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Sunday, July 25 - Paris  # 6

I was up showered and out the door about 6:30 am. Angie was going to follow me shortly. We had packed everything up last night so I could scoot this morning and hang our signs and banners to save our spot on the Champs.

   When I got to our location, I was a bit disappointed because there were a couple of people already in the spot I wanted. No worries, it is a big street, so I just moved down a few feet. I went ahead and tied up our LAF & LiveStrong signs on the barricades. A nice Frenchman and his son crept into the edge of my signs, but again it is an open street and I couldn't do much but make friends with them in  hopes they'd repay the kindness.

   It wasn't long before familiar faces started showing up. Angie made it down and Doug, Joanne, Derrick and Kristi, Jay and Tracy, all familiar faces from past years at the Tour arrived. They helped us drag some barricades around our area and create a box seat of sort. Once we had it setup and covered with LAF, LiveStrong and American flags, it looked too official for anyone to question and too intimidating for someone to enter without asking. Mainly it keeps people from crowding in from behind and crushing you against the barricades. We pulled out some yellow t-shirts that we gave out in return for donations to the LAF. They were gone in a couple of hours.

   Our friend John, with 'Steeler Helmet' Shane arrived, along with some current and former LAF staff. Our buddy Chris Brewer, that maintains Lance's website, stopped by. He ask us how we got the closed in viewing area and then just laughed and rolled his eyes when I told him how we built it. He was only surprised that we weren't charging a donation to the LAF to gain entry. A couple of buddies, Jeff and Crawford from Cyclists Combating Cancer, an online cancer support group joined us also. Both are survivors and Crawford is from Scotland. I'm sure he got a kick out of our US southern accents, but Angie and I not only enjoyed listening to him, but he was hilarious.  Our Chechu Fan Club friends, Raul and Carolina stopped by. Kozue, our Japanese/American friend that we met at the Tour de Georgia stopped to see us. We were really happy to see Kris, who had emailed me wanting to meet some Americans to watch the finish with. Her husband was on a previously planned trip and Kris, undergoing current cancer treatments decided it was important for her to come to the Tour. It's the same, almost irresistible attraction of cancer survivors drawn to the strength, determination, hope and LiveStrong attitude of Lance. You go from a feeling of despair when you first hear you have cancer, to cheering for a fellow cancer survivor to accomplish, this year, what nobody has been able to do in over 100 years, win SIX. It gives you hope and inspires you to fight.

   We spent most of the morning chatting, eating and drinking some good French wine. Almost 10 hours after I started setting up the 'American Village', the race arrived on the Champs Elysees. If it seems like a long time to wait, it is. CB had given me a heads up on the team kit today, as the red stripes were replaced with yellow and Lance's Special LiveStrong black and gold bike. US Postal rolled through the first lap up front and the crowd went crazy. The team cars follow close behind and when the Postal cars pass, they honk and wave to us. We rotate our group around so people can take some pictures and get close to the riders as they roared past us eight times. Our spot on the Champs is just in front of the Arc, but pretty far from the actual finish line. When the race is over, the jersey's presented and they play the national anthem it didn't matter. Everybody was singing as loud as they could in our group. Soon afterwards, all the teams take a victory lap. We must be one of the loudest groups on the Champs, because when the teams stop to get their picture made in front of the Arc, we sing and cheer for all of them. The riders seem almost surprised, but they keep looking at us and waving, when they are supposed to be looking at the camera.

   When the Liberty Seguros team stopped to get their picture made, we sang so long and loud for former Postie, Christian Vandevelde that one of his team directors got out of the car and walked over and shook my hand and thanked us for remembering Christian.