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Route 138, where Lacie had granted us access to camp, had been foretold to us by many prophets. It was said that we would come to the place in Highway 97 from which we must start a new journey, and that journey would begin with a ninety degree turn to the east with the setting sun at our backs, and that when we made our turn we would see a road straighter than Cupid’s arrow and, for not less than sixteen miles, we would consider that we were riding directly to heaven to meet God for tea.

At first I felt that perhaps our so-called prophets were exaggerating slightly because I had yet to see anything sixteen miles straight anywhere in the entire state of Oregon. Not even in Illinois could I find that much straightness let alone a slice of unpolluted atmosphere that allowed one to see that far. Not Illinois, not in the desert, not anywhere. But I have been known to exaggerate the truth slightly from time to time so who am I to judge those before me? I nodded and smiled and said “wow, really?” when this was foretold unto me, and it was foretold by Joe, by Christina, by Lacie, and by still others who we did not know and had not yet met.

And yet: it is there. The prophecies came true.

We approached a sign for Route 138; we came to an intersection; we turned our bicycles to the east; and we saw directly into our future, as an astronomer looks at the early stages of the universe through her telescope. We could see our destiny and we knew what we would be doing and where exactly we would be doing it.

The first words either one of us spoke were:

“Dang.”

There, before us, was sixteen miles of road, from bottom to top, illuminated in a golden glow of the slowly setting sun. There was no turning, there were no gas stations, there was nothing but shining pavement pointed straight up to heaven. We began our journey into the clouds and quickly found that pedaling up Route 138 was exactly like riding a stationary bicycle and, just like when we are in the gym, when we tired of riding, we got off and went to bed.

After we had dragged our bicycles through the sand to camp for the night in a bed of pinecones and rocks (most of which we were able to disperse, much like our campsite, before setting up our tent) I crawled into my sleeping bag and closed my eyes. I was very tired and had almost fallen over twice while waiting for Ben to finish assembling his side of the tent. Ben, being the gentleman that he is, said:

“Just rest. I’ll get dinner ready.”

After we ate he climbed into the tent as well to escape the mosquitoes (which were beginning to make their presence known after the sun had set) and we set upon what had become our nightly ritual. The ritual was this:

Ben and I would both get into the tent and sit at opposite ends bringing with us our sleeping necessities: Ben, his glasses and book, and me my ear plugs. It was a small tent and were we to sit at the same end we would be forever elbowing one another and bonking heads and brushing our naked flesh against each other, which is unacceptable. So, facing the other, we would blow up our sleeping pads and adjust our pillows (which were really our panniers covered in a t-shirt) and set about getting ready for sleep. This usually involved some comic moments as one of us fell over backwards and bared our butt cracks as we, delicate as trapeze artists, tried to change clothes in a shared seventeen cubic inches of space.

Finally, just before sliding into our respective sleeping bags for the night, we would nurse our twin injuries by applying Arnica Montana to both of our left Achilles’ Tendons while lying on our backs, raising our legs collectively toward the tent ceiling, and rubbing the clear, surprisingly slippery goop, on our heels. We picked up some Arnica Montana in Hood River — or rather, I should say, I picked it up. It was, at that point, for my ankle and my ankle alone and the only use Ben had for Arnica Montana at that point was as fodder for his constant ridicule of the condition of my ankle. But by the time we had dispersed our first campsite near Crater Lake Ben was using it too — much to his own chagrin and much to my utter enjoyment. You see: somewhere along the way, Ben’s ankle started to hurt him too. And not just his ankle but his left ankle. And not just his left ankle but his left Achilles’ Tendon on his left ankle. And this is what is known as irony and it is also what is known as just plain weird because Ben and I have biked a lot and known others who have biked a lot and still we have never had a sore Achilles’ anything, ever, on any appendage for any reason whatsoever. But here it was: karma of the finest kind: Ben suffered from the exact same left leg ailment as I and, come to find out, he suffered long before he ever let me know about it. His pride, however, had run so deep that he withheld the information from me for days, but I was not so shallow a person then as to call him on his karmic blunder; I was just happy to have someone join me in the boat of discomfort that I had been rowing alone for so many days. It was nice to have someone else to paddle with.

In our sleeping bags, having applied copious amounts of Arnica Montana and Ben muttering some nonsense about satanic rituals and herbal heebeegeebie, we would read our books for a time. I would turn off my head lamp first and enter into the comatose state of ear plugged bliss where I would imagine seeing #6 again, who was leading a team of blonde haired Swedish masseuses. Then sleep would wander in and the dawn would come quicker than sixteen year old virgin.

DAMON: We’ve been eating mosquitoes for breakfast. That is, actually, our greatest source of protein this morning as that they outweigh any other food product that we’ve consumed. And we’ve got some nasty-assed dishes that have gotten crusted over with our morning’s meal which we shall carry, all the way, and take into the shower with us. Because we’re going to take a shower, we’re going to get as many quarters as possible, we’re going to feed the machine: ooooh, warm showers. Over and out.

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