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(upbeat music) - [Craig] Mark Junge's dream of cycling across the United States appeared to end in 2002 when he was diagnosed with COPD and placed on supplemental oxygen 24 hours a day.

Well, the dream survives.

Mark Junge, his wife, Ardath and their cross country cycling adventures, next on Wyoming Chronicle.

(upbeat music) - [Voice Over Two] Funding for this program is made possible in part by the Wyoming Humanities Council, helping Wyoming take a closer look at life through the humanities.

ThinkWy.org.

And by the members of the WyomingPBS Foundation.

Thank you for your support.

- I'm Craig Blumenshine from Wyoming PBS and it's my pleasure to be joined by Mark and Ardath Junge.

Welcome to Wyoming Chronicle.

Thank you both for joining me this evening.

- How are you?

- Thanks, Craig.

- You know, first of all, you guys just celebrated 55 years of marriage.

Am I reading that correctly in my notes here?

- That's right, that's right.

- Where did you two meet?

How did you find each other?

- Well, we met in Denver.

I was working as a medical secretary in a hospital in Denver and Mark was doing his student teaching and he visited the apartment house where I lived and he was there visiting another college student from Western State and we met on the landing of an apartment house.

We took a shine to each other right away, and from then on, it was just the two of us.

- Ardath was a medical secretary and she had a white uniform on with white shoes and she's got these sparkling blue eyes.

I was ready, I think I was ready, because I looked at her and I know I thought, I wonder what it would be like to be married to her.

- Well, you found out and here we are 55 years later and you two have lived a life of adventure.

Mark, the reason why I really wanted to visit with you and Ardath both, quite frankly is when I first moved to Cheyenne four years ago, one of the first things that I did is I subscribed to the Wyoming Tribune Eagle and then started reading about these two people who rode their bikes all over the country, even though, Mark, you're on oxygen all the time.

I just found that to be inspirational, quite frankly, to me and that's what I wanted to kind of have you share with our viewers.

So, take us back really a long time ago.

Mark, let's start with your part of the story.

Have you been a cyclist for a long time?

Is this something that you've really enjoyed doing?

- Well, I guess like most kids that were raised in the 50s and 60s, I wanted a bike.

Other kids had bikes, I wanted a bike because bikes gave me freedom, right?

So, I did have a bike, I've always liked bikes, but it wasn't until, oh, I guess I'd been talking about going across country for a long time.

Ardath says, she told me this morning, she says, you know, you've talked about this for a long time.

But the problem was is I developed COPD because of blood clots in my lungs and I guess in the process of rehabilitation, I thought maybe I could really fulfill my dreams and maybe I could actually go across country, but I'd have to do it on oxygen.

She says, well, Mark, how are you going to do that?

We don't have a lot of money.

- Let me interrupt you there for just a minute, Mark, because when you had that diagnosis, I mean, I can't imagine how I would've felt, but I've got to believe that it would've been hard.

It would've been maybe depressing to me for a while.

How did you pick yourself up to want to do something so challenging?

- I think it came from partly genetics, you know?

First of all, I don't think anybody does anything on his own.

I think it's other people.

If it wasn't for other people, I wouldn't be alive here talking with you.

I've had three open heart surgeries, had both hips replaced, I have COPD and believe me, it's other people that keep you alive.

But when I got COPD, I pretty much thought life was over for me, Craig.

I thought, you know, well, I might as well get used to this, because I'll be sitting in my recliner with the remote watching TV and breathing oxygen.

But there was something in my genetic background.

My father always wanted to see what was over the next hill and I loved travel and adventure.

We used to have a set of National Geographics when I was a kid and I read a lot of those.

So, I always had a sense of adventure and I thought, well, I guess if I'm never going to do this, I better do it now because I'm not going to last that long.

- Ardath, how did you feel when your husband got that diagnosis then?

(indistinct).

Sure.

- I remember that Mark and I had often talked about doing foreign travel at a certain point in our lives.

When your spouse has a diagnosis like this, it's a depressing thing not only for him, but it also was depressing for me because I saw our whole life changing at that time.

You have a depression for what you've lost that you will no longer do things like you had planned.

But you know, I guess we are just the kind who just are going to persevere no matter what, and when he started talking about biking across country, I said, we can do it, but we'll just do it in smaller segments.

We're a team, and I'll be there, I'll be the side wagon and we'll just do it, you know?

And then when he got ahold of a company, things changed for us in that respect too.

- And this was, my notes tell me that you were diagnosed, Mark, in 2002?

This was over 20 years ago, or almost 20 years ago I should say.

- Right.

There's not many people I don't think on oxygen for 20 years but I consider myself, first of all, lucky and secondly, medical science and third life style.

