LEWISTON — In their 2,250-mile bicycle trek from Arkansas to Acadia National Park, Dr. Clayton Bell and Jeanie Zelinski seemed to go out of their way to find the steepest hills.

“We, as in Clayton, chose every mountain there was,” Zelinski said. Few Tennessee-to-Maine travelers would pass through the White Mountains’ Kancamagus Highway. They did.

“It was beautiful,” she said. But it was a tough climb. And the ride is almost over.

On Friday, the couple plans to arrive at Acadia on Mount Desert Island. And on Monday, Bell plans to begin work as a resident physician at Central Maine Medical Center.

They’ll have two days of rest, but that’s all they’ll need, they insisted.

Zelinski, an occupational therapist, and Bell have become accustomed to activity. They have spent the past two years working in Haiti, where they helped build a school and reopen a clinic in the hills 20 miles from Port-au-Prince.

This bicycle trip, and another last year that ran from Los Angeles to Arkansas, helped fund the school. Last year’s trip raised $30,000. This year will likely be less, Bell said, but the money will be put to use.

Bell said he went to Haiti soon after the devastating earthquake in 2010. He found his niche in the tiny villages outside Port-au-Prince. Some had no schools or medical care.

If rich people got sick, they would take the two-hour motorcycle journey to the city, he learned.

“If they were poor, they died,” he said. The cholera epidemic only made it worse. “We saw 10,000 patients in 18 months.”

The couple returned from Haiti only six weeks before their bicycle trip began on May 21.

They started in Bell’s hometown of El Paso, Ark., located outside Little Rock. They went first to Memphis, Zelinski’s hometown, and then they headed up the Appalachian corridor.

There were few problems. Zelinski had four flat tires. Bell had issues with his gears. But there were few rainy days. (The wettest was Monday’s trek from Rumford to Lewiston.)

And whenever needs came up, someone seemed to pop up with some help.

“The characters that God blessed us with have been unbelievable,” Zelinski said. She talked about guys named “Chattanooga Chuck” and “Boston Bob.”

The couple sometimes found themselves at strangers’ dinner tables and in their guest rooms.

“Maybe, being on a bike, you look more vulnerable,” she said. “People would stop and ask us if we needed anything.”

They carried little and sent packages ahead to keep themselves supplied. But there were few needs.

“If you have food and water, everything is fine,” Bell said.

dhartill@sunjournal.com

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