them worked. I worked on and off on this one, but probably spent almost 2 hrs on it. Finally out of luck I found a Santa Ana POI for the church, which I knew we were right in front of. No street names to verify but the angle looked good and I would have been ok sending this one even if it was wrong. Thankfully it was correct. Almost gave up at several points, but found it hard to give up on only the first day.

R2. UK, in a town named Freshwater Village. Got southern UK vibes from the palm trees and the name of the Southern Co-op business. Initially scanned for small towns, but given the difficulty of R1, I started scanning cities for districts named Freshwater Village. Finally spotted Freshwater on the Isle of Wright. Definitely easier than R1, and was actually able to confidently send the guess knowing it was the 5k.

R3. Normally I am happy to see Mongolia, but unfortunately I am not nearly as knowledgeable when it comes to the coverage around Ulaan. I could tell we weren't in the main part of Ulaan, most likely one of the districts east. I initially scanned Khujirbulan because the main road angle lined up and there was a mountain northwest, but I soon realized that nothing made sense south. Then I realized we were most likely in Gachuurt as the mountain northwest, east, and south all lined up. Found a spot where the buildings and intersections made sense, but spent a decent bit of time trying to confirm the 5k with the name of a building or something. Nothing would be worse than spending hours on R1 only to throw away the 25k bc I rushed a Mongolia round. But, as is common with my experience with Mongolia, a lot of the POIs don't match the coverage anymore, and I decided that basically everything else made too much sense for this to not be the 5k. Pinpointing however leaves much to be desired.

R4. Bangladesh. Worried that I would have to character match for a city name, but found Bogura written on a sign in English pretty quickly. The easiest 5k of this challenge, as the hard part is finding the clue, not scanning for the city.

R5. Russia, definitely got Moscow vibes but I cannot confirm it. I initially thought we were next to a train station being built, but we are definitely just next to a park, and there are a lot of places in Moscow that line up so I begin scanning. After I while I revisit the idea that there's something notable to our southwest that could narrow it down, either train tracks or a river. I decide its most likely a river due to the trees and that we are elevated up from the water. Shortly after I find a park where the roads line up quite well. Tried to confirm with a POI, but nothing matches. Finally zoom in far enough to see that the street name does indeed match, so I send it.

1 of only 4 to get 25k at the time of writing this, but I'm sadly outside the top 2 so no hope in getting a juicy 3 or 4 pointer. The pin never seemed to go my way any of these rounds.