The Tour de France and Cinque Terre

Hey kids,

Sorry it's been so long since my last decent post. We've been a bit occupied I guess and have taken to calling ourselves the Gluttons of Fun (get it? huh? a play on the Dire Straits' Sultans of Sun... :)

One major (if admittedly trivial when it comes down to it) hitch in the fun though, and I'm afraid that before I go one with this post, you'll have to listen (or read) my tale of woe...

So I'd been feeling pressure to update the blog, and last night I had 20 mins of time before hoping on a train, so I decided to try to get the Tour de France story and pics up. This is where it goes bad. I'll just come out with it - in the process of rotating THE picture that sumed up the experience taken by photographic artist par excellence, Ms. Selena Davidson, I destroyed it. Are you feeling a pit in your stomach right now? Well imagine how I felt and continue to feel. We immediately went into maintenance/retrieval mode to no avail. Where it stands is that we put out emails to all of our best computer/digital photo expert pals, and a few have responded optimistically. Gina...IWOM...in particular is working on it as we type. Help us Obi-IWOM-Kenoibi...you'll our only hope...to be continued.

Ok, if that's the worst that happens to us over here, then I guess that'll be ok; enough of the Europeen traveller seeking pity, no? Thanks, we now return you to your regularly schedule blog update.

The Tour de France: This was 36 hours of adrenaline. Picture the couples on the amazing race and you'll be able to visualize us riding all over Grenoble to find transportation to Bourg d'Oisans--the base of the climb of the famed Alpe d'Huez where we wanted to see the action. It was ridiculous--we were trying to rent a scooter to drive the 40 mins out to the base of the mountain--we tried 3 different places in three different corners of town, necessitating many tram and bus rides...to no avail. We then raced back to the hostel, packed overnight items, paid for the bed that we'd never use, then bussed back to town, outfitted ourselves for camping on less then 50 Euros (including tent and 2 sleeping bags), over to the bus station to get tickets out to Bourg d'Oisans. No problem right? Well there were no buses back to Grenoble the next day, and we had a 9:30 train to catch...so we were heading into the unknown planning to get back "en faisant le stop"...ie hitch-hiking...and yes, we were successful in getting a ride and got back to Grenoble by 9 PM the night before our train out. Good rush.

The experience on the Alpe itself was simply incredible. First of all Bourg d'Oisans had tents and campers on every square inch of open space...all camping for free. We pitched our little tent on an open piece of grass. The next morning the cyclist (not racers) were every where. You see the best option for seeing the tour was on your bike. After blowing a lot of Euros on Tour Schwagg, we hiked up to turn 18 (the Alpe d'Huez has 21 switch back turns - we were three up from the bottom). We waited in the scotching heat for hours. While we waited, didn't Robbie Ventura and Frankie Andreu happen by to do a "spot" next to the sign for Turn 18. For those who don't know, these are the color guys on Versus TV (OLN in Canada) that I watch at home--they're the equivalent of Bob Cole and Harry Neale, let's say. The day went on. First up was the attacking Carlo Saste (whom when asked by Frankie to pick the winner, I chose, btw) who went on to win the stage and take over the yellow jersey. Then came the "Yellow Jersey Group" ie the overall race favourites. This is were Selena snapped her fateful shot of me actually in between the yellow jersey and the pokka-dot jersey (rider with the most mountain climbing points) looking back at the camera wearing my passion on my face...argggggggggghhhhhhhhh!!!! Gina, you're the IWOM!!!!!!!! Pahhhlease. Then the rest of the demolished peloton (it being the third HC climb of the day, the boys were DEAD, I mean they could barely move themselves up the moutain in the heat...)

Home sweet home

The long walk up. Escaping the heat Frankie and Robbie, Baby! Stage winner Carlos Sastre George Hincapie lead left (Lance Armstrong's former right hand man)

Going to have to update you on the Cinque Terre later, must get off to Pisa (in successfully picked up rent a car).

Later. Thanks for reading this mammoth...keep your fingers crossed for my lost pic...