On September 1st, I resumed my cross-country, fundraising ride to the East Coast. It began in the summer of 2015 when I set out to ride from Bellingham, WA, to my hometown of Galva, IL to attend my 50th high school reunion. The ride went well until day 37 when, about seventeen and a half miles into the ride, two farm dogs decided to herd me. One, according to the woman driving a car a short distance behind me, lunged into the bike, knocking me down and breaking several of my ribs. Job completed, the dogs scurried off and I, with the help of the driver behind me, drug my broken self off the road and rode with her to join my wife, Dee, about 10 miles on down the road in Mandan, ND. There, I went to a clinic where the doctor assured me I hadn't punctured a lung or damaged anything critical, other than five ribs. I collected my pain pills from the pharmacy and, too damaged to ride the rest of the way, completed the trip in our Rialta camper. In spite of the unfortunate ending, the ride did attract pledges of nearly $30,000 for three nonprofit organizations.
It had always been my intent, assuming I completed that first ride, to return to Illinois and ride to the East Coast. I began on September 1st, from the spot near Mandan where I went down, and I'll ride to Bar Harbor (Ba-haa-ba), Maine. Once again I'm collecting donations for three nonprofits -- the Whatcom Community Foundation, Whatcom Community College Foundation, and the Book Industry Charitable Foundation. The ride will be approximately 2000 miles and I'm donating $1.00 per mile to each of the three organizations. I'm encouraging everyone to pick one or more of these worthy foundations and donate a per-mile amount. One cent per mile would only set you back $20, a nickle would be $100, and a dime would cost you $200. I could go on, but I'm guessing your math is good enough to figure out what each per mile pledge would net these organizations. I'm hoping some folks will match (or exceed) my donation of $1.00 per mile for each foundation.
I hope you'll follow me on my journey this year. I'll try to keep it interesting and will welcome your comments and questions.
Thanks to Beth Golay, who does the blog "Books and Whatnot," you can also follow the journey on Story Map.