First I thank Greg Sweetser of the Ski Maine Association for his support and encouragement.  I also thank the Vermont and New Hampshire for supporting me in their great States.  I also thank the many areas in Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island that welcomed me.  Lastly a big thanks to my wife Holly for her on-going support, patience and understanding.

This adventure has only inspired me to explore New England further – to meet more of its people and check out even more fascinating places.  If you represent the radio, TV or print media that would like to work with me on another similar journey, please feel free to call to discuss your ideas. 

This Ski Odyssey, with all the people met, mountains skied and all the detours explored was pure and simple pleasure.  To celebrate a birthday was sure fun; to celebrate and explore New England, my home for nearly all my life, was pure joy; to absorb the bold and subtle beauty of New England nature was inspiring (but not the ugly, blighted commercialization of some tourist destinations); and to witness the continued existence of small town New Englanders was very reassuring. 

I discovered, or maybe just re-affirmed, something about myself on this Odyssey.  I learned just how much I enjoy exploring new (and re-discovering old) places, meeting and talking with people and most of all, discovering people’s stories.  Each one of us, and especially small town New Englanders, has a story to tell – a funny, amazing, sad, dramatic or just ordinary experience to tell.  Cyrus started a tiny ski slope with rope toe powered by a farm tractor, Kyle committed nearly his whole adult working life to one small family ski area, Jimmy buys and sells life size manikins of movie stars, Bob raises chickens, sells firewood and runs a tree farm in retirement, Dick wears his welders pride on his sleeve and builds custom wood stoves, Edith starts a mid winter brush fire in sub-zero weather just to get rid of a storm fallen tree, Byron struggles to make a small ski mountain work, Laura recovered from a permanently crippling ski accident to ski again, Parker and wife Susan voluntarily keep a community mountain operating with lift prices of $5 per day and Waldo lives a simple but rich life filled with memories of his sister Harriet and nieces Holly and Bonnie.  My winter trip was filled with many more wonderfully rich moments with kind people all over rural New England.

In addition to all these people who I met, the people I did not meet but whose work I witnessed equally intrigued me.  I did not meet the man who kept the 1960’s era snow cat alive at Lost Valley, the collector and seller of hub caps in Aroostook County Maine,  the owner of the farm with the fence of old shipping pallets near Bradford Ski area, the man who started the country junkyard near Orono Maine, the folks that keep tiny Pinnacle Mountain alive in rural Maine and of course I would have love to have met Clinton Gilbert, the operator of the first ski tow in North America in Woodstock Vermont.  To these people unmet I say you have left your mark on this New England landscape and added your share of character to its personality.