If you're really active, I think you can do anything you want to do.

- I want to tell our viewers, when I was trying to chase Mark down, I would call and every time it seemed like I tried to get in touch with him, it was like, well, wait, he's at the YMCA working out.

So, you'll have to call it a different time.

So, I can attest how active you are, Mark.

So, okay, so, you can't travel around the country using what most people understand, I think many people with COPD have is compressed oxygen.

There has to be a different way that you are able to get around.

Mark, can you tell us about that and tell us what is in that little box there?

- This is about a three and a half to five pound canister of liquid oxygen.

These have not gone out of style, I shouldn't say that, but there federal government refused after some scandals in the oxygen industry to reimburse the durable medical supply dealers, oxygen dealers for liquid oxygen because they thought they were getting ripped off and I think they were getting ripped off.

So, they no longer reimburse oxygen dealers for liquid oxygen.

As a result, people aren't as portable.

This is the key.

Portability is the key to getting around on a bike, walking or whatever, and I still see people pushing those C tanks on wheels and it drives me nuts.

I mean, because I'm thinking, don't you know you can be portable?

Well, you can no longer be portable on this stuff because they're scarce as hen's teeth to find these things.

But you can be portable with a battery powered oxygen concentrator and I encourage people to do that.

- Go ahead, Ardath, were you about to say something or?

- Well, I was going to say, way back when he first had to go on oxygen, he had a very astute, smart doctor, and she recognized that he was active healthy person and she put him on liquid portable oxygen from the very, very beginning.

That made all the difference in all of the things that Mark's been able to do.

- I can attest that, because I've witnessed... Mark has shown me the set up at home, and it takes a little more.

You have to store liquid oxygen, as I understand it, at a very cold temperature and it is more expensive, but it seems to me that it would be advantageous to folks to not be tethered either to compressed oxygen or those big machines that have the long tubes that they can just walk around their home in and that's it with oxygen.

So, I'm just curious, Mark, do you then advocate to try to help people get back into this world of more portability with their oxygen?

- Oh yeah, exactly.

I'll stop people at Walmart or at the Y or wherever I might see people who are using oxygen and saying why are you using that?

Don't you know that you can be more portable?

- Take us back, Mark, to when you stepped your foot in the Pacific Ocean.

You were starting this journey and you grabbed some water and you had a long ride in front of you, both of you did.

But what were you thinking?

What was going through your mind?

- Well, we knew it was 3500 miles to go from San Francisco to New York.

I think our biggest obstacle was the Sierra Nevadas.

Getting over that was significant.

But down on Baker Beach in San Francisco harbor was where we first gathered up a little jar of water, I mean, filled our jar of water because the tradition is you take your front tire and you put it in one ocean and you take the other tire and put it in the other ocean when you get there and then you pour the water out, the Pacific water into the Atlantic water, or vice versa.

So, that was what we were doing down on Baker Beach, but the problem was was that I stood there and Ardath took pictures for so long that I washed all the lubrication off my chain and the bike (indistinct).

So, we had to get it re-lubed.

The salt water just took it all away.

- And here you go, you have to get over the range.

You go through Truckee and you have a story about that.

- Oh yeah.

You know, we were standing in line at the post office trying to mail a letter and there was a kid in this, there was two lines and there was a kid in the other line and he just kept looking at me and just kept looking at me.

And I guess I was self conscious enough to go, well, okay, and I turned to him and I guess I was probably tired, I said, look, I'm on oxygen, okay?

This is oxygen, I have to breath oxygen.

And he kept on looking at me and he went, but everybody needs oxygen.

(laughing) How profound is that?

Everybody needs oxygen.

- Ardath, you are the queen of maps.

Am I getting that right?

- I really enjoy maps.

- Now, I have to interject something here.

I have a friend who is a great cyclist and he's warned me.

He knew that I was going to visit with you and his advice was, ask her that maps are not always correct and they are not 100% accurate.

Have you ran into that, number one?

- Well, our big challenge on our first trip across country was that we wanted to follow the old Lincoln Highway.

- Nice.

- So, you don't just follow the side roads or so forth, you actually take the old Lincoln Highway and coordinate it with the new roads that they're using right now.

It quite often followed the Interstate 80 route, kind of in that direction, but as a map person, I took and took the modern day map and I would highlight the old Lincoln Highway and then I'd go to the copy machine and I would make two copies so that I would have a copy in the vehicle and Mark would have a copy in his bike and that's how we coordinated the route that we were on, and we would set a designated place for meeting up again somewhere down the road.

- And this was before...

I mean, we weren't carrying cellphones with us on this trip, were we?

- Not the first year.

Well, we had cellphones, but the connection was... - [Craig] The coverage wasn't the best.

