MP 22 and back to Williston, North Dakota
Trip Start
Jan 01, 2007
1
37
97
Trip End
Sep 15, 2008
Williston,
North Dakota,
United States
Thursday, June 5, 2008
TOTAL MILES NOW 10,906.
Don and Cheryll Bykonen threw a barbecue for the Stevensons. About 20 people attended, many with stories of HD in their family. Don and Cheryll Bykonen wish to thank the following people for assisting with the barbecue:
Jane and Bob Aamodt
Barb Everson
Holly, Jim and Blaine Radtke
How did Don and Loretta Stevenson come to be invited to a barbecue in Williston, North Dakota?
I'm glad you asked that question.
Don Bykonen was born and raised in Stanley, North Dakota, 75 miles due east of Williston on US Highway 2. He moved west to work for Boeing in Seattle for awhile, but he and wife, Cheryll, moved back to North Dakota- to the "big city" of Williston this time- to raise their children. Don worked as a truck driver in the oil fields and in road construction.
Opportunity knocked in Washington in 1994, and Don went west again, this time to drive for Boise Cascade. The Bykonens lived in Auburn till they retired in 2006 and hit the road in their RV.
Somewhere along the line Don ran into a crazy man named Don Stevenson at Auburn's Game Farm Park and learned that Don Stevenson has a passion for blessing the afflicted through his walking ministry. One day the subject of Don's ministry turned to Huntington's disease. Don Bykonen found that Don Stevenson turned in that direction at the behest of Jack Meteyer, another one who met this "crazy man" at Game Farm Park.
Don Bykonen and Jack Meteyer discovered that they had many things in common in their lives, and one of those things was a family history of Huntington's disease. Like Jack, Don Bykonen had lost his mother and several siblings to the disease. Also like Jack, Don Bykonen has been spared; Neither has inherited HD.
Don and Cheryll Bykonen are now wandering retired nomads. They maintain a permanent address near Lake Sawyer in Black Diamond, Washington, but they travel wherever the wind takes them. The wind often takes them back to North Dakota, and it is there tomorrow, June 4, 2008, that they receive Don and Loretta Stevenson, along with some family and friends who will throw the Stevensons a big old-fashioned Upper-Midwesten barbecue tomorrow in Williston.
Thank you Don and Cheryll. We wish we all could join you with Don and Loretta tomorrow. Take some good pictures and we'll see you in the blog.
