A few of my thoughts. First, riding over a thousand miles in two days is a buttocks nightmare and mine have seen a nuclear cloud. Second, it's hot and I had become accustomed to the cool weather in Tennessee.

So, we left San Franando and headed south to Tampico. After three stops by the federales and three by the local police of the jurisdiction that we were in, we were only hasseled once and that was approaching Tampico. We were riding along with traffic on a four lane road when a police car with flashing lights pulled us over. There initial offer was to pay them $100 each and they would not write us a ticket. After some negotiating, we paid 100 pesos each (about $8) and went on our way. It was a win/win for them and a no-win/no-win for us but it was only $8.

We passed the demarcation for the tropic of cancer today. For those students, the tropic of cancer is located 23.5 degrees north of the equator. The tropic of capricorn (in the southern hemisphere) is located 23.5 degrees south of the equator. The earth is tilted 23.5 degrees from vertical and in its rotation around the earth, the sun has an apparent movement within the limits between the two tropic boundaries. The longest day of summer in the northern hemisphere (and the shortest day in the southern hemisphere) is when the sun is over the tropic of cancer (and vice-versa when the sun is over the tropic of capricorn.

Gary's GPS connection failed and he was directionless and distraught for most of the day. After much thought and a drink of whiskey, a solution was reached on how to repair the connection -- two new wires and a little shoe glue solved the problem.