The 7 month Kindness Bicycle/Bus Tour to raise awareness about Domestic Violence and Childhood Sexual Abuse continues until December 21st. These are very grown up issues and are not the type of subject matter that young kids read. School will be starting soon and I will begin to once again visit classrooms along my travels. I have decided to write 2 short, daily blogs beginning in September; 1 for school children and 1 for The Kindness Bicycle/Bus Tour. The success of One Million Acts Of Kindness’ website has long been supported, in big part, by classrooms across the country. I recently received a very nice letter from a teacher whose classes have been following Bogart’s travels for the past 2 years. She has agreed to have her letter used as 1 of my blogs along with a picture of her students. I am looking forward to visiting classrooms once again, when the school year begins. Bogart is looking forward to it as well, I just need to convince him to leave his pillow-top bed lifestyle he has been living.

The Kindness Bicycle/Bus Tour is taking a route to the north near I-70 when we leave Kansas City on Wednesday morning. I have decided to then head north out of Colorado Springs through Denver, Boulder and north into Laramie, Wyoming and then push west along the I-80 corridor to San Francisco, California. The reason for this itinerary change is to have the safety of a major interstate near my travels in case of an early Fall snowstorm.
The Kindness Bus, being stuck in a snowstorm while traveling through the Rockies, was not something I gave too much consideration when I planned the itinerary for The Kindness Bicycle/Bus Tour. In thinking back to last winter’s travels in the snow, the back of The Kindness Bus likes to try to pass the front on icy roads and this is something that just won’t work on a country road through the Rockies.

The Kindness Bus/Bicycle Tour will be in Los Angeles for more than a month beginning in late November and then again in early 2012. There is a great deal of interest in One Million Acts Of Kindness and The 8,400 mile Kindness Bicycle Tour in southern California. I came here for a couple of meetings for the next few days and will return to The Kindness Bus in Kansas City this weekend. Being that Los Angeles is such a sprawling city, I am also going to spend my spare time trying to seek out the best places for high visibility.
It didn’t take long for the kind acts to start from people in Los Angeles wanting to help, by offering to volunteer time or lending support to One Million Acts Of Kindness and The Kindness Bicycle Tour. One such example was for the owner of Patina, one of the nicest restaurants in Los Angeles, located in the LA Philharmonic building, to show his kindness by providing bottled water for a long drive to the desert.

The Kindness Bus has seen so many weather events during the thirty months it has been part of the One Million Acts Of Kindness mission. It has seen blinding rain storms, icy roadways, it has been surrounded by a 3 foot snow drift, and now, a record setting heat wave which seems to have no end. So many people ask me how I am able to live on The Kindness Bus when it is so hot without the comforts of air conditioning. It really doesn’t seem to bother me. I have a fan which I position a couple of feet away from my bed at night. To me as well, some of the things people have to put up with on a daily basis for years, makes me realize that a little bit of sacrifice for a few weeks in the summer is but a small price to pay if I can raise awareness about Domestic Violence and Childhood Sexual Abuse. The photo today is of the thermometer which I keep on the bus. The photo was taken in the late afternoon. The other photo hangs on the ceiling above my bed, it is of a young boy in Darfur. I’m sure it was at least as hot for him, and I’m also sure it was the least of his worries.

It is heating up out here! Not only was it hot outside today, 110 degrees in downtown Kansas City, The Kindness Bicycle Tour is heating up with the local news. FOX4, Kansas City’s biggest television station and The Kansas City Star, its newspaper sent out reporters out to battle the heat and get the story on One Million Acts Of Kindness and The Kindness Bicycle Tour. I couldn’t have been more excited to get so much press in a town of this size.
Having a way of being self-sufficient is one very big hurdle for a woman when she moves out on her own. Having skills for the workplace is a big help in re-establishing life after living in a home with an abuser. I hear from many coalitions that many of their success stories come from women who are able to support themselves because of their education.
Today’s weather certainly wasn’t conducive to riding The Kindness Bicycle. I rode for 3 hours and was done by 10AM as the temperature was nearing 100 degrees by mid-morning.

I found the sculpture, in the picture used today, in front of the Communications Center by the Courthouse in Kansas City. It sums up one of the biggest hurdles advocates have to face when dealing with victims; communication. One of the most difficult actions a Domestic Violence victim MUST choose to do, is speak of the evil that happens. It is the most important part of the process.
Police Captain Mark Folsom, Commander of the Special Victim’s Unit in Kansas City, MO put in place a program rarely used before it became mainstream. Officers use an eleven question approach. If victims answer yes to certain questions, a red flag goes up and advocacy is called to meet with the victim to encourage dialogue. There was a big drop in every category of offenses, in its first year of existence.
It is crazy hot in Kansas City today, the temperature reached a sizzling 104 degrees. I was on my bike by 6:30 AM and pretty much wilted by day’s end. As luck would have it, on one of my trips back to The Kindness Bus a young woman with her husband and daughter were near the bus wanting photos of The Kindness Bicycle. Unbelievably, she used to work at Hope House in Kansas City with NNEDV President, Sue Else several years ago. She is now a school counselor and I could see her eyes brighten when I handed her a Kindness Certificate to remind her to print one for each of her students this and every school year to come.

Since trading the comforts of home for the comforts of traveling the United States in an 84 sq ft bus with Bogart, my Boston terrier, copious amounts of people have asked me if I have ever read “Travels With Charley” by John Steinbeck. I can finally say to those people, I am finally on top of it, literally. Seriously, with a reminder like the one in today’s photo, something is telling me to read this classic sooner than later.
With weather not fit for man nor beast, I ventured out in the 100 degree heat in downtown Kansas City, Missouri for a mid-day bicycle ride. I headed straight for the Power & Light district in the center of downtown and to “scope out” the most beneficial place to park for the next couple of days. Most people weren’t thinking like me. The streets in Kansas City were mostly empty, as the air conditioning and comforts of home proved too appealing to most.