Epilogue
Wow! It's hard for me to believe that my trip is actually over or accept that I'm back in the "real world" after the adventure of my lifetime (so far). I accomplished everything I set out to, with fewer complications than I had any right to expect. The games were terrific, the driving never got old or tiresome, and I saw more of this amazing country of ours than many people see in a lifetime. Throw in the relatives and friends that I saw for the first time in years and you've got my dream trip - and it really happened!
I hope you've had the time and inclination to have perused some of the ramblings and photos on these pages. I thoroughly enjoyed experiencing and recounting them.
Finally, I'd like to say one more big "Thanks!" to the people who made all my fun possible: My mom, who put together an amazing compilation of names and addresses of relatives that I didn't know I had and turned my trip into a class geography lesson for the preschool class she helps teach; everyone who took me in for a night (or nights) along the way; my younger sister Diane, whose worldly adventures provided me a bit of inspiration; the gang at work, who proved that I wasn't needed there as much as I may have thought; mother nature for keeping the rains almost completely out of my path (even though I had to endure some of the hottest days on record in notoriously hot Florida and Texas); the six or seven teams that graciously provided me with free game tickets; and all the Major Leaguers that provided me with an inordinate number of close, exciting games and a ton of great baseball memories - baseball truly is "the great American pastime".
-Andy