“If this old man is found along the road, put in nearest mailbox, postage guaranteed,” says the inscription on Roger Pearson’s silver dog tag.
How often can you say you’ve done everything, and yet, still have plans to do everything?
Roger Pearson is 80 and plans on living until the age of 104. He was shot serving in the Korean War and acquired his very first bicycle in Japan, bartering a trade using a carton of cigarettes once his time served in Korea was over with.
Since then, Roger and his wife Sherron, 72, have seen the world on the pointed seats of their bicycles.
“My whole life has been bicycling,” said Pearson, sitting comfortably in his brown leather chair inside his townhouse at the Park City Racquet Club.
The Pearsons estimate they have ridden more than 200,000 miles combined on their bicycles over the course of their 32-year marriage. They have traveled to the beaches at Normandy, France, to the mountaintops in New Zealand, through The Big Easy, along the Mississippi River numerous times, and across Canada more than once. They have ridden across the United States four times.
“We try to do 4,000 miles a year unless a big trip is planned,” Sherron said.
During their first ride together in 1980, Roger took Sherron on a 21-mile ride around Lake Geneva in Wisconsin. He said he wanted to “test her out,” to see what she was made of. Thirty-two years later, the silver-haired thrill-seeker still calls his wife “a jock.”
As the pair rode into town, a band was playing, and Roger spotted a group of gentleman in black suits talking into their wrists.
After asking around, the Pearsons found out they had stumbled upon a party for former President Gerald Ford. Roger asked members of the United States Secret Service if they could give the president their best, and they were given the green light.
“You couldn’t do that now,” he said, laughing. “Now, they’d shoot you.”
Since then the Pearsons have led a life of adventure, intrigue and acceptance of every situation.
The pair used to pass through Park City without giving it a second thought. They were advised to give the place a better look 17 years ago by their daughter, who was in town for a business conference.
They rented a spot for two weeks one summer and biked around town. They were hooked. Park City has been home for the past 16 years.
“This is our ‘On Golden Pond,'” Roger said. “We love it here.”
People are waiting
About 12 years ago, Roger figured he’d try something new. He told Sherron he wanted to bike back to their winter home in Cave Creek, Ariz.
Since then, he’s done the fall pilgrimage from Park City to Cave Creek every year.
“We’ve been all over the world, and that’s some of the most beautiful country I’ve ever seen,” he said.
He says it takes him roughly two weeks to get from here to there and he does it without any help from his confidant. Sherron presses on straight through and waits for him in Arizona.
“He’s on his own,” she said.
The route takes Roger through the Heber Valley, into Provo Canyon and, as he says, “Highway 89 all the way home.”
Roger has his fans along the way, whether it’s a gas station attendant in the middle of nowhere in southern Utah or a Subway employee in Gunnison waiting to give him a fresh-baked cookie.
“I used to tell people, ‘If you don’t see me, the next year you’ll know I’m dead,'” he said.
He starts his two-week, 641-mile trek from Park City to Cave Creek on Monday.
‘We headed West’
The Pearsons hail from Illinois. They owned a chain of businesses in Rockford, Ill., before eventually selling them off and adopting globetrotting as their full-time gig.
But even before that, the pair went as far West as possible. They went to China.
The year was 1981, and Roger and Sherron were invited to participate in an organized group bike ride for American Youth Hostels Inc. They were given a motorcycle escort through much of the province of Canton and were later invited to help teach English to college students in the area.
Once at the school, and once the pair began helping out, Roger was surrounded by a group of girls, Sherron by a cluster of boys.
Then, he said, a girl tugged at the side of his shirt and asked if he knew anyone in the People’s Republic of China.
“I said, ‘Kind of. I was shot by a Chinese soldier.'”
“She put her hand up there and said, ‘I’m sorry,'” he went on. “I said, ‘I didn’t want to be there, and I’m sure he didn’t want to be there, and someone somewhere told us we had to hate each other.'”
