So Saturday the four of us (my mom and dad, J.R. and I) headed out to Pasadena, the Rose Bowl more specifically. We found a place along the fence and set up camp. My dad, J.R. and I decided to wander around all the tents as we had a bit of time to spare. We got back and we waited until we could see them all ride by. We didn't have to wait too long as a whoosh of bikes flew by. It was incredible how fast they went. If you blinked you would miss it. A few minutes later there was another whoosh as the Peloton* flew by. As they did the crowd around us (and believe me there was a pretty big crowd lined up) cheered and rang cowbells as they raced by.
We were actually pretty spoiled as they had to race around the Rose Bowl 5 times before the end of the race, which was just 300 meters from where we were standing. We were able to see them fly by a total of 6 times, highly unusual for a race. By the end of the race all hesitance of coming to the race was gone. I had a blast. We all did.
After the race, my mom and I headed over to Lance's team bus, which wasn't far from where we were sitting. I don't know if that was just crazy, stupid or a bit of both. There was a huge crowd surrounding this bus. We actually saw him just as he walked on the bus. We stood there and waited for a bit. I'm not sure what the point was because my mom and I are pretty short and even with her arm raised all the way up the only pictures she was catching were of people's heads and arms. As time passed more and more people crowded around and the throng of people started to push forward. It was a little scary. Then he came out and started to sign autographs.
Try as she might there was no way my mom was getting a picture from her vantage point. For heaven sake, the only thing I could see were the people around me. We stood there for a few minutes, we couldn't have moved if we really wanted to honestly. There was one man standing next to my mom who was a giant of a man. He must have been at least two heads taller than my mom. So my mom finally asked him if he was able to see and if he had gotten any pictures. He said he had, so my mom asked him if he would take some pictures for us. He was nice enough to do so and got some pretty good shots.
The pictures my mom was getting.
The actual picture.
Then it was time to go. However, there's a small problem with that as there were at least a hundred people behind us pushing forward. There was no where to move. Thankfully, a lady next to us decided to leave the same time we did and we followed her as we pushed through the wall of people. It was madness!
We finally found my Dad. But J.R. was no where in sight. He was lost in the crowd of people trying to see Lance. After waiting a few minutes, J.R. finally came walking towards us with a big grin on his face. Apparently, he was able to push his way to the front by playing the old cancer card. He got his shirt signed and even spoke with Lance very briefly. It made his day as I know J.R. is a pretty big fan for obvious reasons. It also made my day as I knew this was something that J.R. really wanted.
We all left excited and wanting more. We talked about going to the final stage in Escondido the next day. But we just left it as talk because we had church the next morning. We actually even said we were willing to ditch church for the day, but we had a meeting we had to attend after church. So we left it at that.
10:00 that night, J.R. received a call from my Dad. He and my mom decided to drive down to Escondido Sunday morning to watch the end of the race. We were definitely in for that.
Tomorrow I'll finish up our fun filled weekend. Until then here are some pictures from that day.
(*For those of you that have no clue about cycling, the Peloton is what they call the main group of riders.)
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