Home Again and Reflecting

"WHAT A TRIP!"
"Best month of my life."
"Trip of a lifetime!"

Those are just a few ways Chris and I have described our month of traveling. How can I sum up a trip like we've had (before I even post pictures from it... which there are over 2000 so I am a bit baffled as to how to even post the pictures)?

29 days
12,000 miles
24 states (not counting the three states I went through on my way home from Colorado to Michigan before the trip even started)
14 Baseball games
15 Baseball parks
1 football stadium
8 bears
4 National Parks
27 friends and family members visited and/or included
COUNTLESS crazy and cultural cuisine throughout the trip

I tried mapping the skeletal route we took on mapquest but after 25 destinations they told me I had reached the limit of destinations for one map. When I tried to post my road trip maps, the images didn't paste correctly so I've spent about an hour online trying to map our route in a picture so I can post it but I've reached repeated dead ends... if you know of a great map-generating website where I can list more than 25 destinations to generate a map of America, please let me know.

I'm also not sure how to post our pictures - it kind of divides into three parts - New England, America's Heartland and Western Coast... but there are probably 600 pictures for each of those sections. Suggestions?

Best moments:

• Getting a lesson in how to eat lobsters and clams on the coast of Maine
• Watching Mario Rivera pitch in Yankee Stadium
• A tour of Fenway Park by a tour guide who attended his first Red Socks game in 1934
• Watching a game in AT&T Park in San Francisco complete with Seagull clean-up crew
• Falling head over heals down a hill while trying to "use the facilities" near Yosemite National Park - and yes my pants were around my ankles at the time of the fall - and yes, it was LITERALLY a head over heels, backward somersaults tumble
• Cheering for my four-year-old nephew while he ran the bases at Safeco Field after the Mariner's game

There were so many more awesome moments as well, but when Chris and I were ending the trip, those were the "Trip Bests" we compiled.

I have come to think that Chris and I were the perfect age and stage for this trip -- we're ADULTS who CAN take a crazy trip like this, we can pay for it, we were smart about it, we looked out for each other and were safe on the trip - we are adults who have this time off of work (both teachers) who can choose to take an awesome trip like this.

That being said, Chris and I are totally KIDS! What adults in their right minds take a crazy trip like this? We spent eight nights sleeping in the car! EIGHT NIGHTS! We both came home with poison ivy! We spent so much money this summer between the gas prices, baseball tickets, food that we consumed (we brought a lot of food with us throughout the trip, but we wanted to experience the cuisine of all the areas we visited as well), the postcards I bought... Adults don't spend summer months like we did.

All in all, I would do it again tomorrow! I would do it again next summer. I would take a different trip, the same trip, any trip with Chris again.