What to Do on a Rainy Day

KERRI CAME UP with the idea at about 10:00 this morning: 'where does the Tour de France end up today?' she asked. When I said Toulouse she wanted to know how far away Toulouse was from our house. When I told her it was about a hour-and-a-half she just blurted it out: 'Let's go!' The weather forcast for the day wasn't great so it seemed like a pretty good idea. What else were we going to do?

An hour later we were in the car on our way to Toulouse (2 1/2 hours later we were eating lunch at the Toulouse IKEA, but that's for another post...visiting IKEA for the first time in nearly a year deserves more thought and analysis). We found our place about 700 meters from the finish and watched the end of the rain-soaked stage. We were right on the fence and had a great view of the pack as they sprinted to the finish. There is a 1 minute clip on versus.com and if you pause the video at about the 26 or 27 second mark, I think you can see the 'thundersticks' that Patrick and Julia were holding. Actually, I'm not at all sure it's them, but that is about where we were standing.

If you look carefully at the photo you can see Patrick (yellow hat), Henry, Kerri (just her hair), and a bit of Julia. And, if I'm not mistaken, the green jersey of Oscar Friere.

CJS