O'Rourke more than 1,155 miles through fundraising bike ride for blind

When Dan O'Rourke swung through Williams, Arizona, a city outside of Flagstaff, he popped into an antique shop. The longtime NHL referee started chatting with the woman who ran the shop, Donna Hovet. As he was about to walk out, she stopped him.

What are you doing here, anyway?

He explained that he was in the middle of his Route 66 Ride for Literacy, a bike ride along Route 66 from Santa Monica, California, to Chicago to raise funds for the National Federation of the Blind and its BELL (Braille Enrichment for Literacy and Learning) Academy, a summer program of Braille and nonvisual skills that helps low-vision children with the skills and confidence to live independent lives.

She turned, as he recalled, white as a sheet.

"It was like she'd seen a ghost," O'Rourke said. "She got emotional. And she's like, my son, he's passed away from leukemia, but he was blind. He climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, this kid did, with a guide in front of him, dangling bottle openers for him to follow that sound. He had two walking sticks and he just followed the sound, all the way up Mount Kilimanjaro."

The pair ended up talking for 20 minutes about her son, A.J., who died in 2010. About his zest for life, about his determination not to let blindness stand in his way, about how he asked her to teach him to drive on 40 empty acres of land, about how he played football in high school.

"That, to me, is what embodies the NFB," O'Rourke said. "He lived the way he wanted to live and he didn't let blindness hold him back. It's been encounters like that, all the way across."

O'Rourke was speaking Monday night from Tucumcari, New Mexico, not far from the Texas border, on Day 19 of his 45-day ride, which is set to finish in Chicago on Sept. 8. O'Rourke, who has been officiating in the NHL since 1999, has been pausing along the ride for pit-stop parties that serve as meet-and-greets, including one with Braille typing competitions in Flagstaff, and has been documenting the ride with check-ins on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.

He is raising money for NFB at https://nfb.org/route66, a cause that is intensely personal for him because his father, Tom, and grandfather each endured vision loss. His father was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, a rare eye disease that affects the retina, breaking it down slowly over time and causing blindness. The belief is that his grandfather had the same condition.

Not only has O'Rourke been able to log the miles -- he's averaging 65 per day -- but he also has spread the message of NFB, letting people know it's run by blind people, for blind people, that the mission is to allow people to live the life they want, blind or not.

And he has been able to drop in on classes at BELL Academy, jumping on their Zoom calls, either from his bike or later in the afternoon from his RV, learning how they've been tracking him and his ride as part of class. Those kids, like the people he has met across the country, have left him inspired.

Which is why one of the things he thinks most about on the bike is new ways to raise money, new ideas for donations, including encouraging people to not only donate, but to text five people in their contact list and encourage them to donate -- a version of the old-school chain letters. He remains honored when he sees the donations coming in, from inside the hockey world and out, from fellow officials, from coaches and general managers, from fans of the game.

It's what helps when the going, occasionally, gets tough.

Since starting the ride, O'Rourke, who turns 51 this month, been faced with altitude, with flat tires, with searing temperatures. But there have been no injuries and there has been no fading of purpose. If anything, O'Rourke is more committed to the cause, more committed to the miles.

"The second day, coming out of San Bernandino (California), I think the hill was between 10 and 15 miles long and you're just climbing for that whole time," he said. "And I finished that day and I actually rode just over 70 miles in 100-plus degrees. When I finished that day, I'm like, I'm finishing this ride, no matter what. That gave me, like, 'You're good. You'll be all right.' "

Even after five hours and 20 minutes on his bike on Monday, riding directly into some serious headwinds, O'Rourke was overcome with the experience, with the delight in doing something to help.

"Truly, I have not stopped smiling since I started riding," he said. "I'm at 1,155 actual miles on the bike. You'd think you might stop smiling at some point, but it's just been such an unbelievable experience just to put other people in front of yourself.

"I didn't know that I'd feel this way once I started riding. It's been a very humbling -- I don't even know the words to explain it. Your heart's warm all the time. You've got the smile on your face all day long."