Hi I'm Alex a biker who's riding across the country from Los Angeles to Boston in winter. I have some good stories. I embarked on my trip last July, and arrived in Grand Forks North Dakota last September. After a near-fatal car accident, this year February 10th, I continued on my biking trip from Grand Forks again. I passed Mojave desert last July. This year, from February I passed the coldest area, the most snowy area and rural area. From Grand Forks North Dakota - Minneapolis - Green Bay - Escanaba - Mackinaw City - Traverse City. Now I arrived in Grand Rapids Michigan. If you're interested in my story, please contact me, thanks. Some of my interviews. When you are free, maybe you can read them. From the articles, probably you can know me deeply. And the reason why I embark on the trip, my mission, faith and etc. I have two missions: 1 rise the awareness of what happened in Hong Kong and what's happening in Hong Kong to local Americans. 2 try my best to find a way to deal with PTSD and depressions by a very positive attitude for myself and people. Thank you very much.

#dailyjournal March 25th Friday Today's overcast, cloudy, windy. After I had late breakfast with Daniel, then we went back to his house, I spent quite a while to prepare for my next stop. I left all my specialized stuff, clothes, boots and etc for winter riding to Daniel, and also my clothes which need to send back to SLC, Daniel said he's gonna send them back for me. Thank you very much, Daniel. I got a lot of help on my way from local Americans, sometimes people give you something else, sometimes you give people something else, I'm pretty happy with it. After that, I arrived in Grand Rapids only wearing my bike tshirt and bike shorts in 40°f. It's pretty cold no doubt. If I keep riding all the time, it will be fine. Taking quite a few of pictures and short videos made me specifically cold. Today's not very far, so it's fine. I'm not sure how about riding for 50-60miles at 30°f - 40°f. From now on, I'm gonna finish the remains from Grand Rapids to Boston only wearing the bike tshirt and shorts. Of course, if I feel very bad, I'll find some clothes on my way. At times, you must give a try to test your willpower, how tough it is, how durable you are. Never say you can't before you do it. Diane told me that she rode 361miles in 24hour at her 40 years old, it means that you have to keep riding with 15mph, no short break at all in 24hours. That's quite amazing to me. My longest day is just 95miles from Manila Utah to Dinosaur Colorado.

#dailyjournal March 27th Sunday Today's sunshine, but very windy, some parts are hilly. Cold, temperature was 23°f, windcho made it 12°f. I wore a thin jacket, gloves and long pants, but still very cold. Wind made me very dizzy, my eyesight wasn't very clear sometimes. I need to reconsider my original plan seriously. Eventually I still arrived in Rockford Michigan. About 10miles on the White Pine Trail with Joe. Joe's faster than me, when I tried to pursue him, I felt quite shortness of breath, possibly I'm still in recovery, can't do something radically. Something is pretty bad, ran out of mobile data, I couldn't even use Strava, possibly I have to use offline Google maps for a while. This afternoon, I met Rebecca, Tom, Priscilla, Priscilla's Ukraine exchange student Tanya. We had good conversations. At night, I had dinner with the friends of Rebecca and Tom. After dinner, we learned Bible for a while, and shared our stories. Pretty meaningful night. Thank you all.

#dailyjournal Match 26th Saturday Today's snowy, cloudy, windy, 30°f. Wearing bike tshirt and shorts for 4 miles. Fingers are almost frozen. My body's fine. Yesterday I rode for 12 miles from Comstock Park to Grand Rapids, but it was 40°f. Ridgemoor is quite a quiet decent community, I like it. Diane is the first one whom I knew that can ride 361 miles in 24 hours, unbelievable amazing. This afternoon, Karen and Joseph made pasta for early dinner, pretty good. That's my first time to have homemade pasta. At nightfall, we went to see the old house of Karen and Joseph which is pretty closed to the Grand River. The view by twilight was beautiful. Karen's pretty familiar with the real estate, Joseph is a good mechanic, both of them are good at cooking. By the way, all of us would like to watch My lottery dream home. I'm gonna find the dream home for my Japanese girlfriend and me on the way. Thank you very much, Karen, Joseph, Matt and Jersey.

