Oh, The Places We Went

So I'm talking with my co-worker Tim today, who's also a Tour de France enthusiast, and it got me looking in our old Kodak Gallery albums to see if we had uploaded pictures from our trip back in 2004 when we saw Lance win #5. Unfortunately, for some reason we never uploaded anything to the site from our trip, but what I DID see shocked the hell out of me.
I'm not sure exactly how much freakin' fun we were having back then, or who's money we were spending, but it seems like another completely separate reality from right now.
Our Christmas letter must have seemed like a Travelocity "brag book" that year.
It's ridiculous.
Just in 2004 alone, we took trips to:
Feb: Colorado- our big ski trip to Breck with a bunch of family
June: Dallas - a long weekend at the 4 Seasons (yes, the 4-freakin-seasons) for Braxton's 30th
July: France, for the Tour and sightseeing in Paris and the Alps
August: Seattle and Tacoma, for my friend Barry's wedding and to see Jon for a few days.

Throw in Grand Rapids and Door County a few times, and holy shit... we traveled our ASSES off that year! How we didn't earn free flights to the moon I have no idea...

In other news, I'm looking forward to a weekend at home of yard work, painting, and more TDF on Versus. Le Tour is visiting L'Alpe d'Huez again this year, that should be a monster stage with the climb ending a 208k day. Addie was asking me the other day who I was cheering for, and I told her I hadn't decided yet.. there are several new names this year, and the teams are all jumbled up from what we were used to back in the Lance years. But I've decided I'm pulling for Christan Vandevelde (from Lemont, IL!) who's in 3rd place in GC right now, racing as part of the Garmin-Chipotle team. Hey, they're probably getting free GPS units and steak burritos during the race.... awesome!
It's nearly time to head to the shanty... happy weekend!