When filmmaker Justin Jarrett rode his bicycle into Milton, Pa. on Saturday, he was shocked at the celebration he found there.

"We turned the corner and there was a band there, and there was a ton of people and everyone had balloons," said Jarrett, Class of 2009.

The Saturday bike ride from State College to Milton Area High School was the final ride for the crew of For Aaron, a documentary Jarrett set out to make in honor of his best friend Aaron Klinger, who was killed in a car crash last January.

Jarrett and Klinger had planned on taking a cross-country bike trip upon graduating from college, but after Klinger's death, Jarrett decided to honor his friend by getting a group together to make the journey and film it as they went along.

After two months and about 2,800 miles of biking, the crew completed the journey with a 65-mile trip down Route 192 to the high school that Klinger attended.

Jarrett said they were accompanied by 40 other riders and were greeted by 140 people at the school. The best part about the final ride was seeing Klinger's father.

"It was one of the best days of the entire trip and worth every single second of it," he said. "The look on his face when we finished -- it meant a lot to him."

Kylar Krebs, Jarrett and Klinger's friend who accompanied Jarrett as a cyclist on the trip, was relieved. He said it was the longest he had ever been away from home.

Jarrett said that when he first told Klinger's family about the documentary, they were skeptical but supportive.

"They thought I was nuts, but even though I'm not a cyclist, they loved it," he said.

The journey began in Santa Monica, Calif., and continued through Arizona, New Mexico, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana and Ohio. While Jarrett and Krebs did the biking, they brought with them a film crew to drive along side to shoot the footage.

Jon McKeown, Class of 2009, sat on a spare tire on the back of a truck with a camera for half of the filming, braving potholes and raging wind.

"I've never done fly-on-the-wall filmmaking before," McKeown said. "I pretty much had to be on my toes 24/7 and ready for anything to happen."

All proceeds for the film will be donated to the Aaron Klinger Memorial Scholarship Fund. Jarrett is now beginning the process of editing the film, which he said will take a little less than a year. He hopes to be able to travel the film festival circuit to find distribution.

"We want to get the message of the film out there," he said, "and at the same time, carry on [Klinger's] legacy for anyone who knew him or anyone who ever lost anyone."