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Jim Mayers and Tom Burke, colleagues in the medical profession from Anchorage, Ak., rolled through Dayton last week on their trek retracing the Lewis and Clark Trail. Rain showers prompted a refreshing pause for the two who years ago pledged to do something adventurous every year, and they consented to an interview for the newspaper.
DAYTON–Jim Mayers and Tom Burke dipped the wheels of they road bikes in the Pacific Ocean at Astoria August 16, and then began a six-week cycling odyssey along the Lewis and Clark Trail. The two medical professionals from Anchorage, Alaska, stopped in Dayton to wait out a rain shower last week.
Mayers, 70, is a semi-retired registered nurse in his forty-fourth year of his career, and Burke, a doctor, retired from a 40-year career about a month ago. Burke said adjusting to his new retirement routine was interesting, and that this ride will give his wife a six-week break from having him around the house full time.
"We try to annually make a bike pilgrimage in Oregon or Washington," Burke said, and this year, he on the cusp of free time in retirement, and Mayers with time off, decided to follow the Expedition of Discovery's route eastward for as far as they could go in six weeks. Together they climbed part way up Denali in Alaska, and Mayers has guided rafting on the Deschutes, Snake and Rogue rivers.
This is the first segment of what the two hope will be a cross-continental sojourn from Astoria to Maine, and they're planning on taking it in sections over the next few years.
Along the Lewis and Clark Trail, they'll eventually reach Missoula, Mont., then pedal toward Yellowstone, Mount Rushmore, the Black Hills of South Dakota, Minneapolis, Minn., Oshkosh, Wisc., across Michigan, eventually to Niagara Falls and Maine.
"If you want to restore your faith in humanity," Mayers commented, "a ride like this will do it."
Mayers, who lived in Walla Walla from 1960-67 while his father was employed at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, was pleasantly surprised about meeting a couple at the Staples in Walla Walla. The two cyclists were invited to the couple's home and stayed two nights, recharging their endurance batteries. "Two total strangers invited us into their home," Mayers said.
On bikes, their average daily mile count is 50 with a break day every so often.
Are they "riding for the cure," or promoting some cause? "Nope," says Burke. "We're just two guys who like to do adventuresome stuff together.
