more to come soon

It was so nice to sleep in, then be able to take a long shower and not have to rush anywhere. The hotel only had one room available for one night, so we checked out and headed to the Office of Tourism in Grenoble, to see if we could find another hotel. We met a really nice father, son and grandfather trio from Hilton Head, SC that were also looking for a room. The son, Jack, will be celebrating his 11th birthday on l'Alpe d'Huez. He told us he is also the state time trial champion of SC and very excited to be at the Tour. We chatted for a while and invited them to meet us in Paris at the finish.

We were able to find a room for the night, so we went out to enjoy the day. We had a great lunch at a cafe facing a pretty park. Jerry had to keep going back to ask for the check because the waiter was in no hurry for us to leave. It's almost as if, when you sit at a cafe, they expect you to spend several hours there. We finally paid up and went to explore the city (which to me means shopping!). We poked our heads in lots of fun shops and I picked up a couple of gifts and some shoes for myself. Jerry was getting really done with shopping so we stopped at Haagan Daas and had some ice cream.

As we were walking to find our hotel, we met a couple of guys from Seattle. They were out riding and had stopped for lunch. Their camper was already parked on l'Alpe d'Huez and they were about to head back. They invited us to ride back and meet them about three quarters of the way up the mountain - very nice of them to think I could ride up l'Alpe d'Huez!

We found our hotel and checked in. As we were headed to our room, we met Nick, Jack and Bob, our South Carolina friends. They were able to get a room here also. We dropped some stuff in our room and went back to recover our car from the parking garage that we had left it in. We drove out to the hotel where Bob Roll was staying. He had ask us to come by and have a beer with him. He wasn't in when we arrived, so we sat down at the bar to relax. Bob walked by a few minutes later. He had been in a long conference call with Phil and Paul to a bunch of media. I ran into Kirsten Gum in the bathroom and helped her fix French style hair scarf. We ended up having drinks with her, Bob and producer Kathy Cooper. They all had the same problems we did on trying to get away from one stage and drive like mad to find your hotel to try and get a little sleep before the next day started. We also laughed about our favorite songs we heard on the radio. I can't repeat the chorus and you'll never hear them in the states, but I ended up finding the CD and brought it home for friends to hear. Otherwise they wouldn't believe us. Paul, Phil and other OLN crew were lazing around the pool. They were certainly making the most of their day off.

We didn't stop for dinner there, but we couldn't help but notice El Tex Mex restaurant on our way to the hotel. We weren't curious enough to try French/Mexican. We made our way back downtown and had a yummy dinner. There was a group of Americans sitting near us at the restaurant and one had a shirt that said 'Don't Mess with Texas'. We stopped to say hello. They were from Aspen, CO and had just driven in from Paris. We stayed and talked with them until 11:30 because they were such a fun group. We got back to our hotel around midnight, which is about normal. I checked our email and sent some pictures in to CB at thepaceline.com Lance's fan club website - another day done.

July 18 / July 20