We made our way to

We made our way to , Les Deux Alpes, the last climb of the day. We had scouted yesterday and decided where to park and walk to so we wouldn’t get stuck in traffic afterwards and not be able to get to the Col de la Madeleine, tomorrow’s climb that we wanted to be on. When you’re chasing the Tour everyday you have to plan your entrance, your spot for the day and your escape or you’ll end up stuck on a mountain somewhere. We parked and walked about 20 minutes to our spot on the mountain. I spread our American flag and our Lance Armstrong Foundation sign to attract attention. You never know who you’ll meet. Several Americans spoke to us and a few stopped and joined us for the day. One German lady stopped and spoke to us for several minutes about the LAF. She said she was a member in Germany and kept a website called Lance’s Yellow Pages. The American family that joined us was originally from Seattle but they moved to Italy to teach English. They had two sons about 6 and 9 years old. The kids were a hoot! The other American that joined us was from Austin, Ben Turner. A really nice guy that, unfortunately, had just been diagnosed with prostate cancer. We talked about that, a lot! You always hope that you’re encouraging and say the right thing when you find yourself in that situation. We have his email address, so I’ll try to stay in touch with him and see how things go. I also talked to a guy from Holland that was standing next to us. He was interested in our LAF sign, so I told him my story and how we ended up there. Fortunately for me, he spoke good English. I was able to understand him translate parts of my cancer story to his family and friends. We both wished each other good health at the end of the day. The most amazing meeting of the day was a man and his daughter from Belgium. We had met them and sat on a mountain last year with them in the Pyrenees Mountains. They were walking by and he mentioned our Lance Armstrong Foundation sign to his daughter when I looked up and remembered him from last year. They stopped and also remembered us. Millions of people from around the world stretched out over France for three weeks and we see someone we met last year from Belgium, too weird! Also shows that you should take the time to introduce yourself to people in situations like that.

The riders finally came. Angie had her pom poms going and I was waving the LAF sign with one hand while trying to shoot pictures with the other. We seemed to have a good shot of getting the LAF sign on tv. We screamed like crazy cheering for Lance as he passed. Angie was so close to George Hincapie when he passed, she shook her pom poms in front of him and screamed his name. He looked over at her, dropped his tongue out of his mouth and gasped for breath from exhaustion. He was obviously about done for the day. Finally the last rider passed and we said goodbye to all of our new friends and started back to the car.

Our parking plan was perfect today, as we jumped in and headed straight for the Col de la Madeleine without being hosed up in traffic. One other aspect of our plan is to plot the route to our next location. We have a good map, which is an absolute MUST, and we make a list of roads to follow. It was beautiful driving across the Alpes. As we start down some horribly steep descent, we always notice the streets painted with rider’s names from past years and remember guys are racing bikes up and down these mountains. Meanwhile, my butt is trying to hold onto the car seat so I don’t slide into the steering wheel, it’s so steep. Which also reminds me, you feel like you’re in a road race to the next location because all the other traffic is speeding along these tiny one lane roads trying to beat you there to get you spot! Bikes pass you on the descents. Motorcycles pass you all the time – anywhere. Then there are the French drivers that pass you on the roads that you would swear didn’t have enough room for your own car, much less another one. Thank God it’s beautiful because it seems like it takes forever to get down a mountain, then back up the next, then down, up, down….

We finally got to the Col de la Madeleine. It was then that our thoughts turned to the fact that we have no hotel for tonight! All my good planning turned to crap tonight, as I just flat left tonight out. We figured we would end up in the car for sure. We must have had our guardian Angel looking over us, or our good deed for the day on Alpe D’Huez was being paid back, but we stopped at a hotel and after they had just turned away a guy from the Jean de LeTour Team, they found a room for us. I still can’t believe it! Angie was SO HAPPY!!! We had a room, a bed, a bathroom and a shower. We dropped our stuff in the room and were right back in the car driving the rest of tomorrow’s climb, still scouting our location. It never quits. We decided on a spot right next to our hotel. Steep grade so the riders slow and a little curve to help us get our LAF sign on OLN. Finally work is done and it’s back to our prize hotel for dinner. Quite simply the best food we’ve had here. A couple of hours ago we were doomed to a night in the car and now we’re being served up some kind of fabulous flaming birthday cake that someone was having in the restaurant, as they had added us to the party. We went to our room pleasantly stuffed. No matter how much you plan, sometimes you just need to be lucky!

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