Stage 18 - Le Finale (for us anyways)

(Wow, I hope the computer recorded yesterday's stage -- sounds like d'Huez was amazing! Because we wanted to avoid the huge traffic jam, we didn't stick around to watch the rest of the coverage.)

It's unfortunately here... our last day following the Tour de France this year. Don't dismay though, we will be posting some great video on the site when we get home and have our high-speed Internet connection again -- some that will literally put you right in the action! -- and a few more follow-up posts when we have a bit more time and don't need to type everything on the tiny phone keyboard.

Today, we find ourselves in the Loire region on the lower slopes of Croix de Montvieux, right before the town of Pelussin. Gone are the high Alpes, skinny roads with no shoulders and shear cliffs (and the sound of a generator bringing us live television coverage of the Tour). It's all lush hillsides around these mountains, the sounds of birds, people picnicking, and from where we're positioned... plenty of shade! We thought that we put plenty of sunscreen on yesterday, but we were pretty red by the time we finally found a mirror at our gites last night.

Last night, it took us three hours to drive from our spot on the mountain. We rolled in around 9PM, just in time to interrupt the big dinner set up in the courtyard of our place. Even "luckier" for us, the door to our room was located directly off the courtyard, so we had to lug our bags past everyone and then head back out afterwards to try and find some food at 10PM -- not an easy feat in these small towns. Our first stop was at a truck stop. When we said "manger" the lady looked at the clock and then at us like we were crazy. As we were driving out of the parking lot she actually turned off the light to the place (even though the place was packed). After rolling down the road another kilometer or so we found the Ibis hotel and caught their kitchen before it closed. We both ordered the tasty gratin de macaroni with a Grinbergen Blonde biere for me and a bottle of red house wine for Angel (something got messed up in translation on that one, but we finished everything they gave us -- I helped out on the wine).

After waking up around 5:30AM the past few mornings in order to drive two or more hours into the mountains before they shut down the road, we enjoyed a leisurely morning sleeping in late, going to the supermarché, and eating breakfast at our gites. We struck up a conversation with a nice Dutch family over breakfast who we convinced to catch the Tour, since it literally will be rolling by down the street.

We had a decent outing during the caravan today. Our one goal was to get a while Skoda fisherman's cap. Unlike in year's past, this year they are silk-screened with the stage information, so they're a bit more of a collector's item. Unfortunately, they're still pretty small hats so you would rarely wear it besides at the Tour with everyone else wearing white hats that are too small for their head.

Hope you've enjoyed the somewhat "live" coverage from our spectating adventures. We certainly had an amazing time and have thought of you all often -- Jason would so be the guy on the side of the mountain setting up a satellite TV, Robert would love driving these roads, our parents would hate that we're driving these roads, Jen needs to know we walked to Italy, Jude and Lily are going to love these hats, Amie is going to love the laundry detergent, finally Miles can replace the Disney newspaper from three years ago, Jake would rack up the sponsor booty, and Doug, contrary to what we had hoped, the Chipotle team cars do not pass out burritos. If you're not mentioned here it's just because my fingers can only type so much, not that we don't love you and haven't thought and spoken of you.

Au revoir,
Angel and Tim.

P.S. I caught a Bouyeres Telecom water bottle yesterday.