What A Day To Be Driving!

This is what it looked like as we were leaving the Shriner's Hospital.

Lauren likes the snow. I don't mind it. But driving in it today was more than challenging. It was a bit white-knuckle at times, very slow going and generally a big adventure.

Blowing snow and 40-50 mph winds created white-out conditions – even in town. The snow was falling so fast, the plows could not keep up, especially in the in-town areas. More than 650 traffic accidents were reported statewide and the Minneapolis Star-Tribune wrote: "By evening, motorists were mired in gridlock, with evening commutes taking twice, sometimes three times longer than usual." We can certainly attest to that. On the way home from our dinner at Pizza Luce in the Uptown district with my friend Melissa German, we were traveling at five miles an hour most of the time.

We stopped to put air in the van's tires. This is all you could see of me out the window.

The purple lines are roads that were not recommended for travel.

The temperature might have said four degrees, but the wind chill was -25.

This is pretty much what our drive looked like all day.

Driving To Minneapolis

We fought a strong headwind as we headed north toward Minneapolis.

Lauren and I set off today for Minneapolis and her appointment at the Shriner's Hospital. We were going to drive up early Thursday morning, the day of her appointment, but two things changed those plans: Omaha Public Schools called off classes for Wednesday and the Shriner's footed the bill for a night at a hotel.

So we headed out of Omaha about 11:30 a.m. and enjoyed good driving conditions. There was a lot of snow in the Des Moines/Ames area and then again some in Minnesota. But overall, it was a pretty uneventful trip. I joked that a "trained monkey" could make the drive, turning right at the I-80/I-29 junction and then a left at I-35.

We are staying at the former "Kelly Inn" by the Xcel Energy Center. Photos of that to come...

Minnesota has a very nice 3-D sign to welcome its visitors.

Between reading and checking her phone, Lauren was enjoying the ride.

Check out the rainbow (at right) that Lauren spotted.

There was definitely more snow in Iowa than in Omaha.

We saw quite a bit of this as we traveled through Iowa and into Minnesota.

As Seen On SnapChat...

Here's hoping Emily sends me a follow-up.

Visit To Ashland

This contraption at the park was clearly a hit.

We took advantage of some unseasonably nice fall weather to drive down to Ashland and visit our cousins. It is a little more than an hour's drive down Highway 75 and they have recently resurfaced some of the roads. So it was a quick trip up and back.

Cousin Ann and her kids enjoyed a nice picnic lunch with us before playing on the playground.

Here are a few highlights:

The kids clearly enjoyed the "spider web" play area.

Who knew Ashland has a nine-hole frisbee golf course?

Julia was on top of it all.

A Change Of Plans

Self-portrait on the back window of team car 1.

First, I must say that it's nice to not have to make my photos extremely small so I can upload them. The hotel where we are tonight (Barceló, near San Sebastian) has screaming fast internet. That means I'm up late uploading all kinds of stuff.

So my weekend schedule was turned upside my a most unusual day here at Vuelta al País Vasco. You can read all about it here, but suffice it to say that only one BMC Racing Team rider remains in the race. That means I'm headed out tomorrow before the final time trial even begins.

This also means that the post-stage drill I did after this race last year is changed up. But let's re-visit it anyway. It was one of my favorite times of the season last year.

Here is the approximate route I will drive Saturday and Sunday.

So, last year, I worked on-site for both the Volta a Catalunya and the Vuelta al País Vasco ("Tour of the Basque Country"). In between, I went back to Belgium. This year, I only arrived in Europe on the eve of the later race. País Vasco ends on Saturday (in Spain) and Paris-Roubaix, the most famous one-day race in cycling, is the next day. So for me to work both races means a lot of driving.

You can see from the map at right what lies ahead. It's approximately 670 miles (1,079 kilometers) from where I am tonight to the finish line in Roubaix, France. It is the equivalent of driving from Omaha to Dallas.

So last year, after Marco Pinotti made the podium at País Vasco for winning the sprint classification, I jumped in a team car with one of our mechanics and started driving. We reached Futuroscope around 11 o'clock that night, tried to get dinner (which was next-to-impossible at that late hour) and woke at 5 a.m. to get back on the road.

We drove as fast as possible to reach "the rendezvous point," which is a town square about 15 kilometers from the start of Paris-Roubaix. It is where all the auxiliary staffers and support people gather to ready for the 27 cobblestone stretches of the race. It was there that I hitched a ride to the finish with the team's chef. About an hour into the drive, we caught up with the BMC Racing Team motorcoach, which was going directly from the start to the finish.

One at the finish, I met up with my colleague, fellow press officer Blandine Roquelet, and we watched the race, first from the velodrome, then on the team bus, and later in the velodrome just before the riders arrived. As the race finished, she took Alessandro Ballan to the podium (he finished third in a photo finish) while I attending to Thor Hushovd and Taylor Phinney and George Hincapie. This meant coordinating interviews in the velodrome and later at the team bus (with team personnel like Jim Ochowicz and John Lelangue as well). It's a frenetic hour of absolute mayhem as riders describe the race and the press clamors to get every comment before the riders and staff bust out in separate directions.

For me, it was a nice moment when I greeted the riders at the finish. Totally exhausted and dirty from riding six or so hours on rough roads, they each broke a smile when they realized I was there. Some hadn't seen me since training camp in January. "What are you doing here?" was their first question because few knew I would be there and many hadn't seen me in months. It was a nice moment for both of us.

So the interviews are wrapping up and it's time to go. Where you say? To the train station, of course. There, we munched on McDonalds before hopping onto the TGV to make the hour-long transfer to Paris. All this time, I'm frantically writing and uploading photos and audio files, etc. The process continues at check-in at the hotel at the Charles de Galle airport, where last year my room overlooked the runway. It was crazy, working away into the late hours of the night, recalling the past 24 hours that had me in Spain, then to France, then to a race and then preparing to head back to the U.S. It will be the same this year and I'm really looking forward to it.

I neglected to mention earlier this week that I am taking all kinds of photos. You can see five days of them here. The harder it rained, though, the fewer I snapped. So Friday's count was way down.

On to the pictures because it's getting late.

This was actually at dinner. Very, very good. I ate all of it.

Here's a look at the daily pastries on offer at the hotel we checked out of today.

Our team chef made this huge omelet. I only had half of it.

Here's the other half of the offerings at breakfast.

Check out that egg sandwich. (I didn't have dinner last night.)

Huge bed. With printing on the top sheet, no less. And a room service menu in the corner.

Nice chair and desk set up as well. Pretty well lit, too.

That mural is on the sliding door of a huge closet.

A few nice amenities and a hair dryer I won't be using.

I didn't immediately notice the stool until I was reviewing this photo.

No separate shower but there's a foot washer!

Nice little light and mini bar set-up on the desk. There is a refrigerator below it.

I have a nice balcony. But it was raining nearly the entire time tonight.

And being that I have a corner room, the balcony extended around the corner.

It's a four-star hotel, but feels more like a five-star.

Ah yes, I will be bringing these back. They're the 2013 versions, which I did not have.

That is snow on the ground. Yes, it was snowing during our evening team meeting.

An Early Morning

Sunrise on my way back from the Alicante airport.

This chef doesn't speak a word of English. But she sure makes a good omelet.

Snowy Drive Into Work

As you can see, it was a bit snowy on the drive in to work today.  

Check out the four riders on the right, braving the snow and slush.

 

Driving In The Snow

The drive after picking up the girls today.