Later that week, Roger and Sherron were walking the streets and stumbled upon the same young woman, who happened to be out shopping with her mother.
They hugged. The young woman was very proud to be able to introduce the Americans to her mother.
“That’s the truth of it,” he said.
Generosity everywhere
Roger calls himself a Maori priest although that’s open to interpretation. He reaches into his shirt and pulls out a hand-carved Tiki charm he obtained on the island of Rarotonga in the Cook Islands, where he learned to feed sharks and open a coconut with just a stick and a rock. Attached to the charm are two pieces of gold which he and Sherron panned for in New Zealand.
Hiding behind that charm is a silver dog tag that reads: “If this old man is found along the road, put in nearest mailbox, postage guaranteed.”
Sherron gave it to him for his solo rides.
As Roger says, the true magic made within the adventures is the time and experiences they have spent together. They recall being lost in the mountains of New Zealand, stumbling upon a small cottage and asking for directions. Immediately, they were given shelter and a hot cup of tea.
“When you’re on a bicycle, you get so close to people,” Roger said. “People all over the world are so good. We’ve been taken in when there’s no place to stay. It’s absolutely amazing. We feel so honored that we can have this time.
“We worked hard and we saved our money. We live very modestly. But we love to travel, to adventure and we love to meet people.”
During another trip, Santa Fe, N.M., was their destination. They were near Albuquerque and someone gave them faulty directions.
They rode 73 miles in search of a motel that didn’t exist. When they arrived at the spot, there was nothing.
As they tried to figure out the next step, a young man in a van pulled over and offered them a ride. The driver, a doctor driving toward Albuquerque with his wife, started asking questions.
After a few questions, it hit them: The driver, the doctor, had grown up with Roger’s son in Illinois and was his son’s teammate on the high school football team.
“This has happened all over,” he said. “We’re always listening to what we need to be doing. Sometimes, we avoid danger, and I don’t know what it is. You have to learn to read people.”
The summer of 1989 took the Pearsons on a 7,000-mile ride from their home in Arizona to New Orleans, up the Mississippi River toward Chicago, into Canada, across the Great White North and back down the Pacific coastline into San Francisco, Calif., where the pair were to meet up with some friends.
It was now Oct. 17, 1989.
After riding across the Golden Gate Bridge in the early afternoon, Roger and Sherron began their search for the motel reserved by their friends. While they were casually riding along the marina, another chapter in the history books was written.
“The earth was shaking,” Sherron said.
The famed Loma Prieta 6.9 magnitude earthquake had trembled and chaos surrounded the Pearsons.
Smoke exploded around them. There were big holes all over the ground. Fires burst out everywhere due to ruptured gas lines. Sherron said every face she saw was in pure shock.
They eventually found their motel and asked the manager if they could still stay there. They had nowhere else to go. Equipped with food, water and flashlights, the Pearsons pushed on through another unforgettable moment in time.
24 more years left
Roger Pearson’s silver ponytail is almost the polar opposite of what you’d expect to see on the head of an 80-year-old war veteran. However, there’s a story here too: it started with a haircut gone terribly wrong in a barbershop in Santa Fe.
Sherron didn’t let him live it down.
“She was not very kind,” he said. “She was absolutely terrible, laughing at (me). “She said, ‘Why don’t you let it grow?’ So, I did.”
That’s the enchantment behind the bond between Roger and Sherron Pearson. That’s how they’ve been able to do what most dream of.
“It’s been a good life,” he said. “There’s something inside of us how do you do it? You do it. You just do it.”
But Roger says he only has 24 years left on his clock. His goal is to outlive his mother, who lived to be 102, along with his grandmother, an aunt and two uncles, who all eclipsed the century mark.
He already has his spot picked out where his last ride will take place, along a steep hill that runs parallel to the Mighty Mississippi near Dubuque, Iowa.
“That’s it,” he said. “I’m going to jump off a cliff. That’s where I’m going.”
“You’re going to ride your bike off that cliff,” Sherron retorts.