Introduction

Hello Westby, La Crosse, Family and Sugar Creek people,

Some of you know about my yahoo adventure but here is a little intro for those that don't.

The name's Joe Iverson.  I've always wanted to bike from one coast to the other.  Ok, maybe not 'always' but when I was 11 or 12 I told my mom that I was going to do that.  She didn't let me do it quite then.  but in 2008 I took a plane to Southern California's Orange County.  I packed a big duffle of gear I'd need along the way and a credit card to find a bike and a trailer.  After a week of hanging on the beach, and doing a bit of surfing I started up the coast to San Francisco...with my surf board.  I hit cisco and hung a right and made my way across a route over a lot of mountains.  I was riding for Hunger and Cancer.  Just because I think those are the two most important causes to me.  People asked why Cancer and I said, no reason, I don't have it or anything, just a good cause.

I had a different bike by then though as the one I bought, a Trek Portland (very nice bike) was stolen in L.A.  while I was trying to take care of my broken down trailer...yeah, it was a bad day.  And for the cyclists out there, Kriptonite is indeed a breakable lock. (note to self)

things go down but then they go back up.  A homeless man came along and fixed my trailer and L.A.'s Bike Kitchen fixed up an old bike for me to use.  and I made a B-line for Santa Monica back on the Coast.  Hollywood sucks.  

Enough story for the first post, but once I got to Kansas' Great Bend I felt seizures start to attack quite frequently.  they were not the real full blown ones as I had experienced before I left and in CO but I wasn't going to wait for those to come.  I got home and saw some doctors, had an MRI and they found a brain tumor and it ended up being Cancerous.  It was a little Ironic I thought that Cancer had taken me off my ride when that was the cause even before I knew about my own.  

I've been through Brain Surgery, Chemo and Radiation and now a year later, almost exactly, I'm back on the bike, this time as a survivor and this time, though not physically, a bit stronger. 

I have a few new stories, a few new songs and I have 40 gigs at churches from Great Bend to Washington D.C. as I finish my ride which I've dreamed of doing for so long.

OrangeRocks,

Joe ><>