Day 6. Kalama to Portland

Today was the first day that I can safely say was a total fucking disaster.
The only thing more fun than putting on spandex on a rainy morning is putting on wet spandex on a rainy morning. Head out along a frontage road and turned into the mountains when the road dead ended. The road lead through although not TOO steep, relentless, never-ending mountains which- because of bad knees and low morale, were mostly walked. A valiant effort by Kevin to get back up and tough out the ride resulted in a broken chain which he was able to fix as I forced water and food on him. More relentless hills and unsympathetic trucks. Turns out we made a wrong turn which lead us even deeper into these totally demoralizing awful mountains. Each time we hit a summit, the road would descend for maybe a minute before heading back up. I didn't know it was possible to form such bad associations with such beautiful hills but I fucking hate those goddamn mountains. A truck passed by mid-desperation and we put our thumbs out desperately- to get a ride or at least ask where the hell we were. The truck passed right by and after laughing in disbelief, Kevin and I spent the next ten minutes concocting all the awful things we wanted to do to that dickhole. I'd shove my campi derailer straight up his ass. That got some laughs out of us which quickly ended as we turned yet another corner to find yet another snake of road heading straight up. We were completely resigned into walking by this point and, trying to be positive, I pulled my phone out to take a picture because the crest of the mountains, through a thin layer of trees and off into a white sheet of clouded sky really was beautiful. My bike slipped and in order to catch it, I dropped my phone and the screen shattered. Fuckin great. Although at that point it was just resentfully humorous and I took that fucking picture anyway. 
No descent could have made up for all of that, although it tried. The scenery would have been gorgeous if we didn't completely hate the world at this point. We had gone maybe 15 miles in 3 hours. Maybe less. All up. In the midst of the deserted mountain road down, we passed two adorable boys with a lemonade stand. I laughed at the serendipity (the mountains were completely deserted, it was a ridiculous place to have a lemonade stand and then there was us, probably desperately in need of lemonade but way too resetful to resign into enjoyment that easily). Kevin bombed passed them and I followed.
Once we got down to the frontage road again, we stopped at the first place we could find- Fat Moose Bar and Grill, where we're still holed up. Kevin's friend in Portland who we're staying with tonight offered a ride. Thank god. That means laundry, a shower and a nap is in my very near future, yes!