PENDLETON - Glenn Fenster rolled into the Round-Up City on his bicycle Friday after a 6-hour ride from Kennewick.

Sure, he was still feeling pain in his knees a few hours later, but the agony was missing from his facial expression.

The well-tanned resident of suburban Fort Lauderdale sat in a local restaurant with nothing but that Florida glow on his face. He showed his excitement over his journey, already a few days into something many view as impossible to complete.

To Fenster, his bike ride from Seattle to Miami would be impossible without hearing from someone very special in his life.

"I call home while I'm riding just to hear my son say that he loves me, and I get incredible strength to keep going on," the 45-year-old tennis instructor and poet said. "Without that bond, without that love from my son, I couldn't complete this journey."

Fenster is biking from Seattle to Miami for his 12-year-old son, Nyle, who has suffered from acute epilepsy since he was 2. He's doing it not just to raise money for epilepsy research, but to show Nyle what can be done with the heart and mind.

Fenster said his every-day dealings with his son's epilepsy wears on him, but he's putting that feeling to the side.

"You never want to show your child how hard it hits you, because he's going to feel the emotional response to how I feel, which is a kicker-off of seizures as well," he said. "Seizures come from anxiety, emotions, stress, many different ways for a seizure to occur."

Nyle Fenster mentioned his anxiety about his father beginning the huge trip.

"I was scared and my seizures got worse," the youngster said via phone from his Aventura, Fla., home. "I started having nightmares about it, but I know he can make it."

It was Nyle who showed his father a great example of using both following an epileptic seizure.

"About 2 1/2 years ago my son and I were on the tennis court," Glenn Fenster said. "We were playing, and he was chasing down a forehand and he had a seizure and fell. The seizure only lasted for four or five seconds. By the time I got over to him, he had a little blood on his arm and I asked if I could help him up. He said, 'Absolutely not,' he got up on his own, and I said, 'Son, you're the strongest child I've ever met. How do you keep getting up?' And he looked at me and said, 'Daddy, I've never seen you stay down.'

"It was at that point I said to him, 'No matter what disability of the mind or body, anything can be accomplished.' I couldn't just give him the blah, blah, blah anymore; I had to step up to the plate, so to speak, and I just had to show him this is something I can accomplish to show him anything can be accomplished if you put your mind to it."

For 26 months, Fenster - who had never tried such a test of endurance prior - has been training for this very journey, one in which he's not racing against time. He's given up his vehicle and conditioned himself to riding on his bike and pushing as long as he can each day until he reaches his destination.

Fenster flew from Florida to Seattle April 28 and began his ride three days later. He says the journey could take him 45-60 days to complete; today, he will stop in either La Grande or Baker City, making a 50- to 90-mile ride.

"Even if I don't make it home, I can say I started it," Fenster said.

Whereas riders normally accept donations from passers-by for their causes, Fenster has started a charity called "Destiny Maker" (www.destinymaker.com) where those interested in making donations can do so online.

The charity is a three-pronged effort: To hold sports camps for children with epilepsy, to partner such kids with others they feel comfortable with during school in case an epileptic seizure occurs, and to raise funds for the National Epilepsy Foundation for research.

"I want to institute programs that really get to the children," said Fenster.

Nyle Fenster suffers at least one seizure each day but without medicine could experience up to 40 daily, his father said.

"His medicine was raised, and it's getting a little better," Glenn Fenster said. "He's getting older and bigger, and hopefully, as others do, he'll grow out of it."

Fenster details his war against epilepsy through the past 26 months and the encouragement his son gives in his latest poetry book, "Shake, Rattle and Pray."

"That book is titled that way due to the fact when a child has a seizure, they shake and rattle," Fenster said. "And I, as a parent, pray that the seizures will end."

The poet also writes about four major accidents he was in during his training, and how he had the courage to rebound from one violent occurrence a few months ago.

"I was on one of my runs, training for this trip," he said. "Police told me it was a gang initiation. I got back on my bike, I did not wear a helmet at the time - and I do wear one now - I was thrown from my bike, suffered two broken ribs, a mangled finger, and six staples in my head. I laid on the ground bleeding and couldn't move for five minutes."

Sixteen weeks later, Fenster is back biking for his son, not letting even the most extreme of pain stop him.

People can meet Fenster at 7:30 this morning at Denny's. He'll leave from there 30 minutes later for the next leg of his journey.

"I'm very proud of him, especially for everyone who suffers from epilepsy," said Nyle Fenster.