DISTANCE TRAVELED: 40.52 Miles
AVERAGE SPEED: 10.51 MPH

          Today I woke up and climbed out of my tent at 7:30 well after everyone else. I packed up, ate, and left as the last person at 8:30. In the beginning, we had no winds and since many people were going to stop for breakfast, I figured that it should be a quick day. By my 10th mile, I had passed the café where people were eating and had averaged 19.07 mph! This had almost no downhill but instead was flat with a few gradual climbs. After this point, the speed steadily decreased. The first major hill of about a mile and a half was a gradual climb where I could go at over 9 mph. However, at the top, I felt the wind and from then on, we had strong headwinds. On our first descent, I passed by a snake and I walked back up to see it. It turned out to be a dead 1.5 ft long coral snake! (Picture224) The markings were beautiful but it is still very poisonous. After this, I rode on up and down ever steepening hills with a strong headwind in my face. The climbs were at 4 mph and, while pedaling, the descents were only at 15mph! We crossed the Divide (Picture225) two miles from town and after one more short climb, there was a good 1.5-mile descent into town. By 1:30, I had found the campground without too much trouble and quickly set up my tent before going out to lunch with Marianne and Mike. After lunch, we went to Dairy Queen for dessert and then over to the local bike shop. For the first time during the trip, I had my pedals greased up and I found out that one has an inch-long fracture! As the old grease came out, I saw that what had once been white colored grease was now very black. Afterward, they worked much better. We sat around the campsite for a while and after a shower, went to a local restaurant for a Mexican dinner that was very spicy but also good. After dinner, we all went back to the campground and began to talk about the past months of riding and how hard it is to believe that there are only 3 days left. At 10:00, we went to bed and Brian threw a tarp over his tent to keep the inside darker due to a spotlight above it.