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We didn’t get up until almost 11am today. We needed the rest day as much as the riders! We went out on the town in Bayonne to find tomorrow’s finish area. We plan to get near the jersey presentation area so Lance can see our LAF sign. We got a map from the office of tourism, which showed the finish only about a 10-15 minute walk from our hotel. Excellent! We walked around town and did a little shopping. As we were strolling down a street, Angie noticed a guy eating an ice cream cone and thought about how much she would like one, then realized it was Bob Roll! We stopped and chatted for quite a while. We talked about yesterday’s stage full of excitement. Bob told us he had the same experience in Lourdes that we did. Bob called it the Las Vegas for Catholics! Since we never miss a photo op we took some photos with Bob. I told Bob how we got involved in cycling and LAF because of my cancer and he said that is really the story of Lance. Not that he’s won the Tour, but how the kid from Plano that wasn’t big enough to play football got into cycling and when cancer took him down he jumped back up the same way he had jumped back up yesterday after getting knocked down. He just doesn’t quit or give up! Bob was very cool and a lot of fun to talk with…very casual and real.

We strolled around town and bought a few more souvenirs, sat at a sidewalk café and had a panaché (beer & lemonade) and of course Angie continued to pet every dog we passed. We found an Internet café next to our hotel, so we sent some emails to family and friends. Note: the French keyboard is different than the American one and we were paying by the minute so we didn’t get to send out many! We did send one to our friend Chris Brewer, that keeps up Lance’s site, just to let him know that it was not us holding the bag that took Lance down! It is almost 8pm now so people will soon be eating dinner…no telling what food is in our future. We did see a little pizza place right on the river that looked like a good place for a beer with a sunset view.

We did eat at the pizza place, but the pizza was only so-so (not enough sauce or cheese) and the beer was warm. The only way to get cold beer here is to order the kind with lemonade. Anyway, the desserts made up for the bad meal! Jerry had a banana split and I had chocolate ice cream with chocolate syrup and whipped cream. Yummy! When we were leaving we threw some leftover bread in the water and created a feeding frenzy. The fish were swimming close to the edge just waiting to be fed; they obviously eat well and were quite big. We walked back to the hotel and slept with the air conditioner on and the window open – my favorite way to sleep!

July 21 (Stage 15) / July 23 (Stage 16)