- [Ardath] We sometimes lost track of each other and I would get all worried.

Is he ahead of me or is he behind me?

- Well, in other words, he got lost, you knew where you were.

Is that how that went?

- Hey listen, I got lost and so the trip wasn't really 3500 miles, it was probably (indistinct).

But I have to tell you, the only place I really, really got lost was right here in Laramie County.

- How does that work?

- I was trying to find the US 30 route to Pine Bluffs and you have to go underneath the interstate, and the first turn off to your left after you go under the interstate going south is the road I should've taken and I thought, well, that's just an on-ramp, so I'll keep going, and I wound up close to Hereford, Colorado before I finally (laughing).

- That's really funny.

What do you think about when you ride, Mark?

What's going through your mind?

Because I've often passed cyclists when I am driving throughout Wyoming, or throughout anywhere and I'm listening to a podcast or maybe an audiobook or something and I've always wondered, what are those guys thinking about?

- Sure.

Well, my son rides a bike too.

He teaches art in San Francisco and he rides to the top of Twin Peaks which is the high point in San Francisco, about every day, and he listens to whatever podcast he wants to listen to, but he listens to music, and he doesn't understand how I can ride without listening to something.

But I'm such a visual person and he is too, but I'm such a visual person that I want to just soak in everything that's around me and that's one of the great things about biking is you're able to soak in those little micro-environments that you're going through, and to feel the rubber on the road, to smell what's out there in the air, I've always enjoyed doing that.

So, it takes up more of my attention seeing what I'm seeing.

- You see other people when you're out, you see other people biking when you're out, and I'm sure you share stories and I'm sure you share advice.

What's the best advice you've gotten from another cyclist along the way, Mark?

Anything come to your mind?

- Oh, nothing exactly comes to mind.

I'm inspired by people who do things that are greater than I've done.

I'm inspired by those folks.

They're usually a lot younger people.

But as far as advice goes, mostly, they just say keep on trucking, keep on biking, keep on peddling, it's worth doing and life's a journey, there is no path, life is the journey.

I have a friend whose favorite saying is that.

I think it's so true.

So, I don't know if there was any specific advice.

It's a good thing we had bike mechanics along the way.

- Speaking of which, how fast can you change a flat tire?

- Don't ask me.

I only changed one of them.

- No way.

- Yep, yep.

We were on top of Donner Pass.

Ardath had already passed me and was down at Truckee waiting for me, and at the top of Donner Pass, I had a flat.

So, all I did was ring her up on my cellphone and say, can you come back and pick me up?

At that time, I had an extra bike in the van and we were driving a Volkswagen van.

I had an extra bike and she came all the way back from Truckee up on top of the mountain, we put the flat tire bike in the van, got out the other bike and I coasted on down to Truckee.

- Wow, wow.

- That was a really big celebration for us, because that was the first mountain range that Mark biked over, and when he made it across Donner Pass, I think he realized at that time we could make it across any mountain range in the United States.

- I want to just tell our viewers some of the places you've been and then maybe you can give us some of the highlights here.

You've talked about your New York to Newfoundland, San Francisco to Vancouver, New York City to Charleston, Charleston to Key West, Homer, Alaska to Anchorage, Vancouver to Prince George, British Columbia, Anchorage to White Horse, White Horse to the Yukon Territory.

Is it the Natchez Trail?

Am I pronouncing that correctly?

That's near Nashville, Tennessee, is that right?

- Right.

Nashville, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi.

- The K-A-T-Y, the Kansas City to Saint Louis, the Kansas and Texas railroad trail which is one of the longer trails or maybe the longest rails to trails.

The Mickelson Trail, beautiful trail here in the Black Hills.

The Eerie Canal Trail in 2019 and then the first leg of the Green River route and you want to continue doing that route, follows the Mississippi headwater until you reach New Orleans here.

Holy cow, you guys.

Mark, I do want to interject here, because I think it's awesome.

You're now using an e-bike.

So do I.

And tell our viewers what that is and how that's helped you just a little bit, if you would.

- [Mark] Well, first of all, when you go through that litany of trips that we've taken, you can do a lot of things if you live long enough, right?

- Still, I think it's impressive.

There's so much planning.

You live in Cheyenne, Mark and I know what the weather's like here in the winter time, and I don't know how you prepare for these trips, but you do and that's awesome.

- Well, it sure isn't riding on Cheyenne's snowy streets, I'll tell you that.

- Well yeah, I know.

It takes some grit to do that and I appreciate that.

So, what are some of the highlight trips in the e-bike discussion here and then we'll have to wrap it up, unfortunately, because I think we could talk all day.

- Oh, we could, easily.

