July 15 - Vatan to Saint Fargeau

We woke up early today after staying at a noisy, small hotel room across the street from the train station in Bourges. After eating breakfast across the street at the hotel restaraunt, we packed the car with our bikes and suitcases and drove about 5 kilometers to a parking spot wher it looked like it was safe to park the caar for the day - still in the city, but outside the heaviest traffic area. We got the bikes out of the car and off we went - for about a 30 mile ride to see the start of todays stage. After about 10 kilometers, we found out that route took us onto the Tour De France course and we rode in the opposite direction that the tour would be taking in a few hours. The crowds were growing as we rode and many of the small villages had already begun festivities in anticipation of the riders coming through in a few hours. It was great fun as people cheered for us as we motored by - on our way to Vatan. After riding 25 miles and less than 5 miles from the start, we were stopped by the geandaime and told to get off the course. I tried reasoning with the officer by telling him I was "with the team", burt it sounded like he had heard this before - we were kicked off. After zig-zagging through the back roads of the town we were in, we found ourselves back on the course, but headed in the opposite direction - the way the boys woulod be coming in a few hours. We traveled back about 5 miles with people again cheering for us along the way until we came to a small village by the name of Mehun sur Yevre with a cafe right on the course! We stopped and parked our bikes and sat down for a cup of tea and we decided this wouod be a gret spot to watch. After about 45 minutes, the caraavan began to pass by with the crazy drivers throwing free samples of hats, water, trasding cards, plastic wind ponchos and anything else you could think of. In another 30 minutes, the riders came through the village with two riders off the front and the rest one minute behind. Gary was luck enough to snag an Astana water bottle that was discarded and thrown by none other than Lance himself. (Gary has decided to submit the bottle to the French authorities to see what it contained, but not before he took a swig of what was inside - now I know why he rode back to the car at 45 miles an hour....). Right after the pack passed through, we got back on our bikes for the 25 mile ride home. We were now back on the same course the boys had just passed through and the crowds were still huge as the cheered us on - again, great fun with some of the team and support cars following us along the way. After about 90 minutes, we were close to where we had parked the car - - or were we? My Garmin GPS was pointing us in one direction back to the car - but it was not correct and we had not written down exactly where we had parked. For the next 2 hours, we searched the city for the car and we even back tracked to the hotel we had spent the night before to try to re-trace the drive we had taken earlier in the day. After riding more than 70 total miles, we finaly "stumbled" on our beloved car. We quickly got the bikes into the car and proceeded to the bar across the street for a "soothing cup of tea". After relaxing for 30 minutes we began our journey to the next city, Aix-En-Othe, about a two hour drive away where we will ride the next morning to the start of Thursday's stage - this time, we will not rely on the Garmin GPS to get us back!