Day 16 - It's Go Time.

19 July 2009

I woke up to probably the most awesome scenic view out my window this morning.

We’re near the Col du Grand Saint-Bernard, which is where the dogs of the same namesake are from. On the podium after today’s stage, stage winner Alberto Contador could be seen with a full-size Saint Bernard dog next to him. So many dogs in France, and Maria the dog lover (who misses her little Alaskan Klee Kai, Fiona) is quick to point them all out.

And speaking of Alberto Contador, well, he sure looked solid today going up Verbier. He dropped Lance pretty bad. I don’t believe for a second though that Lance doesn’t want to make that time back.

We celebrated Mel's birthday today, which was for the first time, not a secret. I guess because it was a big one (30), she had no problem keeping it a secret from anyone.

Coming off the mountain was not fun today; but thankfully, halfway down, we found a back road that took us STRAIGHT down. Through someone’s farm. Cut probably 45 minutes off the drive. Fantastic. I find it humorous that we had to sign some kind of waiver that promised safer driving this year, back on day one, yet we still drive around like maniacs. IT’S OK, we’re media.

Oh hey, what’s up, we’re in Italy. Kind of didn’t realize we would be just passing through, but occasionally that’s the case when trying to avoid certain mountain passes. I have to say, the Italians have it figured out though. See, they had the foresight to build tunnels through the mountains, so you don’t have to switchback over them. It's also funny to hear the GPS try to pronounce the Italian roads, as well. It was nonetheless a very tough drive tonight, 5 hours through, over, and around mountains, just to get to the top of another set, called Les Arcs. It was a competition just to get there, as it turns out many took a wrong turn and went to Torino, some missed the tunnel, and others decided to stay on the mountain in Switzerland for dinner (which turned out to be a bad idea, because they didn’t save any time waiting out the traffic; plus, Joel had the BRILLIANT insight to order pizzas to go). By some wild miracle, and with our GPS staying true, we were the 2nd group to arrive at the final destination tonight. 12:45AM.

And that’s why the ASO created the rest day.