What a great day - turned out that I had booked a Holiday Inn Express just across the road from the start line. Sweeet! Fayetteville is just a darn nice little town - Fate-vyl - they told me to say, real fast. They thought my pronunciation was so funny - they could tell I am from California, they said.

I was walking along the inside of the start line when a woman stopped me and asked if anyone was selling LiveStrong bands - I told her I thought they would be at the finish of the stage. She was so disappointed - said that her husband had bought her a yellow band on the Internet and it turned out to be a fake one. She said she will not wear it as a matter of principle, but as a cancer survivor, she wanted one so bad. OK, you know what I’m gonna say - I took one of mine off and gave it to her. I told her such integrity deserves a reward... She was so happy!

I was right beside Craig Hummer of OLN when he interviewed Lance. My Numero Uno said hello to me before he started the interview with Craig. Lance looked so relaxed and serene - it is real obvious that he is at peace with his decision. He was smiling and happy. I managed to keep my mouth shut and not mess up the interview - Craig trusts me after so much time shoulder-to-shoulder in France and at training camp.

I got kiss, kiss from Chechu - he is so adorable. I got a lot of pics and when I just now downloaded them, the frames are blank - I thought my compact card must be shot, but I think its something else. Grrr- I had a ton of close-ups of the DC Men. The images from my D70 showed up on the card in the camera viewer, and in the Windows preview, but not in my pictures folder. Something is wrong and I can’t figure out what: is it the card, the camera or my software? The properties of the images show up, but the image itself is blank. Anybody out there know something? Please shoot me an email if you do... So all I have are a few images from my D2h to put on smugmug.