Lame Picture taker

I have been really bad about having my camera with me to take pictures and then the one time I brought it, I ran out of batteries! But I did get a few shots before it ran out. I went to the store today and bought more, but I am soon going to run out of money because the Euro to the Dollar has gotten so bad.

This is our apartments at the SRM villa, I would show you the pool but it is under construction.

This is our van (don't worry we don't ride in this one), our bikes do.
View from the race start, you can see all the way to the ocean. Saturdays race start was even more beautiful.

We have lemon trees right outside our door. It's wonderful you can just go pick fresh lemons and they are wonderful!

More Pictures to come. We will be in Lucca this week and then leave on Thursday for Belgium for 2 weeks. Hopefully I will have a lot to report from that trip.

Tired - not much to say

I wish I could say I am tired from racing and training so hard, but I am tired from not being able to sleep. I need to sleep!!!

The WC was really fun, I felt really good and was able to help my team! Luckily the not being able to sleep started only a few nights before the race so I was still rested and ready to race.

Hopefully I will be a little better about taking pictures, it is absolutely beautiful here and need to share it with all of you. I will post more pictures in a couple of days.

LUCCA!!!

Wow, Lucca Italy is beautiful. After a rough trip to Europe (getting motion sick and throwing up in the air plane and then several times after that) I am very happy to be here. The apartments we are staying in are awesome, let me tell you top of the line!

The weather is not great, it has been cloudy and this after noon it started raining and hasn't stopped. Luckily we got in a ride this morning. We went to see the Leaning Tower of Pisa. It was really cool. The ride to Pisa was beautiful, had small little roads, and very old houses. I loved it. I don't know how some cars fit through those small roads. Impressive. Here are some pictures.

Megan, Alison, and Lauren. Cars go on this road, yes it's a road!

Lauren and I with the leaning tower of Pisa.

Off to Europe

I am going to be very surprised if any of my luggage arrives in Italy...Yeah that's right! I got up at 4:15 this morning to head to the airport. We arrived and to my surprise there was a line. This is Durango Airport, one of the smallest airports I have ever seen, they only have one terminal. Well, I walk in the airport and asked the lady in front of me "are you on the 6am flight?" She replied yes and then the check in lady said we are having problems with the computers this morning so we thank you for your patients. I really wasn't worried about making the flight since everyone in line was on the flight. (only one going out) I got up to the counter and I shit you not they are hand writing all the tickets and baggage tags. Wow I thought to myself this can't be good, how are they going to scan my bags in on 4 different flights. This is going to be a nightmare. Well, my bags got to Denver at least. I am not sure they will make the next flight, but I will keep my fingers crossed.

First Race in the US

We are in Exeter California racing the Sequoia Classic. Today was a 40km time trial and tomorrow we have a 90 minute crit. Ouch!

Today was awesome racing on our new bikes! And wow they are fast! Just look at it, wow that's a fast bike!

The scenery was gorgeous and Aarons team did a wonderful job!

Here are the top ten results:

1 Kristin Armstrong

2 Rhodes Alex

3 Felicia Gomez

4 Anne Samplonius

5 Katharine Carroll

6 Leigh Hobson

7 Mara Abbott

8 Molly Van Houweling

9 Kristin Sanders
10 Carmen McNellis

Meredith had a unfortunate mechanical and was unable to finish the race.

Hopefully tomorrow goes well!

Pictures and Stuff

Well, I am almost recovered from the hard racing and brutal travel. I think I traveled for 32 hours straight! That sucked!

I am back in the cold weather and hating it. I left 90 degree weather to come to the cold land of Durango and it's been in the 30 and 40 the past week. Well, at least the roads are clear and I can ride outside and I don't have to be on the trainer.

Feeding seagulls french fries, wow they loved them, they came by the hundreds.

Kangaroos hanging out at the golf course.

New Zealand was beautiful. This was the day of the tt and the wind was brutal! Just look at the waves and grass!

The day of the presentation some High School students performed the Haka dance. They use to do this dance before they went into battle. It's a pretty intense dance.

Another beautiful picture of New Zealand!

Almost Home

I successfully completed my first international stage race and World Cup! I had a wonderful time the past two weeks getting to know new team mates and race my bike.

Our wonderful swanee found this golf course were you could eat dinner and see kangaroo's. It was awesome, there was so many just hanging out eating the grass. I think this was a momma and a baby.

We got to New Zealand last week and it was absolutely beautiful. Unfortunately I didn't take a lot of pictures, I was really tired most of the time and the didn't have time to "site see." Luckily Alison is sharing pictures with me so between her pictures and mine I have some to share!

This is a group of school kids who presented at our pre race introduction. They danced and sang for us. They performed the Haka, which is a tribal dance performed before going into battle. The all blacks (rugby team) performs the dance before they play. It is really cool check out this website.

We had a five hour lay over in Sydney, so Chrissy, Alison, and I left the airport and walk to a little town called Wallie Creek. It was great, we found a coffee shop at lunch and relaxed. Much better than sitting in the airport for 5 hours!

I have more pictures on my camera, so I will down load them and put them on the blog when I get home. DIA has free internet, so I can pass my time by writing a blog!