Well, I guess at some point, I had expressed to Ardath enough times that I was getting tired that I was fatigued.

She finally said, well, why don't you just get an electric bike?

And I thought, no, no, no, no, I want to use my own legs, that's cheating.

Well, finally, she convinced me to go to a bike company that's called The High Bike and it's headquarters were in Simi Valley, California, which is in the LA area.

I talked to the bike president and said, look, if you give us a bike, I'll advertise your bike for you.

He said, well, which one do you want?

I said, I want your best bike.

He said, no you don't.

You don't want my best bike.

So, he took me out in the parking lot and he gave me the bike that I currently have and I turned on the electricity, turned on the battery and I rode around the parking lot and I was a born again bicyclist, because it felt like somebody had their hand and (indistinct) my back was pushing me forward and I went, wow, this is great.

So, I think bicycling was reborn inside of me when I got my electric bike.

And now, kids are riding electric bikes, they're using them as mountain bikes.

I think the next step for me is a three wheel tricycle powered by battery.

- Ardath, do you ride a little bit, Ardath?

Are you in the shade waiting the whole time?

- No, I don't ride as much as he does.

What we do quite often is, I will ride a short distance with him when we have a trail and then what I do is I turn around and get the vehicle and catch up to him again.

Mark wants to go every single mile from dot to dot.

He doesn't want to miss an inch.

It doesn't bother me.

I just want to do a little bit.

But I don't ride nearly as much as he does, but when I'm not riding, I have extra time and so I sometimes get a chance to visit museums and thrift stores all over the place.

I get a chance to see historic sites that sometimes he isn't able to see when he's on the route.

But it's just part of the adventure.

- Your favorite, if you have to reduce all of your adventures down to a favorite route that you've been able to do, not necessarily maybe your most important accomplishment, but your most favorite route.

Where's it been?

- You know, Craig, I knew you'd ask that question.

Why did I know you'd ask that question?

Because you're a bicyclist probably, but I think, I got to thinking about this the other day and I thought, you know, the country, the North American continent is great and we've been up and down both coast lines from Alaska to Mexico and from Newfoundland to Key West, and we've been across the country and we've biked in other states, and I have to tell you, every place we've been has had it's unique aspects.

There's all these micro-environments.

I don't think it'd be fair to tell you which states I like.

- No, no, no, no, wait.

This is like a politician answering one of my questions.

(indistinct) off the hook here.

I'm going to press you just a little bit.

- Okay.

No, no, that's fair enough.

I think the Eerie Canal Trail from Buffalo, New York to Albany was the most scenic for me.

Just to follow that historic canal that was dug by hand and with horses, and to see the beautiful upstate New York, the rural New York and to visit with rural and local people, just to follow that path for 363 miles, it was a great experience.

- My favorite is the Cady Trail in Missouri.

I loved it because you don't have to compete with any kind of traffic at any point.

The scenery is so varied.

You end up right next to the Missouri River and it is just a pleasure to ride.

- Before I let you go, your favorite meal every night, Mark, when you're riding is what?

- Oh, well, you know, before we go on these trips, Ardath makes 24 burritos.

We have burritos for breakfast.

(laughing) But for evening meal, it varies.

It seems to always be preceded by a bottle of beer.

That always is sort of the reward, is to have a drink of beer and then after that, it could be whatever Ardath's fixed.

She fixes our meals because frankly, we don't go to a lot of restaurants, we don't have time or too tired.

We've been in a lot of motels on that first trip, a lot of motels, but we didn't have time to get in the spa, we didn't have time to go to the swimming pool, we just flopped.

- [Ardath] What made a difference is when we got the camper.

- Oh yeah.

- The pick up camper.

- More self sufficient and you can kind of plan and be ready to go.

- Yeah.

For the last decade, that's what we've been using, camper pickup.

- Well, congratulations to you both.

Here's to many more.

What's on tap for this summer.

- The second leg of the Mississippi trip.

We started last year at the upper Mississippi at it's head waters, Lake Itasca, where it starts.

We made it down, not quite to Saint Paul, Minneapolis.

So, now, the second leg we'll do this summer and get as far as Iowa, let's say, or a little bit into Iowa.

Maybe cross the river and see what the trail is like in Illinois and Wisconsin.

- Well, best of luck.

I hope that trip goes as well as all of your other adventures have.

I think that you both are quite an inspiration and I can't thank you enough for joining us on Wyoming Chronicle.

- Thanks, Craig.

It's been fun.

(upbeat music) - [Craig] Funding for this program is made possible in part by the Wyoming Humanities Council, helping Wyoming take a closer look at life through the humanities.

ThinkWy.org.

And by the members of the Wyoming PBS Foundation.

Thank you for your support.