I can’t believe it’s September 1^st! I guess when you’re on extended vacation you lose track of time. We were up at 11 am, freshened up, and headed downtown to meet up with Lee Shapes for lunch at Padrino’s for Cuban food. By the way – on the drive down we passed by the house Eric Clapton used for 461 Ocean Boulevard. Pretty cool. Seeing Lee was awesome! We hadn’t seen him since 2003/2004 – another blast from the past – but as it is with camp people it was like we saw him yesterday. He and his girlfriend of 7 years (7 years!) live together where he’s a golf pro and she works at a hospital. Of the course the food was delicious too. I opted for the lunch buffet – 3 different types of amazing rice, pork and grilled onions, plantain chips, etc. And I had my first café cubano. WOW – strong and sweet!

After lunch we went back to Alex’s house to relax before our bike ride. We watched The Waterboy and I continued to work on the Google doc for our road trip. From 4:15 – 5:30 we went on a 2 ½ mile bike ride roundtrip from his house to the Surf Club hotel via a bike path along the beach. It had been a long time since I rode a bike, and for the most part it came back immediately…except for when I didn’t realize my tires needed to be inflated and when I was practicing in his neighborhood and fell off but Alex didn’t see me and when it totally didn’t come back immediately. Alex is a good biker, and I wasn’t. Never fell off again, by the way, but I was much slower than he was. It was hot out but absolutely beautiful and really cool to ride along the beach. After our bike ride we were of course dripping in sweat, so we took a much-needed dip in his pool, had a cheeky bev, and hung out around his house until dinner.

Every Tuesday night there’s a food truck party at Haulover Park a few minute away from the Lelchuk’s house. We decided to explore that and get dinner there. There were so many interesting choices, and heavy on the Latino offerings (Venezuelan, Argentinean, Mexican, etc). I got the Mac Daddy burger from Mr. Good Stuff food truck, which is a cheeseburger with mac and cheese on top. So heavy but so good! Alex got an empenada and tequenos, which are like Argeninean mozzarella sticks. There were a lot of families out with dogs and kids. It was a really great environment.

After dinner we went to the AMC theaters in the Aventura Mall where we saw Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation at 9:20. Pretty good attendance on a Tuesday night. The movie got good reviews, and it definitely was good, but I don’t think it was all it was cracked out to be. It was very entertaining nonetheless. We got back to Alex’s around 11:45 pm. We chilled for a bit, I did some more planning for our trip, and we were in bed around 12:30 am. Tomorrow we’re planning on doing the Everglades with Jordy, Elise, and Chris. Should be good fun!