You are currently browsing the monthly archive for June 2008.

The team was very intimidated by the immensity of the great divide and approached it with their usual caution towards safety and desire to conquer it. After all it was just another mountain to defeat in the eventful lives of four very determined and focused individuals.     

It didn’t help when the locals we so often stopped to chat with scared the hell out of us with their description of the Kicking Horse Pass and the steep grades and winding roads. By the time we started our final assault were were psyched right out. Now I look back and wonder if just maybe they all walked away from us with a mischievous chuckle knowing the hook was set. This is something that neither Charlie nor myself would admit to ever being guilty of doing. Right charlie.

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When I sat down to write my blog this morning I reviewed some of my previous Blogs and realized that I had to go back To Kelowna.

Kelowna is a special place to us in so many ways. The Hospitality was amazing. The Motel posted a sigh to Welcome Wheel to Walk, people were friendly, the car show that welcomed us into their midst (Thank you Boyd) and we cannot forget the Hospital that cared for Harvey.

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                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   We have been very busy the last few days covering as many kms as we could per day and attending to all of the other responsibilities we have.

The brakes on the tow vehicle heated up pretty badly onMonday and we took the Van in for an inspection.

Canadian Tire in Kelowna did the inspection for us and went way out of their way to accomodate our schedule. The service was great and the best part the Manager did not charge us for the inspection.

The good news was that the brakes were ok and the only thing the overheating did was polish the brake rotors to a mirror shine.

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I received this email from a fellow Canadian who wants to get involved.

It says so much about what we are doing and gives some examples of how to become a part of our effort that I have asked permission to reprint  it verbatum in this blog.

I’d like to apologize to my Caring, generous fellow Canadian for my blunder and hope that you will dig in with both feet and give us the big shove we all want and need.

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Today we started out on our Journey as usual with the now routine caution about safety and not taking risks.

The day was beautiful, cool but not cold, windy but again not too windy and it was sunny. To date the trip has been uneventful weatherwise since we left Vancouver behind. The runs through the mountains have been difficult but with the resolve of our determined athletes not too difficult to make them submit to failure. 

The excitement of the athletes was infectuous after each run down the long mountain inclines especially after watching them sometimes struggle to reach the tops of the tallest mountains.

You and I could simply get off the trike and push it along when we could no longer peddal.

These guys don’t have that option and must struggle to twist the pedals so to speak to reach the top.

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We are in the mountains and the cycles are very slow climbing the steep grades.

On Thursday we were cycling to Hope BC and inadvertently made an error and turned onto the wrong road.

I was the chase vehicle and when I came up to Charlie’s and Les’ position they asked me where they were.

Jokingly I told them they were beyond Hope meaning that they screwed up on the route and missed Hope but I also joke a lot with Charlie and I implied that he was beyond hope but implying in other ways.

This is the kind of friendly banter Charlie and I have passed back and forth since we became friends.

As I drove along in the support van I thought about the four men on the road riding to bring awareness to the amazing science being developed by the talented research team at McMaster University Hospital.

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We are proudly into day 2 of our Incredible Journey and as I said at the onset of accepting my position of road manager and keeper of the blogs I will post from the hip and tell it as it is.

For us to be successful at our endeavour we need to engage as many people as we can to become team members and join our efforts as messengers to get this amazing story out.

Our current road group is made up of only 6 members. We are limited in the number of people we can contact personally.

If we had six more people we could contact twice as many people to make them aware of this amazing miracle. That would be good. But if we could attract 1200 more messengers into our dedicated group of 6 we would have 200 X as many messengers telling everyone of this miracle. 

I can’t imagine how the message we carry, a message that will give so many spinal cord injury patients hope  and the will to soldier on knowing that with the surgury and therepy can give them some if not all function through the spinal cord regeneration could not be considered news worthy..

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Today was a very good day for the Athletes.

We started our day off with a news event hosted by the City of Chilliwack.

The whole City Staff was there to greet us as well as numerous media groups. Good questions were asked and the spirit of the athletes rose significantly.

There were many notable occurrences at this event and I was proud of the way our group of athletes handled the frank discussions about disabled people and our Incredible Journey.

We asked the entire group to join us as we are only six messenger’s with an extremely large important message to deliver to all Canadians.

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This morning we held a News Event in Victoria BC at mile 0 of the Trans Canada Highway.

We were accompanied by a Local Lions Club Member from the Victoria  China Town Lions Richard Silver.

Richard stood proudly with us as a part of the Team that is forming across Canada to make a Miracle.

The Media was present and took many photo and Video shots of our 4 heroes. We then proceeded from this lovely venue on the waterfront to the Legislature Buildings for some photo ops then a mad dash to catch the 3:00 pm ferry to the mainland.

It is time for me to admit that I was the first to scratch the new trailer when I was maneuvering a very tight turn along our route in traffic. The final result was that I lost the battle with the light post with a sign hanging out into our traffic lane and the awning was ripped. In true red green fashion I offered to make it good as new with the requisite roll of duct tape that all of us do it yourself carry in our tool boxes.

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Today we started out earlier on our trek to Victoria electing to stop en route for brunch instead of having breakfast at the start.

Little did we know that this simple decision/ choice or whatever you call it would again lead us to a strange coincidence and meeting when we stopped for our brunch.

As I relate this story please remember that for the following story to have unfolded a lot of things had to come into play.

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