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I had to unpack our suburban from the ride Angie and I had just put on to benefit the Lance Armstrong Foundation (LAF), so that I could repack it for our week at the Tour de Georgia. We were running a booth for the LAF for the week, telling people about the LAF, recruiting people to join the LAF Peloton Project, passing out cancer information and accepting donations, should anyone want to help the cause.

The burb was pretty much packed from nose to tail with LAF info and cases of bright yellow Lance Fans, which we would be passing out every day at the Tour. Not knowing if I would have time to actually ride some myself, I was able to squeeze my bike in, just in case.

I drove from Birmingham to Macon on Monday. My buddy Chris Brewer (www.lancearmstrong.com webmaster) called me as I was getting close to Macon to check my progress so we could hook up. Chris was headed to a press conference, where the riders would be talking. I didn't want to miss this, so even though I didn't have any credentials, I convinced myself that since I was there working as a cancer survivor for a cancer foundation in a race benefiting the Georgia Cancer Coalition, that I should attend. I got to Macon just as the press conference was getting underway. I changed clothes in the parking lot (to look more official), hung my camera around my neck and stuck a folder under my arm and headed to the press conference. As I got to the door I excused the security guard and marched right in. Another security guard walked over to me, but saw my LAF shirt and assumed I was supposed to be there. I winked at him and nodded at my folder and he smiled and went back to the door. Success #1, I was in. I took some pictures of Bobby Julich, then Mario Cipollini, when he came in. Lance came in last and I got a few more pictures. After everything was over I made my way over to CB. He just laughed when he saw me in the room.

After the press conference was over, CB went to do some web updating. I was getting hungry so I decided to check out the dinner gala for the team presentation that evening. Again I had no credentials, but at one time someone mentioned that I could go to the dinner, so I considered that official enough. I walked down the street to the gala and was not surprised when my name was not on the guest list. I told them I didn't mind and that I'd be happy to sit with anyone. They put me with the Jittery Joes Team. A really nice bunch of guys and as it turned out, one of them knew one of my riding buddies, Ron Williams, from Birmingham. CB called me to see where I was and got another chuckle when I told him I was eating with the teams at the gala. As the teams were announced I shot some more pictures. Then went back to my hotel for the night. CB had gone to the airport to pick up another friend and reporter from Austin, Ted Arnold. Neither CB nor Ted had a hotel the first night so I invited them to crash my hotel. Angie ended up not being able to come over until Thursday, so I had plenty of space.

Tuesday morning I went down to the Georgia Healthy Expo area to set up the LAF booth. It was a pretty busy day in the booth, since the race started and finished in Macon, but everything seemed to go very smooth. A new friend and fellow Peloton Project member, Janet Buckwalther was also there. Janet wrote a book called, How Many Cheeseburgers Does it Take to Win the Tour de France? Janet is donating proceeds from the book to the LAF. She has a friend that was diagnosed and just wanted to help do something.

Macon went well and I packed up and headed to Columbus for Wednesday's finish.

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