If we do nothing, nothing will change

July 18 - Stage 14  / July 19 - Stage 15 / Rest Day / July 21 - Stage 16 / Tour Scenery / July 22 - Stage - 17

July 23 - Stage 18 / July 24 - Stage 19 / July 25 - Stage 20 / July 26 - Stage 21 / Photo Gallery

July 20 - Rest Day & 40 year anniversary of moon landing

Rest day at the Tour de France for the riders means an easy day of riding and trying to recuperate from the suffering they've put in so far. There's still some tough days ahead before Paris. This is the first time that we've been at the Tour when we have separated. Angie jumped on an early flight to Amsterdam this morning to meet her buddy Claire to go to the U2 concert tonight. Good timing for it to work on the rest day and Bono is a big Lance supporter as well. He stopped by in Monaco at the start of the Tour to wish him luck. Very nice. As for me, I'm slumming in Geneva. I walked down to Lake Geneva, which is fairly close to our hotel. Beautiful and amazing how clear the water is.

Normally a rest day is pretty uneventful, but this one had a nice surprise. When I got back to the room after my walk, I was watching CNN International. They were doing a special all day about the 40th anniversary of Apollo 11 landing on the moon. I was always a huge space fan growing up and feel lucky to have seen the moon landing. The anchor, Jim Clancy asked people to send what they considered mans greatest ever accomplishment. I sent in the following email:

Jim,
I was 12 years old when we landed on the moon. Glad I was alive to see it. To date that still excels as the greatest accomplishment I've ever seen. Today I'm in Switzerland following the Tour de France, watching another Armstrong, but his goal is much different than landing on the moon, or winning a bike race. If Lance can help instigate a worldwide effort with the LiveStrong Global Cancer Initiative and we can put an end to a disease that takes millions of lives every year, we may just top landing on the moon.
Jerry Kelly
cancer survivor

A few minutes later I got an email back from Jim that said I had sent my email to the wrong address which is why they didn't use it, but he might have another option. After the next commercial break, Jim came back on the air and said I have an email I want to read. I was surprised when he read my email, they posted the text on the screen, then put up a picture of Angie and me from the previous day at the Tour, in front of our huge Hope Rides Again banner. Pretty cool to get a LiveStrong Global Cancer Initiative shout out on CNN International on a day I thought would be totally uneventful.

photo by Casey Gibson

Not much else exciting to mention. The guy playing the violin outside our hotel has been playing the same song every time I passed by him today, for 5 hours. Seems like he'd get more donations if he learned a second song, but whatever. Hey, it's a rest day!

Passed by this monument. Couldn't find what it was for, but pretty cool.