DISTANCE TRAVELED: 38.71 Miles
AVERAGE SPEED: 11.42 MPH

          We woke up and packed everything by 7:30 so we could get breakfast at the café. Once again, we were the only people in it! I ordered Huevos Rancheros and was starving by the time I got it. Two hours after I had ordered, I got my meal. A half hour before, the first one had come out. After a quick spicy breakfast, we paid, got some more food at the gas station, and began riding at 10:00. We planned to get an early start, but breakfast slowed us down. Right at the beginning, we climbed gradually for 9 miles and then descended for six into Galina. I stopped at another gas station and bought a liter of cherry 7-Up which disappeared very quickly. After talking to the storeowner for a while, Scott and I took off to ride the final 23 miles to Cuba. I decided that I wanted to get there so I pushed hard and reached it in a little under an hour and a half after charging on the downhills and powering big gears on the uphills. When I arrived in Cuba, I found the hotel everyone was staying at and then went to a gas station for a 32 oz. slurpee. A little while after I got back to the hotel, Scott showed up so we got a room since there were no campgrounds in the area. We took showers before watching TV. Soon, I bought yet another 32 oz slurpee and then waited for everyone else to arrive. Brian, Stu, Marianne, and Al came back from their day ride and we talked about our separate adventures since we had split up. Stu had used his front brakes only on a long downhill and because of this, heated up the rim so much that he popped the tire! Other than that, they had had no adventures and had been very bored in Cuba while they waited for us. At 6:30, we went to El Brunos for a Mexican reunion dinner. Scott and I split a combo plate that had five different types of food. For dessert, I had sopapillas with honey – a perfect ending. We talked about what route to take and decided to split up the group. The six people who had already been stick in the mud decided to take the roads; the four who had not experienced the mud, decided to take the dirt. These four accepted the possibility of having to deal with mud. As we walked back to the motel, lightening was in the distance and the wind began to get stronger. A few minutes after getting back, the rain came down hard, the lightning flashed, and we were nice and dry inside the motel! We began to watch TV for a while and then a group meeting was called. Since I was on the phone, I skipped it! At 11:00 after watching an A&E Biography on Speck, a serial killer, we went to bed to get ready for two more days of riding. As I organized my things, I realized that I was missing my Oakley sunglasses. I frantically looked around to see if I could find them, but I realized that I had left them outside. I would have to ask in the morning if anyone picked them up.