MILE$ FOR MONEY

  Scott is 2400 into the Miles for Money cycle journey. The picture is of Scott biking to the top of the highest point in NJ, High Point State Park. Today is his fifth day biking in a row, having completed over 14,000 elevation gain over those last five days. To put that in perspective, it is like biking up Mount Whitney (14,494), the tallest mountain in the lower 48 states. How does someone with stage 4 prostate cancer, currently treating with Lupron, do that?   Good question. I have always called Scott “magic Scott” and I named him well. September is prostate cancer awareness month. As our Miles for Money journey is about raising funds and awareness for prostate cancer and schizophrenia, for the next month we will focus on prostate cancer. Scott is currently treating with Lupron. Lupron takes away all Scott’s testosterone as testosterone feeds prostate cancer. Taking away testosterone is known to cause various affects such as a loss of energy, muscle, and bone density. Thi...

  Scott is headed into his 12 th and 13 th state today, from the Boston area into and through Rhode Island all the way to Connecticut.    Tonight, we are staying at a campground, which gives us an opportunity to pump out the camper tanks, fill up the water tank and do laundry.   We usually stay at a campground on Scott’s days off from biking to allow us to catch up with these chores. How do we do the boon docking?  First, like almost everything these days, I learned much from the internet and the Facebook groups.  Prior to setting out on this 11,000 mile journey we heard you could stay at Walmart, Cabela’s,  Cracker Barrell, Denny’s, IHOPS,  and even some national park lands.  Many sites have ideas and lists about where to boon dock.  Like all else on the internet – not all information is correct.    So far the only store we tried was Walmart – but in each instance both Walmarts’ said no overnight parking!  ...

  We have really enjoyed our time in the Northeast. We are as far north and we are going, and starting the trek south along the East Coast.   This week I am focusing on raising awareness on Schizophrenia.   Dr. Arun Nagendra, who works with Schizophrenia & Psychosis Action Alliance, the non-profit we   are supporting for our mission, shared some thoughts. Thank you, Dr. Nagendra!   Those with schizophrenia are about ten to twelve times more likely to commit suicide than the general public. A key contributor to this tragedy is those with the illness rarely receive the treatment they need. In a given year, less than half of those with schizophrenia receive  any  care, let alone the quality of care that we know leads to the best outcomes. The gold standard of treatment involves an integrated treatment team – consisting of a psychiatrist trained in high-quality medication management, individual therapy that promotes autonomy and resilience,...

  Scott is 1700 miles into cycling, presently biking from Bethel Maine to Sidney Maine.  He is holding up great to the various challenges.  I have been asked to talk about how Samantha and Puck are doing!   I admit I was very worried about how traveling would be for the dogs. For Samantha, she loves car rides but I was worried about her age. She is a toothless, somewhat deaf 5-pound senior citizen but feisty as all get out and bossing us all.  Puck is your typical loving young golden retriever. At 85 pounds he just wants to be in your lap.  But he does not like car rides, and he needs the ability to run. So of course, I was concerned about how both would do on this trip.   They are doing fantastic.  First, they love just being with us.  Puck seems to tolerate but not love the time in the truck.  Sammie loves it.  Puck sticks his head on the back seat and DOES NOT MOVE the whole time I am driving.  Sammie looks out all the windo...

We are 1500 miles in, the 8th state, and concluding a really hard week. If the ride is not challenging enough, Scott had a number of extra challenges this last week. Multiple flat tires, heat advisories, pouring rain, route challenges,  Garmin bike computer fail, a fall due to construction equipment pulling into the the road on a steep hill, poor cell and GPS coverage, etc., all added up to what felt like a walloping on top of the usual mileage. It was tough! But Scott is tough. Plus, he expected all these types of challenges, just not all in one week!  It made for some soul searching moments out on the bike.   Scott handled the heat advisories no problem. He handled the fall no problem (to quote Scott "I am a football player”.)  He changed the flat tires (until he ran out of tubes with him.)  He switched from the garmin edge to google maps bike on his phone. The rain was tougher. Pouring buckets of rain killed visibility and made the road slick. ...