The Cure Autism Now Foundation is hosting a motorcycle rally/ride on September 17 & 18 in four cities across the country, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle and San Francisco. For those of you unfamiliar with autism, it is a developmental disability that affects, often severely, a person's ability to communicate and socially interact with others. It is four times more prevalent in males than females. Currently, autism is believed to affect 1 in every 166 people. The rate of people being diagnosed with autism has increased substantially over the past two decades. Almost 1 in every 4 kids born today will develop autism. It's an epidemic that recently started generating more press.

My future nephew Marcus is autistic. He is the sweetest and by far, coolest little kid I've ever met, but my heart goes out to his parents who have a daily struggle trying to raise and care for a child who needs almost round the clock attention and therapy. Many people believe that autism is caused by the mercury used to preserve immunization shots, but the medical evidence so far is inconclusive.

So, I want to do my part to help raise money and find a cure for autism. I hope to have kids myself one day and due to the alarmingly high rate of children developing autism these days, it scares me to death!

So here's the link to Cure Autism Now's website which contains all of the ride information. I hope you guys can make it out for a nice day of riding and a good cause.

http://www.kintera.org/site/c.luLXJa....CB93/Home.htm