This morning began with a short 4 mile ride to the TREK factory in Waterloo, Wisconsin. The TREK business began there, and has been in Waterloo since 1976.The ride was dedicated to Maren’s nana, Sheryl, today. She lost her husband to liver cancer 5 years ago and has since beat breast cancer.We rode 67.8 miles to Wisconsin Dells. The ride was pretty uneventful until we stopped at Craig’s Popcorn Corner in Portage, WI. We did a portrait with Brandon, the son of the owner. He got diagnosed with leukemia as a ten year old, and is 22 now. He talked about how hard it was to miss school and how his friends didn’t know how to act at that age. He said that the best advice he can give to people that have friends battling cancer is to treat their friends normally. He never wanted special treatment, he just wanted to included and accepted like everyone else. He also said that the advice he would give to anyone diagnosed with cancer is to ask for help. He stressed the importance of realizing that cancer is too big of a thing to cope with alone and that speaking to someone, a parent, therapist, friend, anyone, can save a life. He said it might feel like no one understands, but somewhere someone does understand.We really enjoyed getting to hear his story and his perspective on life, especially because he is our age. It really makes you realize the truth in the saying “Don’t sweat the small stuff.” His coworkers were in awe of what we were doing and told us multiple times how cool it was and thanked us for doing it. I felt like the time spent at that shop was a good little shot in the arm for us. It is good to be reminded of how cool what we are doing is, and even better to meet people along the way that we are doing it for.DR
