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July 17-18
July 19
July 20
July 21
July 22-23
July 23
July 24
July 24-25
July 25-26
July 26-27
July 27
July 28
July 29
There is an
identical bike in case of a mechanical problem during the ride so a quick bike
switch could be done without losing much time. Lance’s warm-up looked more like
a really hard total workout.
 He was spinning
at his blazing cadence, then shift and jump out of the saddle a while. He was
sweating like he’d already run a marathon and he was just warming up for a
50-kilometer ride and he had already ridden that morning also. I talked to Jeff
Garvey for a while when Lance was warming up. Jeff was getting a little nervous
because he was riding in the team car with Johan and giving Lance his time
splits, so he didn’t want to screw anything up. I shot plenty of pictures of
Lance and his start time finally rolled around. He went back in the bus and
changed from the USPS team blue jersey to the leaders yellow jersey and rolled
away to cheers of support. Something about those last time trials that get him
fired up because he blistered the course, won the stage and added another 2
minutes to his overall lead. Angie and I went back to our car by way of a
shuttle bus. In the States we would have had to pay $20 to park in someone’s
yard for a big event, then have to walk a mile to get there. This little town
had busses running from the center of town to a parking area, all free. Now the
parking area was a field and you had to be careful where you walked because the
cows had just been run out that morning. It still helped get us to our car quick
and on our way to Paris. We jumped on the autoroute and blended into the 150 kph
traffic. I did have a Gendarmerie pull up behind me with his lights on. I still
haven’t seen a speed limit sign and probably wouldn’t understand him if he had
stopped me, but he went around me to the next exit and got off with his lights
still on. Angie is still laughing about the police that stopped me for pulling a
U-turn. I missed my turn and nobody was coming so I whipped our rental car
around, right as a policeman turned the corner. He stopped and held his hand out
for me to stop, which I did. There’s something about our rental car that we
never did get the hang of. The windows rolled up or down opposite of the way to
pushed the button. Push it down they go up and up and they go down. So when the
Police started talking to me and my window was halfway down, instead of rolling
it down I rolled it up in his face, as if to blow him off. He might have gotten
mad at me, but when I did get the window back down and started speaking Southern
Alabama French to him, he just rolled his eyes and shook his head and finger
“NO” to me. I nodded and drove on. Angie took another power nap on the way to
Paris but got up in time to help navigate when we got close. Last year we
arrived in Paris after dark and were not sure where we were going. I made a turn
and was suddenly on the round-about around the
Arc de Triomphe.
It’s about 10 lanes of traffic
in a circle, full of cars, busses and motorcycles weaving in and out, cars
leaving and entering, with no painted lanes! I kinda freaked and said I’m
getting off! I turned off and looked up and we were right in front of our hotel.
Blind dumb luck! Angie said we should do that again. Not the panic part, but we
knew where our hotel was this year in relation to the Arc so we should start
from there. I thought she just wanted to put me in that crazy round-about again.
We went one exit farther this year to head downtown. We got off the autoroute
and before we could speak, both of us burst out laughing…We were right in front
of our hotel again! More blind dumb luck again.  Our
luck hadn’t quite run out for the day. Upon checking in, the clerk said they
were over booked and would have to upgrade us to a better room. When we got to
our room on the 31st floor, it was quite a view over Paris! A little
different than the rooms we’ve had with showers and bathrooms down the hall or
the night in the car on Mont Ventoux.
Angie is already asleep and seems to have adjusted to the better accommodations
nicely!
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