#dailyjournal March 24th Thursday Today's overcast, rainy. I stayed at Daniel's house for one more day. Last night and this morning, I felt dizzy suddenly. I'm gonna skip Greeneville Michigan in next few days. I'm thinking about Rockford, I would like to meet Ukraine exchange student Tanya, but it needs to make a detour to go to Rockford. Tomorrow I'm gonna go to Grand Rapids. Actually, Comstock Park is almost a part of Grand Rapids, just 10miles far from Grand Rapids. I was planning to only wear bike tshirt and short pants to finish the remains of the trip to test how durable I am. Bob suggested me: If you are fatigued and get chilled while riding you could catch pneumonia. Frankly speaking, it's true, recently it changes a lot. I don't have my spleen anymore, it means my immune system is pretty weak. Mostly I need to think about that very cautiously.

#dailyjournal March 23th Today's overcast, quite windy, hilly and muddy. In order to get back on the Musketawa Trail, I made quite a detour to Fruitport. I stucked in muds in some country roads for quite a while. Rode on the Musketawa Trail for 20miles, quite windy, the trail is not as good as Hart-Montague Bike Trail State Park. Finally I rode on White Pine Trail for several miles. When I closed to Comstock Park, besides windy, it's hilly. It made 45miles like 80miles. I bought short gloves, arm sleeves, shoes and etc. Quite spent a lot. Somehow, before dinner, I felt dizzy suddenly, back is painful, and quite exhausted. Daniel and I we went to downtown Grand Rapids, we're chilling in downtown a little bit, and went to Bank of America, REI and Sierra. Daniel told me that Grand Rapids has the main headquarter of Amway, they have 4000 employees over here.

#dailyjournal March 22th Tuesday Today's cloudy, windy, rainy. The weather report shows that next few days will be rainy days. I saw that weather report shows me it's raining, when I got back on the way, just cloudy and windy, but I felt dizzy after several miles, so I made my decision to stay in Grand Haven for a night. After the car accident, I felt I become much stronger, I don't need a short break on the way. But physical conditions still limit my capacity. Arrived in Grand Haven Michigan. It's a lovely small town with a gorgeous park. I went to Grand View Condominiums to see Steve's old home. Pretty good community with pretty lakeview. All the Lakeview properties are pretty expensive especially currently. Had good dinner with Brett and Cooper in Fricano's Pizza Tavern, and walked with them and Brett's dog Tara. By the way the author of <Educated> is Tara Westover. Brett has two buses, that's pretty cool. Hi, Brett, I forgot to sign my name on the ceiling of the bus for you, very sorry for that. My warm shower host Winnie in Muskegon is a teacher. All her students told her that they heard of gun shootings or met gun shootings before. That's quite brutal for the students. And today, Brett's a teacher as well. He told me quite a few of students' parents in prison. It seems like West Valley in Utah. Everyday when you check out the news. Missing people, gun shootings, stealing, robbery and etc. All that kind of news. Tomorrow possibly I'm gonna go to downtown again to take some pictures for you in daytime. Much better than downtown Muskegon. Like another world. There's a good breakfast restaurant in the Washington St, possibly Stanz Cafe. Bodhi Tree Juice Co and Norm's Ice Cream seem like good as well.

#dailyjournal March 21th Monday Today's cloudy, a little bit hilly. From North Muskegon to Quarterline Rd Muskegon is about 19 miles. From Brooks Rd to Quarterline Rd is the society of America in miniature. Downtown Muskegon isn't the worst downtown I've ever seen. Downtown Muskegon is similar to downtown Los Angeles, full of African Americans, in Los Angeles, Chinatown seems like slam as well. Possibly because Muskegon is closed to Grand Rapids, that's why they have African Americans, in most towns in Michigan, I didn't see a lot of African Americans. In North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, I only see African Americans and Asians in big cities. Whereas even in Minneapolis and St Paul, I didn't see a lot of Asian people over there. Quarterline community is kind of typical middle-class community. I'll say that North Muskegon communities are better than Quarterline community. Because there're some very scenic routes in North Muskegon, and also some very luxury upper middle-class communities, the price of the real estate is more than 1 million mostly. To most of people, the key point is not beautiful views, is that if you can find a good job over here or not. Most of Americans go to Lakeview areas to buy a vacation house. Perhaps some are from Chicago, some are from California. Next few days will be rainy days, I'd rather like snowy days than rainy days. All my stuff get wet won't be a good experience to me.