I woke up and could instantly tell something was wrong with my... face. Checking my reflection in my phone camera, I saw my eyes almost swollen shut. It was almost comical but I kept my sunglasses on as we packed up to avoid comments from our biking companions. Eventually the swelling went down and I was able to laugh about it with the others. Today we were headed to a campground that would place us at a strategic point for the infamous Polvadera Mesa and its trials and tribulations. We bade farewell to the kind store owners as we got some snacks for the day and breakfast materials and set off. Today would again be all road and we would start with a fairly flat segment all the way into Cuba, where there was apparently quite good Mexican food to be had. We pedalled along and the landscape became quite flat and scrubby again. The group dispersed and we fell behind largely due to my languid pace. We twisted around hills and in and out of Native land as we headed north. We eventually battled enough headwinds to make it to the outskirts of Cuba and wove through overpasses and tiny suburbs to the main street. We restocked at the local Safeway and then stopped at a gas station that advertised Mexican food. We had to wait for almost 45 minutes to receive yummy but quite small burritos and Ziven was grumpy at the delay. As we pulled out of the small patio we were eating at, we noticed Will and Dave and Pete at the other Mexican restaurant across the street. They waved and we said we would save them a spot at the campground we had all decided on the day before. We then turned out of town and started a climb that would take us to the end of the day. We passed some nice houses on the outskirts of town and a young woman taking her dog and its three puppies for a walk along the road. We admired the tiny creatures and then continued into the forest. The road wound up and up and up and it became more alpine like the further we went. We had to stop and let little Elisa recover every once in a while as we hadn’t yet found our climbing legs from the flat-ish desert. Eventually we got to the top of a pass and there was a large amount of construction equipment blocking the dirt road that led into the forest. Glad that we were sticking to the road, we enjoyed a lovely descent in the golden light and passed fields of wildflowers and pretty meadows. With every minute of descending we worried we had made the wrong turn and would have the reclimb but eventually we spotted the turn for our campground and pulled in to claim our pre-reserved campground. We snagged a spot in the shade with a picnic table nearish the water and hung around, setting up our tent on the asphalt pad and locating rocks to anchor our tent stakes and fly. Will was the first of the trio from the Mexican restaurant to catch up with us and he joined our campground, pitching his little tent on a flat grassy spot at the edge of our slot. Jeff and Gary were next and they chose a spot across the small access road from us that Pete and Dave would eventually join them at. We spent the afternoon happily cooking up hot chocolate, taking stock of our randomly packed food and repacking it more carefully for the next bumpy day, and hanging out with the others. Ziven and I took a field trip to the bathroom and raced back to the tent and I got uncharacteristically winded, a clear sign of the incoming cold that would hang onto me tight until we passed into Colorado. Dave and Pete spoke with the campground host who gave them insight on a shortcut that would help us avoid having to reclimb to the top of the pass and then join the yucky gravel road and redescend to the level we were currently at. After our team meeting, we threw around a frisbee someone had found and horsed around a bit more before retiring into our tent for some TV before sleep. The stress dreams I had about the next day underestimated the truly bad time I would experience.