Ortonville- What a long, strange trip it has been for Ken Dockery.
On his bike ride across America, he has participated in an Indian Pow-wow, met an Alaskan gold prospector in a Wal-Mart parking lot, climbed to the top of Mt. Hood and crossed the Continental Divide (both on bicycle) and found treasures along the highway that include elk skulls, a lasso, a brand-new Coleman grill, and bungee cords galore.
On the afternoon of July 28, after having biked more than 2,600 miles from his starting point of Astoria, Oregon, Dockery rolled into Ortonville, where he was born and raised. It was just one more stop on a coast-to-coast journey that began June 21 and is scheduled to end Aug. 9 in Portsmouth, NH.
‘I ride to whereever my destination for the day is and then lay in a lounge chair the rest of the day until the next day,? laughs Dockery, 39. ‘I don’t know that I will do this again? it’s so expensive and so involved’but I’m glad I did it.?
Dockery is riding as part of the ‘Inspire Hope Tour,? an effort he began to raise money for the Cleveland Clinic, where he was treated in 2002 after being diagnosed with bicuspid aortic valve and stenosis, a birth defect. His valves were too small and he was missing a third flap. Without surgery, he would have died within a matter of weeks. Dockery underwent the rare Ross procedure, during which doctors replaced one aortic valve with his own pulmonary valve and replaced another with a human donor valve.
For more information on Dockery’s journey, or how to make a donation, visit www.inspirehopetour.org