I am a cycling fan, it's true. I've been watching the Tour de France on tv for the past few years and as I watched the stages each day on tv the thought finally came to me that this should be the year that I finally go watch the tour in person like I've been saying I was going to do for the past few years. I looked into it and I found that on the last day the tour came within four hours of our house so I asked a few friends if they wanted join us and on Sunday we finally went.
We left our house at 8:30 Sunday morning and after a couple of stops to go to the bathroom at let the little kids stretch their legs we arrived in Villeneuve-st-Denis, France. We got there around 12:30 and found a nice shady spot along the side of the road to lay down our blanket. Shortly after we got there the caravan of sponsors came through. It was kind of like a fast moving parade because the cars where decorated and some were trucks with elaborate decorations, but they were moving at about 35mph throwing things out the window at us. It actually was mildly violent when you imagine at keychain being chucked out a window at you at 35mph. Reese and I walked away with a yellow bag and a "king of the mountains" hat (that would be the polka dot hats we're all wearing in the photo, well Reese and her friend Max are wearing the hats that the salami van threw out) which we were very excited about. 
After the caravan rolled by we ate our picnic lunch and let the kids play while we observed the other tour fans. Our favorites were these two guys that road their bikes over to watch and then proceeded to talk with everyone. We don't know what they were saying but they seemed to be speaking with the aire of an expert so we like to believe that they were being know-it-alls. Finally after all our waiting the cyclists finally came through the town. I was sooooo excited, as is evident by my cheesy grin in all the photos. They went by very quickly but we did get to see Lance Armstrong and I was able to pick out some of the other people that I knew from watching it on tv so that was exciting. My friends and I are already discussing going back next year because it was so much fun, but we won't to go to a mountain stage where they'll be going a little bit slower so the actual race part will last a little while longer.
(The guy in the yellow jersey just behind us is Alberto Contador who won the Tour)
(This is us with Lance Armstrong!!!!! I circled him in the very back, he's kind of hidden behind some other guy)
(This is a zoomed in version of the previous photo so everyone can see my proof of Lance Armstrong in my photo)Sorry for the photo overload but I'm so excited about having gone that I can't possibly narrow it down anymore.
(Reese and I in our free hats from the caravan)
(Reese and Max having some fun before the race began)
(She loved this rattly balloon thing the caravan threw out) 
3 comments:
Fun! I was in Paris last year when the tour came in to town. We waited and waited for like 4 hrs on a corner, towards the finish line. We saw the caravan/parade thing, but I had one cranky hungry hot baby, so I called it quits after those 4 hrs and we went onto something else. Kinda wished I'd stayed longer, how often does one get to say they've seen the Tour de France come across the finish line....ANYWAY...glad you had fun! I love reading about your European adventures, I'd totally live over there if I could, I love it!
thats so awesome! man, i wished i did more when we lived there! you have no idea how much time i wasted sitting around watching oprah. lame, lame, LAME!
Oh where do I start tears are still streaming down my cheeks from the REI story. I salted slugs toO!!! Poor little Eye I nknow the pic didn't do it justice. All of your adventures!! I miss it! Love you!
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