September 30th I just finished riding the last 19 miles to complete my 400 miles for the month of September. It wasn’t about the rides and it wasn’t about the miles. It was about the money. It’s always about the money. In this day and age in the United States, I’m going to get a little political right now. We should never ever have to have fundraisers for trying to find cure for cancer or for treating anyone who has cancer or for that many matter any disease. This is the United States, the richest country in the world and we can’t afford or so the politicians tell us money for healthcare for the people of this country. What has happened to our country? We’re building monuments is more important than taking care of the people. I’m going to leave it at that, but there’s a lot more I could say. Thank you everyone who supported me my friends and family believe me you are appreciated. Again, thank you all.
This is a picture of me in the early morning fog on a very cold day on the Paul Bunyan Trail in Minnesota. This is the bottom 7 miles of the pole Bunyan Trail. It’s completely in the woods. And every time we run around the corner, we saw deer. We saw more than 14 deer in that 7 mile stretch.
I just raised $1,000 to fight kids' cancer and achieved WARRIOR LEVEL in the challenge! Thank you so much for your support.
I started on this journey on the first day of September of this year. My goal at that time was $200 and 400 miles of riding my trike in the month of September. This fundraiser and support of childhood cancer presented me with the opportunity to do something that I hadn’t been doing in the last few years. By a few years, I mean three years ago, my wife and I drove to New York to visit my 96 year-old cousin Albert Barone. We took our trikes with us and whenever we reached a place that had a rail trail we would stop ride our bikes 20 to 30 miles go back to the hotel Shower and drive to our next destination. We did this all the way across the United States and back. Every time we get to the state of Michigan Iowa, South Dakota, we got rained out. So we were never able to ride in those states. Since I was planning on riding 400 miles in September, I asked my son if he wanted to go on a 10 to 12 day journey all the way to Michigan and back. We did just that in 10 days and we were able to ride about 140 miles on trails in places like Utah South Dakota, Wyoming, Minnesota, Iowa. These were mostly states that I had never been able to ride in during the seven trips that we had gone across country riding on bike trails in the past. I really enjoyed this trip like I had enjoyed all the other trips with my wife, but this time it was with my son. My newly retired son. We spent hours in the truck talking about everything imaginable that we hadn’t talked about in years. It was extremely enjoyable trip.
60 miles to go to finish the 400 mile ride and as the old saying goes, God willing and the creeks don’t rise we’ll get it done.
Thank all of you for your contributions and your encouragement. Keep in mind the poor kids that suffer from all kinds of diseases and especially cancer for they are the strongest of all of us.