Photos of Finishing the Trip

These are all photos that my mom took in the closing couple weeks of my trip. It was full of excitement, emotion, memories, and whatever else in those last weeks. It seems like LONG time ago already. So here we go…

1. Receiving my gift certificate to go to the top of the Mackinac Bridge. My parents knew a while in advance, but waited to give it to me in person at my brother’s wedding. I WAS ECSTATIC! Right away I wanted to call and tell everyone and my legs were bouncing all around.
   

2. Here I am with my cousin Matthew. I spoke to his 4th grade class in Lake Leelanau a week ago. His class kept in touch throughout my trip and are some of the coolest 4th graders in the country!
   

3. Cleaning out the invasion mobile. In Madison at my brother’s wedding I tried to send as much stuff possible back home with my parents before flying to Alaska and then coming back to Michigan. It was the least amount of stuff I had in the Compass the entire year.
   

4 & 5) Sorting through “Artifacts”. At the beginning of the trip I started posting all the Artifacts of things I collected on the road. There became way way too much. It was a mess to sort through all of this, four dozen shirts, a couple hundred business cards, a few dozen newspaper articles, dozens of brochures and maps, hundreds of receipts, street addresses, phone numbers, and anything else you can imagine.

6. Barb From L’Anse (across the bay from Baraga as she always noted) was one of the most loyal fans of the trip. She deserves a big round of applause for all the comments she left and I enjoyed everyone of them. Those kind of things really kept me going. So I finally got back and was able to give her and Lowell a ride in the Invasion Mobile.
   

7. The Invasion Mobile (my beautiful 2007 Jeep Compass that was) leaves the driveway one final time in Baraga. Baraga was never to see the Invasion Mobile again. I’m glad my mom took this photo, represents what all my hosts saw as I left over 100 driveways.
   

8. This is Ernie, one of my best friends. Ernie 92 years old! I talked to him after church one day and he asked me “How was Alaska?” I replied saying it was incredible. “One of these days I’ll make it to Alaska,” Ernie said. So I promised him a print of my favorite photo from Alaska, it brought a tear to his eye and maybe one for me too.