I’m an 8 year old boy. Who would have thought an 8 year old boy could do this? My brother is ten and my sister will be 14 next week. If kids our age can do something like this, there isn’t much that can’t be done. I believe that a cure can be found for cancer. I’m glad there are people working hard at finding the cure.  I hope that my journey has helped someone get closer to a cure.

Here you see me swimming off the shore of Lake Erie after biking more than 70 miles on the last day of a more than 200 mile bike ride.

You can see the horizon beyond me and my mom. What’s beyond the horizon? I don’t know.  But, I’m going to find out and I’m going to make the best of it.  I hope that you will too!  Maybe the cure isn’t too far away.

Watch what people do to help others. Thank them! And, please make a difference for someone else. If we all do it, it will make the world a better place for everyone!

A lot of people get cancer. A lot of people die from cancer. I’m glad not everyone who gets cancer dies. Here is my “My.” She’s my grandmother (Dad’s Mom). She had cancer fifteen years ago. I’m glad she has survived. She’s very important to me and was a very big part of making this ride possible. I love you My and THANK YOU. Bravo, bravo, and multo gratzi!

This adventure started last September when we rode thirty some mile from my house to my friend’s housewarming party in Ann Arbor. My friend is Matthew Stoll. His mom, Debbie, was one of my mom’s best friends. We miss her a lot and remain close to her family. When I told my dad that I wanted to do a really big ride, I didn’t have much of an idea what I was getting into when my dad said “Let’s ride across Michigan – from Lake Michigan to Lake Erie.” Here, as you can see, we made it!

We finished our ride at Sterling State Park in Monroe, Michigan. This park is in our hometown. We passed within a half block of our house as we pressed to the finish line: the shore of Lake Erie!

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My mom has been working to find a job as a teacher. She’s really great with kids. She’s worked with kids all of her life. She’s taking a calculus class this summer so that she can become certified to teach math too! Because of this, she wasn’t able to make the whole ride with us. She was surprised to hear we were finishing the ride on Day FOUR. She hurried home from school and got picked up by my grandmother so she could catch up with us for the ride. Here we are on our last hill before finishing the ride. Keenan is at the back proving his skill at riding no handed.

We managed to get some attention from the press along the way. In one of the small cities we passed through, we stopped for an interview and photos. Here is a picture of the reporter photographing us. You might notice that she does not have any hair. There is a reason for it. She’s fighting breast cancer. One of my best friends lost his mother to breast cancer. This reporter has two kids that are about the same age as my brother. I dedicated my ride to the memory of my friend’s mom Debbie. I hope this reporter beats cancer. My grandmother “My” had breast cancer 15 years ago. There are good stories too. I hope that we can all help to make more good ones happen!

When we got through Brooklyn, home of the Michigan International Speedway (MIS), we saw a sign that said it would be less than 50 miles to get to our hometown. We decided to go for it. We were thankful for mostly smooth roads, and decent weather. We spent a lot of our day on M-50 which is a state highway. Traffic was moving fast but the road had good a good shoulder.

We managed to make our whole trip without a single breakdown, accident, or flat tire. You won’t see many pictures of my dad. He took a lot of the pictures. He kept our bikes going. He rode every mile with us. Here he is pumping air into his front tire at the side of the road.

A lot of Michigan is rural. That means there are a lot of animals. We saw lots of dead animals on the road. We also saw a number of living animals near the road. You’d expect to see cats and dogs. But, we even saw chickens, wild turkey, pheasants, cranes, and deer. It is amazing how much more that can be seen when riding a bike instead of in a car.

Here is the only part of the trip that we cheated a little bit. On the way to our starting point on Day FOUR, I threw up. The first mile of our ride was going to be the only part of the ride that we were going to do on a dirt and gravel road. The road was wet and bumpy. My dad decided the bumps wouldn’t be good for my stomach.