Friday, January 17, 2014

Argentina- photo highlights

 In no particular order...
Alexis and I went 1-2 on Stage 3. Check out our sweet trophy's!
 I stole this photo of me winning the stage. Cycling Illustrated posted it on FB. It's a good one!
 This is 80% of the terrain around here. Flat and desert.
 We were in the newspaper after the team presentation. The media love us and especially Mara- who speaks Spanish.
 We found coffee! It looked pretty
 But tasted awful!

It was nothing like this place.
Mountains!! We rode up and over three times on day 2 of training.
 More newspaper time. Pretty sweet.


Saturday, January 11, 2014

From Winter to Summer in 40 hrs

 One week ago, I was snowshoeing. It was 8 degrees and snowing.
Fast forward 4 days to a 4:30 am wake up, trip to DIA (thanks LP!), and a flight to Miami. It felt like Miami was the final destination. I was with Mara Abbott and we had a 7hr layover before flying to Argentina for the Women's Tour of San Luis. Mara and I caught a shuttle and went to a hotel to hang out.
 7 hrs turned into 10 hours as our flight kept getting delayed. Finally we took off and, luckily, I was able to sleep most of the 8hr flight. We landed in Santiago, missed our flight, and got to wait 5hrs in that airport. It would have been nice to go outside, but the customs line was at least 2hrs long and, being American, we get to pay $190 to enter Chile. So, we chilled- inside.

A 1hr flight over the Andes (super pretty) brought us to Mendoza where we got to wait an hour in the customs line, pay our $160 visa fee, and get on the bus. We were told it was a 2 hr bus ride to San Luis.

2hrs later, the view still looked like this-- flat and barren and San Luis was no where in sight.
Finally, at 9:30pm (3.5hr bus ride) we arrived at our hotel. 40 hrs of travel.

1 week ago, I was snowshoeing in 8 degree weather, and today I was riding bikes in 88 degree weather.
And, seeing a family of pigs.

Plus, I attacked and dropped a teenage boy who was trying to stay on my wheel today. :)