Someone posted a link to an article about Kristi a while back. In the article, Brett comments that he could tell Kristi missed skating because she would stop to watch the TV broadcasts instead of surfing past them. Apparently, she seldom watched skating on TV until after she 'retired'.
Since she's appearing as a guest, my guess is that she probably had her choice of cities. The appearances seem to be arranged in clusters - the guests probably won't be away from home for more than 2 weeks at a time.