Don’t know where to start. So many things happened today. The night was hectic, most o aFrom a meeting with the Rotary Club in Santa Monica in the morning to the meeting with Rotary Club members at the house of a Rotary member who has a daughter who suffered a severe Acquired Brain Injury in a car accident many years ago and really recovered so much with the help of her parents.

In between 108km of what must be one of the most beautiful bicycle rides in the world. From Santa Monica we passed through Venice Beach, the most amazing beach I’d ever seen – not just because of the really clean and golden sand, but equally because of the people and the general atmosphere of the place. Further up North, we passed through Malibu with the most amazing houses overlooking some of the most amazing cost line you could imagine,

I first really enjoyed the whole experience immensely. Cycling along the Pacific Coast on the Marin Bike felt like flying. It was breath-taking. Literally. I was also very happy that (unlike in Boston) my back side this time seemed to have withheld the pressure.

Tonight we are staying with the most wonderful couple in their most amazing house in Ventura. It’s late here and I am shattered – though, I’m the last man ‘standing’. My friends just fell to the side tonight and started to sleep immediately. I’ll follow their example now and will try to gather some strength for an early morning start!

Day 4 will be Ventura to Solvang.

Instead of a written ‘diary’, here are some impressions of today by Martin and Chris!

Chris describing his cycle up to the Griffith Observatory

Martin found it equally hard to climb up that steep mountain!

Hollywood – the city of dreams and make-belief!

Tomorrow you can follow us from Santa Monica to Ventura!

We haven’t really started yet. Just getting ready.

And what better way to start with a good send-off party – attended, no less by the Irish Honorary Consul, Finbar Hill.

There was a great turnout and everybody had a great evening. We told our friends what we are planning to do, not just over the next two weeks or so, but over the next three years and beyond.

We took a few videos, will put them together over the next few days, and share them with you. Here just a few impressions.

… and a short video

Off to Hollywood and what promises to be a great start to a great adventure!

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The Great American Cycle 2 Fundraiser – October 4 – October 15 – Los Angeles to Napa Valley, California

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Well, it’s Naples California – and we are getting ready for the #GreatAmericanCycle starting tomorrow in Hollywood (California:).

Here is what you can do to help us: Tweet, share on FB, Instagram and whatever else you can think of that we are doing it why we are doing it.

There are some flyers available at the bottom of the Cycle web page with all the information.

If you and/or your friends want to support our fundraising efforts, here is the link!

Tonight, our great friend, supporter, tech & media guru, and support vehicle captain, together with his fabulous wife, have invited family, friends, and neighbours to their gorgeous house (where they have us so generously invited to stay) to hear about our cycle and the work we would like to support.

It’ll be a great night in!

No time – about to board. Coming into Los Angeles!

One ‘old bloke’ is there waiting for us – the other two are on the way!!
(After a bit of a problem at the airport:)

Watch this space!

http://ansaol.ie/donate/
http://ansaol.ie/great-american-cycle-2-fundraiser/

#GreatAmericanCycle
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Today is the catholic church’s Day for Life, a special day dedicated to celebrating the dignity of life. Pope John Paul II introduced this day in his 1995 encyclical letter Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life) “to foster in individual consciences, in families, in the Church, and in civil society, recognition of the meaning and value of human life at every stage and in every condition” (EV #85).., An opportunity to highlight that in our ‘modern’ society, as well as the often quoted, shocking view of some doctors that ‘life’ after a severe acquired brain injury only requires ‘maintenance’.-

Tonight is one of these nights I’m feeling a bit of an un-ease. All of what I’m going to do over the next two weeks and a bit is really out of my league, completely. And leaving Pádraig and the rest of the family in Dublin won’t be easy either, for all of us.

I’m writing this early, because we’ll have an evening together with the family and I’ll try to go to bed early – though I’m pretty certain that sleep won’t come easy.

Oh, and if you want to watch something really beautiful (and in Irish) check out this very recent video. Pádraig loves it!

Incredible stuff is happening. Really. First and most importantly: Pádraig’s new favourite ‘exercise’ is playing ‘hot hands’: you put a hand down on the table, the other person does likewise, and so forth. As the other person tries to slap your hand, you try to pull it away. And that is exactly what Pádraig did this morning as I tried to put my hand down on his – and at lightning speed. A little bit later, when I tried to get him ready for transfer into his wheelchair, he pulled up his legs all by himself to help.

What started as an unbelievable day continued…

We watched Shane Grogan and his family on Ireland AM.

At lunchtime, Georg Hook interviewed me on his show “High Noon” about the Great American Cycle we’re about to embark on.

And in the afternoon, I had my first very promising meeting with the HSE in preparation of what is rapidly becoming a real possibility: getting the An Saol Project on the road in early 2017.

Tonight, I’m finding it difficult to process all of this and to get ready mentally for leaving in less than 2 days. I have no idea how all this is happening. How so many people are getting onto the Dreamboat. How it seems that the ‘impossible’ is going to become reality. At so many different levels. Two ‘firsts’ in the space of half an hour. I’m still in shock.

