Trek For Chop Daily Journal

We were supposed to head west from Springfield, Missouri through Carthage to Joplin, but every hotel anywhere close to Carthage and Joplin was booked. Not a single Airbnb except one near Carthage for $900 a night.  That was not a typo.  $900 a night. And there was no way we were going to camp out. First of all, it’s like 95 degrees out here every day and it barely gets below 80 at night. Second of all, we threw away our tent in St.Louis. Too heavy.  “It’s Marian Days,” the very sweet lady at the Holiday Inn told me. “We’ve been sold out for months.”  “Marian Days? Does she have a concert in town?” Of all the many things we’ve learned in the seven weeks we’ve been on the road, maybe the most humbling thing is how little we know. Sure, we know stuff about Philadelphia. But the rest of these places?  We thought Ohio would be flat. Ohio is not flat. In Indiana, we thought that if a road showed up on Google maps it would be a paved road. Also not true…some are gravel...

 When my dad and I were planning this trip back in May, we built the website that all of you come to in order to read these little blurbs about our adventures. We had to set a donation goal, and the first number I said out loud was five thousand dollars thinking that was a reasonable goal to have within two months. My dad interjected almost immediately with, "Are you kidding me? We can do better than that...let's do ten thousand!"   I thought he was crazy, but as of August 1, 2023, thanks to all of you (and one very generous anonymous donor who put us over the top), we did it!   Ten thousand dollars for Fetal Surgery families! Are you kidding me? 61 different people donated! All of you reading right now, whether you donated or not, were the ones that truly made this possible. If it weren't for the words of encouragement, wisdom and guidance, we would have more than likely not made it out of our home state. But all of you gave us a daily reminder as to why it is ...

 We set out from the Atlantic Ocean on June 14th aiming for the Pacific and on July 28th we made it to Pacific…Missouri. No ocean here, but the Comfort Inn has a nice pool!  Yes, it’s just one of the amusing twists and turns of our journey. Let’s see…we’ve had breakfast in West Berlin (Pennsylvania), lunch in Poland (Indiana) and an early dinner in London (Ohio). It was over 90 degrees in Alaska (Indiana) when we passed through, and our biggest regret so far is that we were within ten miles of Funkhouser (Illinois) and didn’t swing by. Funkhouser just SOUNDS cool, doesn’t it?  One place we DIDN’T miss, though, was Casey, Illinois. Pronounced “K-Z”, this fascinating little town was one of the highlights of the whole trip, primarily because we arrived there during Jenny’s visit so she could share in the fun. About 15 years ago, like so many small towns, downtown Casey was struggling. Lots of people were ready to give up, but not local businessman Jim Bolin. He came up with ...

 Feels like a good time to remind ourselves why we’re on this crazy trip!! 22 years ago, our family got thrown for a loop when we learned early in Jill’s pregnancy that Tommy had spina bifida. The doctors at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia said we could participate in a clinical trial of fetal surgery, and Jill bravely agreed. She and Tommy had surgery on March 2, 2001, then Jill recovered at the Ronald McDonald House in Camden. So many people pitched in…the volunteers and staff in Camden, our families, especially Jill’s sister Gina and Matt’s sister Beth and husband Rich, our neighbors, our Immaculate Conception church community, the Methacton community where Matt works…and, of course, the wonderful doctors, nurses, social workers, therapists and support staff at CHOP.  All Fetal Surgery families know the tornado of emotions prior to, during and after surgery.  To be in a CHOP Fetal Surgery family means being comforted and lifted up by intelligent, honest and sympath...

 I was eating the complimentary breakfast at the Super 8 in Greenfield, Indiana the other day and this guy about my age got up from his table and said to the woman cleaning the counter, “Thank you, ma’am, for the good breakfast.” She looked up, maybe a little surprised that someone’d acknowledged her. “We try…we don’t always succeed, but we always try.”  “If somebody didn’t like it,” he shrugged, “it’s cause they’re too damn picky.” I laughed and nodded at the guy, who shrugged again.  “Well, it’s true.”   It IS true…but what really made me smile was the simple message of his kindness: looking at the bright side is a CHOICE.  Some of the pictures we’ve posted in earlier entries of this blog were a combination of luck and skill: we were just lucky to pass by the hawk and heron, and lucky that they stayed around long enough for Tommy to skillfully capture them. Some were ALL skill: we didn’t need much luck to find ducks — we see them quite a bit — but Tommy’s...

 We’ve been on the road for nearly a month, two guys who don’t really ride bikes, so all this pedaling on the straight, flat roads of Ohio and Indiana gives us plenty of time for deep thoughts. Forgive us if this one gets a little philosophical, but the brain goes to interesting places when you sit on a bike seat for hours each day. Plus we’re getting a lot of Canadian wildfire smoke out here now…maybe it’s going to our heads!  One day as we slid alongside yet another cornfield, Tommy made this observation: “All these people we meet or pass by, they all have their own lives…they’ve never even heard of us and then there we are. We talk to a few of them…and then we’re gone.” And all of the people we chat with tell us the same thing as we leave: “Be safe!” A few days earlier, we had been dodging thunderstorms in downtown Dayton. The cloudbursts were swirling in at about twenty minute intervals and we were moving along the city bike paths next to the river, hiding under different ...