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20 July

We shot some pictures and Johan Brunyeel, the team director walked up to get Lance’s bike to walk to the mechanics to be cleaned and prepped for tomorrow. Johan was super nice and talked to us and posed for a picture with Angie. We watched the mechanics for a few minutes, in case Lance or some of the other riders came by. One guy was cleaning out the bus and brought out Lance’s flowers and stuffed lion that he was given for the stage victory today. I shot some pictures of it and Angie petted the lion’s head. Okay, the day did get better!

                We went to a pizza place around the corner and had dinner then headed to the room for a well-deserved rest. Angie was really tired because she managed to get to sleep in spite of the street festival going on outside. It sounds like a Mariachi band is playing, right outside our door. They finally stopped about midnight. If that’s the trade off for the day we had, it was well worth it!

                (Angie)We got up early because we wanted to catch the beginning of the stage in Lavelanet before we headed to Mont Ventoux. We didn’t know what time the stage started, so I had an early morning shower, which was down the hall from our room, and we packed up and loaded the car. We bought a paper on the way to get some breakfast and discovered that the stage started two hours later than we thought! We ate some breakfast and walked around the corner to the Postal hotel. The guys were loading the bikes and cleaning the bus. I stepped up in the bus to talk to the guy there and saw two of Lance’s lions in the seat! One of the mechanics gave us some USPS booklets and team cards.

                A guy walked by with a big inflatable Shamu, that we had seen last year. He was with a group that called themselves “The Cutters” from the movie Breaking Away. They had postal stickers from the Post Office stuck all over themselves and Shamu. They gave us some and told us they had run the previous day with Floyd Landis on a mountain. About then, Floyd came out of the hotel to say hi. He greeted them like old friends – you could tell how excited Floyd was to be at the Tour and thrilled at the Americans that were there to support them. The Cutters gave Floyd a Cutters t-shirt and he changed into it right there. Floyd was really nice and Jerry took a picture of me with Floyd. After he went back inside, I looked up and saw Lance out on the balcony laughing at Shamu. I waved and he smiled and waved back. In a couple of minutes a guy came out of the hotel and over to our group and ask for the Cutters. He gave them Lance’s number 1 sticker and said, “Lance says this is for the whale”. We all cheered and took pictures with Shamu wearing Lance’s number. The team started coming out and heading for the bus. Lance signed the morning paper with his picture on it for Jerry. Floyd came by, still wearing his Cutters shirt. We cheered for everybody. The Cutters told George they would see him on Mont Ventoux and he replied, “You taking the day off?” The team bus started to leave, then stopped, the window opened and George’s number was handed out for Shamu to big cheers from us, then Pena’s number followed – more cheers! After they left we said goodbye to the Cutters and headed to Lavelanet. I napped while Jerry drove. We ended up in traffic with the Allessio Team bus and Fasso Bortolo. They let the busses through but made us stop one town short of the start point but we were on the route. We would have had to stay parked until 4:00pm, so the Gendarmerie let us leave and we headed on to Mont Ventoux. I navigated for Jerry, when I was awake, and it felt like we drove forever. It was over two hundred miles from where we started the day to where we stopped on Ventoux. We did stop and eat on the way at McDonald’s. We also stopped in the town of Orange for food and drinks because we were spending the night in the car on Mont Ventoux. We ended up on the Tour route and snagged a couple of route markers. It was 7:30pm by the time we made it about 6K from the summit and the police had closed the road. We tried to get up another way but the policeman also had that road closed so we went back and found a spot to park in the trees. It was the end of a dirt lane and somewhat private. We shuffled stuff around and got ready for the night. We sat on two garbage bags and dinned on nectarines, bread and wine. We were hoping the wine would be a sleeping aid.