I’m almost afraid to believe all this in case there’ll be a huge disappointment in the end. Do you know this feeling?

The first time I saw him was on the telly. And I just saw him. It was illegal to have his voice heard on the telly. They had an actor reading out his statements. Gerry Adams met me in the Dail, the Irish parliament, today and asked how Pádraig was doing. That he had heard all about his difficult journey. He asked if there was anything his party and he personally could do to help. And he asked me to pass on his best wishes to Pádraig. – I don’t know, and what in life is for sure, but to me it seemed like as if he and his colleagues will be doing their best to help getting the An Saol project on the road.

Talking about the road.

Someone today asked me whether there was a typo on the poster and the leaflets? It couldn’t really be 1,000 km? Right?

I said: “Right on, man. 1,000km it is.”

But it’s not just a question of distance. It’s also a question of duration. It’s ok to cycle for a day or two and than go back home. It’s quite a different story to try and fit the content of an 80l suitcase on rollers into two tiny paneer bags – as a friend pointed out on Facebook earlier. It’ll be fun. No doubt. In hindsight. Imagining how it will be actually fills me with a sense of utter and pure panic. – The “There old guys – one good cause” lark sounds funny as long as it all stays in your imagination. The reality of these ‘old guys’ cycling up (instead of down) the Pacific coastline will be testing!

Isn’t it good that we love challenges? That we thrive on them? That there Ain’t no stoppin’ us now?

In my mind Pádraig will be leading me, riding beside me, telling me to stop talking and to get on with the job.

There ain’t no stoppin’ Pádraig. We’re no longer dreaming on the Dreamboat. We’re absolutely and definitely real here. The An Saol Project will happen. As sure as three old guys will be cycling the 1,000km from Hollywood to San Francisco next week.

Please spread the word about the #GreatAmericanCycle in support of An Saol! Our aim is to collect 1.5m euro! No less. Check out the leaflet here. And support us here.

One of my regrets is that I wasn’t born a few years earlier so that I could have attended Woodstock. So that I could have gone to San Francisco when that was the groovy place to go to. There’s little I can do about my birthday (apart from being eternally cross with my parents), but I’ll be going to Los Angeles on Sunday, and then cycle to San Francisco and on to Napa. You have to follow your dreams, right?

In my head I’ve been practicing my eternal party pieces: ‘Coming into Los Angeles‘ by Arlo Guthrie and ‘San Francisco‘ by Scot McKenzie. Still thinking of an appropriate song for the journey. Maybe Canned Heat’s On the Road Again… I learned Coming into Los Angeles from an old girl friend (old = when we were really young, like really), and On the Road Again from a hippie on the beach of Tarifa in Southern Portugal on the way back home from Interail to Marrakech. Never managed to learn San Francisco on the guitar off by heart – but who knows, it’s never too late.

On a less hip note, we had another meeting with the HSE team looking after Pádraig today (we have them every three months or so) and it genuinely was a really pleasant, encouraging and positive meeting. We talked about all the good stuff going on, about Pádraig’s rehab in Germany and how he enjoyed it being challenged, how he loved walking across the room and up the stairs, about some plans for the future – and left out all the difficult questions we all know we can’t do anything about. The German in me was getting a bit unsettled (Germans love to discuss the impossible) but in the end the Irish in me prevailed and we all went home happy campers.

In a way, it was all very ’68. Just without the smoke and drinks and flowers.

Please spread the word about the #GreatAmericanCycle in support of An Saol! Our aim is to collect 1.5m euro! No less. Check out the leaflet here.

I have some printed leaflets and posters – please let me know if you would like to collect some or if you would like me to post you some. They are really nice and would definitely encourage people to connect with the fundraising cycle!

This morning, the Neurology Model of Care Plan was launched – four hours of presentations and they were not finished when I left. Unless I missed it, there was no schedule, no budget and no one responsible for its implementation. The director general of the HSE promised they would start with its implementation in the next period, whatever and whenever that is. Hundreds of pages of glossy paper and, obviously, a huge amount of work. Infinitely removed from our every-day reality. When will they ever learn?

I wanted to shout “stop” when they mentioned that access to a neurologist or an MRI scan was 18 months. No-one else in the audience seemed to feel any outrage. That’s the way it is. Bad.

Later, I brought Pádraig’s car into the garage and had three meetings about Dublin becoming more welcoming for people with disabilities with the help of technology, physiotherapy services for An Saol, and a Board Meeting.

Meeting – Billy Kelleher, Fianna Fail spokesperson for Health, tomorrow morning in Leinster House, the Irish Parliament. It’ll be my first visit there. Hoping that the main opposition party will support the An Saol project. Fingers crossed.

Meetings. Left. Right. And Centre.

Tired. Hoping it’ll all be worthwhile.