Life is different for David and Mary Conley since starting their journey on the CBS reality show “The Amazing Race.”

Before the show, it felt like people looked right through them, they said during a phone call from New York on Monday.

Although the couple from Stone, Ky., were eliminated from the race on Sunday night’s episode – which means they’re sixth-place finishers, not millionaires, as their kids hoped – they still couldn’t make it a block in New York without being recognized. (They’re staying with fellow racers Tom Rock and Terry Cosentino while in New York for a few days of media interviews.)

They appeared on CBS’s “Early Show” and “Live With Regis and Kelly” on Monday, and Tuesday they appeared on “The View,” where Rosie O’Donnell presented them with a house.

Because “The Amazing Race” was pre-recorded, the couple has been home since mid-June. At the local Wal-Mart, tasks that used to take 10 minutes now take two hours, thanks to all the autograph-seekers, they say, but they love it too much to say no.

The five weeks they spent racing around the world for the show changed their lives, the Conleys say, but it also made them appreciate what they have at home with their kids, ages 6, 7 and 10.

They both dream of going to Australia but David has one more big fantasy that can’t be realized anywhere but Kentucky: being invited to half-court during a University of Kentucky basketball game.

“I am a Wildcat fan for life,” says David, who wore UK gear throughout the race. “There’s no place like Kentucky. We’ve told everybody that. We’ve been to China, Mongolia, India, Vietnam, but until you get out of your home state, your comfort zone, you never really think about people. When you meet them and see them, people is people.”

Question: What was the toughest challenge?

Mary, 31: I did not think I’d get over the Great Wall of China (as part of one “Race” challenge). Honest to goodness, I didn’t. But (in the episode) last week, when we had to swim in the ocean (in Mauritius), honest to goodness, I can’t swim, and I had to swim way, way out to a boat. I was thinking “There’s no way. I’m going to have a heart attack and die.”

David, 32: For me, probably the second leg in Vietnam. I had to climb the rock, and then when I got off the rock, I had to go row the boat. Rowing that boat, oh, it was horrible. I had never been out in the ocean and the current kept trying to take us back out into the ocean. I just did not know how to row. I was probably out in the water almost five hours. They (the show’s producers) crunch that down to about five seconds.

What was your favorite stop on the race?

Mary: I loved Mongolia. It was cooler, 32 degrees. We’re from Kentucky, we’re not used to hot, hot weather. There was this celebration they were having for the kids. That was at the very beginning of the race, and at that point I was missing my kids so much. It made me feel more at home, being around all those kids.

David: Vietnam. It was my worst and best place. People just took you in. When we finished the leg, they gave me water, tried to wash me off, come over and washed Mary’s hair. The people was very, very nice. And it was plum beautiful.

Do you stay in touch with other racers? Is there anybody you don’t stay in touch with?

Mary: We talk to everybody from the race, even the ones that got eliminated quickly, except Rob (Diaz) and Kim (Chabolla of Los Angeles). We don’t talk to Rob and Kim. I don’t like them.

We talk to the “Cho Bros” (brothers Erwin and Godwin Cho of San Francisco) every night. Honest to goodness, they are our family. Tom and Terry are our best friends. If anybody comes to New York from Kentucky, I would recommend getting Tom and Terry to take you around.

It was like one big family. We have something that nobody else can share.

You mentioned on your last episode that you want your kids to travel. Where do you want to take them?

Mary: We took them to Alabama on Labor Day to visit the “‘Bama Girls” (fellow racers Lyn Turk of Birmingham, Ala., and Karlyn Harris of Helena, Ala.). We gave them (the kids) a choice, of all our friends in the United States.

David: They chose New York, I reckon just because it’s New York. They watch TV. We plan on taking them to New York and maybe California.

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WHERE THEY WENT

David and Mary Conley hadn’t traveled much outside Kentucky before their eight-episode jaunt on “The Amazing Race.” They spent about five weeks filming the show before they made it back to Kentucky in late June. Here are the places they went before being eliminated during Sunday’s episode:

Seattle

Beijing, China

Ulan Bator, Mongolia

Hanoi, Vietnam

Ha Long Bay, Vietnam

Chennai, India

Kuwait City, Kuwait

Mauritius (a small island nation off the coast of southern Africa)

Antananarivo, Madagascar