Orange Beach, Ala. – (OBA) – Peter Frank sits at a table with a self-crafted deer-skin triangle hat and greets his utterly friendly rescued kitten. The hat is part of his pirate garb he wears on his journeys.

“Everybody wears a costume,” he says. “This is mine.”

Chilling at a picnic table behind the popular Sloop bar and grill in Gulf Shores he talks about a journey that began at age 11. At 21, he's lived more than most have lived in a lifetime.

And he passed through Orange Beach on that journey the first week in late November and early December on a bicycle ride he hopes to finish 800 miles away in Key West.

“I’m going to try to see how far I can go,” Peter said. “I’m going to go until I get tired.”

A unicycle and a canoe are also a part of his incredible journey which has become somewhat of a coming-of-age experience. Literally.

“I had my birthday on the road and turned 20,” Peter said. “I was 20 years old when I started the canoe trip and had my birthday on the river.”

First there was a 2,400-mile unicycle ride to Arizona and most recently he traveled the length of the Mississippi River in a canoe. He's raising money and spreading the word about Beacon House in his home state of Michigan. Beacon House offers a place families can stay for free when loved ones are facing a long hospital stay.

“They gave a place for my family to stay so that I could see them every day at the tender age of 14,” Peter said. “Having gone through such a traumatic experience I owe a lot to them for giving me that blessing.”

At age 11, Peter was introduced to the unicycle by his older brother and fell in love. He rode it just about everywhere until a catastrophic accident at age 14 left doctors unsure if he’d ever walk again much less hop on the one wheel.

“When I was 14 years old, I was run over by a car and shattered my L1 and L2 vertebrae,” Peter said. “I had to get back surgery, had to relearn how to walk. I spent a month in the hospital.”

By age 19, rehabbed and riding the unicycle, he decided to take the 2,400-mile ride from Appleton, Wis., to Phoenix and along the way raised $30,000 for Beacon House. His river trip to the Gulf made the group another $3,000. Once he made it to Venice, Louisiana, he sold the canoe, bought a bike and began the next leg of his journey.

“I’ve been fundraising and raising awareness for the organization for about two years now,” Peter said. “It’s been a very long and lengthy process. I think what drives me to continue doing it is that I now understand that there is an underlying benefit for me in this. I think that benefit is a very lengthy process of character development. When I left on the journey the first time on the unicycle trip I did it and choose it because I like unicycles.”

Peter met Randi Findley of Orange Beach at Sassy Bass Chop House in Fort Morgan on Nov. 29 after he took the ferry over on his bike from Dauphin Island. He became fast friends with Randi and husband Richard and spent a few days with them seeing the sites before departing on Dec. 3.

He hopes to continue spreading the word about Beacon House, making new friends along the way and learning important lessons about himself and the world.

“I didn’t really learn how to have gratitude or appreciation for the new chance at life that I had been given at the time for many years,” Peter said. “It wasn’t until I was 19 years old that I had decided to do more with my life. I liked unicycling and I remembered as those words haunted me my entire life that I wouldn’t be able to follow my dreams.”

On the Mississippi, he picked up pins for his hat from mayors in towns along the way and most recently got one from Orange Beach Mayor Tony Kennon. He also picked up a travel companion, a beautiful kitten he named River with Siamese coloring, a bob tail and a sweet disposition.

“He’s a rescue,” Peter said. “I think he’s about four months but he’s getting bigger every day.”

And River rides along contentedly in a bag attached to Peter as they continue learning about life and themselves on a bike ride through Florida.