The Tour - on a map

Tonight, Dave and I actually sat down and mapped out the entire tour on a map of France (we're hoping to get a race bible somehow to discern the exact roads and what we'll need to bypass). Let me tell you, if Dave isn't overwhelmed, at least I am.

Maybe it looks different in person, but on a map - there's a helluva lot of ground to cover. Plus he wants to add in a ride up Alp d'Huez at the end. I'm just tired thinking about the driving!! I think I'm getting a bit more nervous about his riding now that I've seen where the routes go. Some of them go through big, big cities, others go through little towns, others go through ... nothing, oh, except those HUGE, HUGE mountains they call the Swiss and French Alps or the Pyrenees or ... or ... excuse me while I get a bag and hyperventilate.

We've decided that I might just pick him up on the outskirts of some of the big cities and drive him to the other side (well, hopefully he'll drive ... I STILL haven't begun my lessons in driving a stick shift). There are a couple of long drives between cities that the pros actually fly to (we may be taking two days to do at least one of the drives). And the mountains, did I mention the mountains?

Yeah, the motor home is equipped with a stick shift. They only rent stick shifts in France for motor homes. The only problem ... I've never learned to drive a stick shift. We have 5 weeks or less for me to learn. That freaked me out, but the "freaking" got even worse when I asked if going up the hills was the most challenging (this said, because the last time I tried to learn a stick shift was when Jeff House tried to teach me in college and I couldn't get up the hill at the football stadium; I wound up letting the cars go around me and backing back down, getting out and swearing I'd never drive a stick again - Vicki, do you remember that because you were laughing in the back seat?). No, Dave said, the worst part is really going down the hills. Did I mention the mountains yet? DOWN THE HILLS? Does he mean, off the side of mountain?

Oy veh.
- Julie