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My loathing and knee-jerk fear of mosquitoes comes not from their nasty bites and the itchy swelling they leave behind, but from the insane hum that follows them wherever they go like some evil soundtrack. That noise, foretelling their immanent arrival, sends goose bumps tearing through my soul and has me wide-eyed with terror searching madly to seek and destroy the perpetrator. I once stayed awake an entire night because of a lone mosquito trapped in my bedroom; every time I turned on the light to perform a full cavity room search I found nothing. But, the moment the lights were dimmed and I closed my eyes, that familiar haunting hum came back and I was driven awake and to the brink of madness. When the morning came, I wasn’t sure the mosquito was even in the room at all — it had become the ghost of mosquitoes past. After two or three hours of laying awake at night straining to hear even the faintest hum of mosquito wings from the other side of the room, one begins to imagine very strange things indeed.

When we woke up at our dispersed campsite the mosquitoes were piled so thickly on the outside of our tent (attracted by the carbon monoxide and our lurid body odors) that we had trouble determining if the sun had risen or not. Unlike any normal morning where the first action either one of us took was to jump out of the tent and urinate, we took our sweet time leaving the tent flaps closed as long as possible and packing up our belongings before exposing ourselves to the enemy. We both knew what awaited us on the outside of the tent: mosquitoes, a pile of dirty dishes crusted with goop, and no toilet facilities whatsoever.

We ate, made sandwiches for lunch, broke camp, were on our bikes and back on Route 138 so quickly our feet never touched the earth. Our first strokes of the pedal were fueled by uncontrolled adrenaline and fear: we had to escape the onslaught. Only when we were sure of survival did we slow down and accept that we still had 2,000 vertical feet to climb. It felt like Heartbreak Hill coming at the end of the Boston Marathon. We were nearing our 200th mile but still: our marathon was far from over.

There may be some who believe that being this close to our destination (at least, our immediate destination) would inspire our legs and lungs and lift us to greater speeds with much excitement and verve. Some would argue that having woken up knowing that we only had twenty more miles to pedal would lessen the burden of the hours in front of us. However, this was not the case. We were two hundred miles from where we had been forty-eight hours prior and that was beginning to make itself evident on the state of my legs. And while the pass we paused at just east of our dispersed campsite was at 5,700 feet we did not reach our highest point and begin riding downhill until we had reached 7,500 feet. Not until after we crested a point in the road where there was snow banks piled beside us. Not until after an endless, winding hill that broke my spirits and sent Ben galloping ahead. Not until after we sat down and ate our lunch at 9:15 AM because we were already tired and out of energy. Not until after I had lost track of all reference points in my life and saw myself not as a person but a part of my bicycle — a link in the chain. Not until after a chipmunk climbed up into my lap and then onto my hand because the very life force had been sucked out of me and it assumed I was dead. Not until after all that did we arrive at the visitors center at the top of Crater Lake, overlooking the majestic and uncannily phenomenal waters below, and saw a sign which indicated that our campsite was still another seven miles away.

And still we were there. Our journey for the Crater had come to an end. It was, as the saying went, all downhill from there. We had made it. And #6 would join us.

DAMON: It’s July 1st, Benjamin and I have reached our destination, so to speak, for the next couple days. We’re at Crater Lake, although, actually rather, we were at Crater Lake until we found out we had to sail seven miles directly downhill toward the center of the earth to find out campsite. Which is, in fact, as hot as the center of the earth. The ground is so warm you can’t even stand on it barefoot, the air itself is so dry and hot that it cracked my lips just to walk through it, and the mosquitoes are as large as the back of my hand and slam into me like giant … big things. Very big things. However: we have mastered the art of doing nothing, in that we biked about a mile back up the river to this picnic site, and we’ve been here for like three hours just laying on our back on a picnic table because there’s not very many bugs and there is one lost butterfly that seems to think it can find some solace in Ben and I’s skin and book covers. It is possibly more beautiful and peaceful here, however, than anywhere else I have been, as of late. Certainly more peaceful than Redmond, or Madras, or even Bend. And certainly Crescent and Chilmut! Which gives the creeps like Deliverance. Oh my god! Thank God we are back in the National Forest where at least people are –

BEN: I think I saw a tumbleweed go by.

DAMON: Ben claims to have seen a tumbleweed roll by and that [sings a bar from a Clint Eastwood film where the city streets clear and the tumbleweeds roll past Mr. Eastwood's worn boots] music play as we walked into to town and all the window shades kind of fluttered briefly as bike through and the doors shut up and lock and the only store that would let us in kept an eye on us and one hand on their gun. Over and out.

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