2008 Roadtrip Recap

Our 10th annual baseball roadtrip is finally complete and we've had a chance to get back to some normalcy in our lives. We've also had a chance to review our trip.

In 17 days, we drove nearly 4,000 miles through 12 states. Our 14 games occurred on 12 consecutive days in 12 different ballparks and involved 18 different teams from 5 different baseball leagues, the American League, National League, Midwest League (A), Pacific Coast League (AAA) and American Association (Independent). We also visited 3 other baseball fields along the way: the Field of Dreams movie site in Dyersville, IA; Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, NY, for the MLB Homerun Derby; and Keyspan Park in Brooklyn, for the Take You Base charity run/walk in the fight against cancer.

Although not originally planned, we were able to create a couple day-night split double-headers (our favorites). The first was on July 2 with a game at Kane County (Geneva, IL) in the afternoon and another at Quad Cities (Davenport, IA) that night, and then on July 11 at Detroit (MI) in the afternoon and at Great Lakes (Midland, MI) later that evening.

We tried to make our trip as eco-friendly as could be (other than the 4,000 miles of driving). While jumping from hotel to hotel as our travels dictated, we tried to reduce waste by carrying along a bar of soap, instead of opening a new bar at every stop. We also confined our garbage disposal at each hotel to only 1 trash can, so additional garbage bags would not be uselessly wasted. As often as possible, we refilled our empty water bottles with tap water (except in Iowa, yucky water), instead of buy new bottles every time and wasting plastic. We will also be making a donation to http://www.carbonfund.org/ to offset our carbon footprint created by this trip, and our lives in general.

Many thanks to the following, in no particular order:

Curtis at 3rd & Long, for introducing us to the world of blogging, you can read his blog at http://diaryofthirdandlong.blogspot.com/.
http://www.baseballmaps.com/, for helping us find all of these great ballparks,
AAA, for providing maps, local informational guides, hotel discounts, etc,
Diners Drive-ins & Dives, for finding us some yummy food along the way,
Andy, for the driving tour of the twin cities, the great dinner with the family & housing us in MN,
Barb, for the walking tour of her estate,
Chris, for the personal tour at the House of David museum http://www.houseofdavidmuseum.org/,
Amy, for housing us in Cleveland,
Cindy, for recommending the Country Junction and their marvelous pies,

the Brooklyn Cyclones, for hosting the Take Your Base run/walk benefiting the American Cancer Society, still accepting donations at www.brooklyncyclones.com/community/takeyourbase/,
everyone who has already donated in support of our walk,

and last but certainly not least, all of the leagues, teams, players, entertainers, fans, etc, who were a part of another of our fantastic journeys.

We are eagerly awaiting next year's ballgame schedules to see where we will be travelling in 2009. But first, maybe a (relatively) local Labor Day weekend trip to hold us over. I guess we just can't get enough of the pulled pork sandwiches and helmet cup ice creams. If so, we'll keep on blogging.

Thanks for taking the time to follow along with our trip. Feel free to comment on the blog site or to us directly at sem1234@excite.com or todd23nyy@yahoo.com.

See our other trips at

http://toddandstephaniebaseballroadtrip2009.blogspot.com/
http://toddandstephaniebaseballroadtrip2010.blogspot.com/
http://toddandstephaniebaseballroadtrip2011.blogspot.com/

Stephanie and Todd