|
July 15-16 July
17
July 18
July 19
July 20
July 21
July 22
July 23
July 24
July 25 a
July 25 b
 Chasing
the Jersey 2004
The past year has really
gone by fast. We’ve been busy with a variety of fundraisers to benefit the LAF
and still trying to work some at our real jobs between all the everyday hectic
stuff that everybody faces. It’s hard to believe this will be our fourth trip to
follow the Tour de France. We’ve been in touch with several people that we are
going to try to meet this year, including some that we met on our first trip and
others that we’ve met through the years. Our involvement with the Lance
Armstrong Foundation has developed many friendships, not only through the
cycling community, but mostly through those that have been touched by cancer.
Thursday, July 15
We should be in France
right now, but instead we’re back in the Birmingham Airport after bad weather
caused us to miss our flight to Paris last night. The only good thing from our
delay and frustration is that the agent pushed us up to fly business class from
Atlanta to Paris. I’d still trade it to be in Toulouse right now. If we make a
quick connection to Toulouse in Paris, we might still be able to catch Stage 12,
but probably not La Mongie, which was what we had planned. Jerry emailed our
hotel last night to cancel our reservation, which was about 5K from the final
climb. We were both sad last night, but today we’re excited to be back on our
way.
Friday, July 16
Now we’re sitting in
Charles DeGaulle Airport instead of Birmingham. The ticket agent in Atlanta
screwed us on our business class upgrade and booted us back to coach. We did end
up with a bulkhead seat, which gave us more legroom. I’m struggling for
something good to write about because even though we arrived on time in Paris,
we missed the early flight to Toulouse by minutes, which would have given us the
best chance to get to La Mongie. We now have a two-hour layover. I know some
people wouldn’t understand why we’d rather be sitting on the side of the road
instead of in the City of Lights, but that’s why we’re here.
Depending on how quickly
we get our car and get on the road, we may still catch the race, but it’s going
to be tough and we’re probably not going to make it to La Mongie because roads
will be closed and traffic will be bad.
Today and tomorrow should
be critical stages for the Tour this year. Tomorrow’s climb up Plateau de Beille
will be just as important and we’re familiar with it because we’ve been there
before. Hopefully today will wrap up our allotment of bad luck for this trip.
It’s calm right now, but in a few hours we should be driving 140kph on the
autoroute trying to catch Lance.
Since our last journal
entry, 8 ½ hours ago, we haven’t moved. There is a fuel strike and the guys that
refuel the planes, won’t. It’s a good thing they are out of reach and earshot or
they would understand how unhappy we are right now. We are now on a bus to Orly
Airport to hopefully catch a flight to Toulouse. Jerry and I are at the breaking
point. We’ve been as nice and patient as possible until now, but if we have one
more problem, one of us will snap.
It took over an hour on
the bus to get to Orly Airport and it was packed with all the other people they
had bussed from Charles DeGaulle, but we made the flight.
I went to get the car
while Angie found our luggage. When the rental clerk told me I was late, so my
car was gone, I almost lost it. She checked and found another car, a larger car
for less money. What’s this, something is going in our favor?
It took us a couple of
hours to get to our hotel in Axe Les Thermes after a quick McDrive-through in
Foix.
The hotel was nice,
recently remodeled and had a little kitchen area. Since we missed Stage 12 we
didn’t even know what was happening in the Tour, but the hotel had EuroSport so
we were able to watch the replay of the final climb up La Mongie. We saw Lance
drop everybody except Ivan Basso of CSC and take serious time out of his main
competitors. That made our horrible trip a little better and we looked forward
to our first day tomorrow. We also noticed Basso was wearing a LiveStrong
wristband.
July 17
| 
