Man finds hope traveling across country on bike

One man is traveling across the country raising awareness for those who live on disability. This week he stopped in Yuma for a quick break before heading to the west coast to finish his journey. 55-year-old William Galloway isn’t letting life’s obstacles get him down as he leaves it all on the road traveling from New Jersey to Southern California. Traveling on average 50 miles a day, Galloway sold everything he owned and set out in October on the journey of a lifetime. “I got tired of the negatives, not knowing what to do so I decided to take off on a bicycle,” Galloway told News 11 outside of the Knights Inn and Suites where he was staying. His trip, which initially started in aggravation quickly changed to a journey of faith and hope. “That faith and hope, those are the two things that you’ve got to ride on,” he said. After a devastating bike accident many years ago, Galloway was left without a chunk of his skull and was put on disability. Four months ago he decided to face his fears by getting back on the bike for the journey of a lifetime. A long the way he’s been serving to advocate for the many struggles those face on disability. “I’ve asked for help in the system and they see that your life is good and that you can function in the basic things in life but when you want to go back to what you had before or to be better, it’s been thrown on me that intimidation of you’re going to lose your benefits … so I ended up getting frustrated and not knowing what to do because nobody would advocate for me,” he said. Galloway lives far from a comfortable life as he still regularly deals with severe headaches and dizziness. These symptoms, which caused him to end up in the ER a few times during his bike journey. He’s also experienced many other dangers while traveling across the country. He was driven off the road and ended up spending five days in a hospital. Galloway said there have been many scary moments. You may be wondering where Galloway is headed. He is on his way to Amen Clinic in Southern California to get on their waiting list for help with his brain injury. He said this Amen Clinic had the shortest wait list. News 11 asked him what people have thought of him as he rides from state to state on a bike that lights up like a Christmas tree. “When they find out about my story people are skeptical, but they’re not understanding of what I’m doing,” he said. “They can’t believe that I would just get on a bike and start riding,” he added. “But when you have nothing else going for you and nobody else helping you, you don’t know what else to do,” he said. As Galloway reaches the end of has travels he reminisces on all of the amazing people he has met traveling from state to state. “I met a lot of passionate people and people unexpectedly that approached me and wanted to understand where I was going and what could they do for me,” he said. People would ask him, “You must believe in God?” and “God must be looking out for you.” “You just meet people with so much love it overwhelms you … and you start to forget about the aggravation for what you first got out here for,” he said. It was while on his journey Galloway experienced the true heartbeat of America as he encountered kindness from strangers all over. “It’s those moments even across Pennsylvania where you sleep at the entrance of a farmer’s field … when you wake up there’s a vehicle sitting there saying, ‘Well do you need breakfast? Down there at the house come on down,'” he explained. “There’s things like that, or a moment where an officer stops to check on you and see if you’re okay,” he added. “I’ll never forget going across country on a bicycle and the kindness,” Galloway said. A man showed up to Galloway’s hotel door as he stayed in Yuma giving him 20 dollars after he saw his bike with a sign which reads, “Criss crossing the country with a brain injury, if you want to help keep these wheels turning: bicyclebill04@yahoo.com.” Then Galloway took off on his bike, leaving not much behind but taking with him a whole new outlook on life thanks to the people who helped keep those wheels turning along his journey.