Milwaukee, WI – No time to bike!

July 26, 2010

This morning started with an incredible breakfast buffet, followed by a van ride up to Milwaukee. We’re not riding today because we had a reservation at an Ice Rink in Milwaukee that could only be made early in the day, but we did get quite the workout on the ice. It was pretty difficult to wheel up and down the ice while trying to hold on to the hockey stick. I lost mine a few times, and found out the hard way that it’s legal to knock a stick off of someone’s lap if they’re not holding it tight. This marked only the first experience with adaptive sports here in Milwaukee, as tomorrow we’ve got beep baseball, and wheelchair basketball.

After a while on the ice, we headed to the lobby for a bit of lunch, and then off to our next stop, the Harley Davidson Museum. This stop was just for fun, sponsored by the family of one of the founders of Harley-Davidson. It was a lot more interesting than I thought it was going to be, and I really enjoyed sitting on some of the old style bikes. Most of the seats were pretty wide, with built in shocks, which made me wish I could get one for my bike!

The day continued as we met back up with Independence First, and another group called Variety, who specializes in getting adaptive bikes into the hands of kids and families who might otherwise not get one. It was there that I met a boy who had CP and had a chance to talk with him and his family. I found out that today was the first time that they had found a bike that he could ride on his own. They had been trying for years, and had spent money on bikes for him, but could never try them out before buying, so ended up throwing a lot of money away on bikes he couldn’t ride. As he got up to walk away, his dad made a comment to me that it was only a few months ago that he couldn’t walk at all. He’s been going through some sort of new electric pulse therapy and it was working to give him a little bit of freedom he’d never had before. We had a bit of dinner with the kids and said our goodbyes as we headed off to another bit of fun.

Our last stop was Comedy Sports, an improv comedy club across the street from Independence first. They work together with this club to give people with disabilities a chance to be in the spot light. We had quite a few laughs, and enjoyed the break!

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