bicycling with a backdrop

Keith and I sought some advice before heading out towards the very end of the Denali road, where it roundabouts at the Kantishna airstrip...are the nine miles there straight up or down hill? Is it quite hilly? Uncle assured us it was pretty flat the whole way, nothing to worry about.
It'd been a year since I was on a bicycle, 18 miles was a little something I worried about...but if it was flat, what was the risk.
Four or five miles into the straight-out decent towards Kantishna I started to worry. Sure this flying through the wind pumping the hand brakes was fine for me now. But I know how hills work. Down is a one-way ticket.
We lunched on tuna sandwiches by a small stream, and washed away the bear-luring fish smell in the water.
Once in "Kantishna" we discovered little more than a couple of commercial lodges built where miners had struck something years before.
And then it was time to turn around. It was hot. It was a cloud of mosquitos. And it was up some serious hill.
I pretty much lost all grasp on sanity--flailing at the voracious insects, sweating, dusty and convinced I'd be carried away by bugs before I could walk my bike up 9 miles.
But Keith's infinite calm persevered, and soon we were cruising up a not so steep grade, stopping for photos at little clear lakes, enjoying a few breezes and proudly sailing into camp, muscles like jello and heads dripping of mashed mosquitos.

Cheers to Keith's attitude on this day. He saved a soul from the mosquito demons.