Across the World

Greetings from South Africa! Today is Wednesday July 9, 2008 - 2:15 pm local time in Cape Town. I left Boulder on Monday afternoon, departing from DIA (special thanks to Marcus) a little late, then switching planes in Dulles, then onto Frankfurt where I met up with Taylor, and then finally on for the final 12-hour flight from Frankfurt to Cape Town. We're now in our hotel and are just killing some time and trying to stay awake to keep our body clocks on track.
This first picture above is from the airline lounge in Frankfurt...Taylor is trying to catch up a little bit on the internet. We saw the start of the Tour TT stage...but didn't find out the results until this morning at breakfast.

Unfortunately, my flight out of DIA was delayed nearly two hours and that made the connection in Dulles tight. So tight, in fact, that I literally ran from my arrival gate to the departure gate for the Frankfurt leg. We arrived at 9:50pm and my flight was supposed to depart at 9:54...fortunately the plane hadn't left and I got on board without issue. Unfortunately, though, my luggage didn't make it on board. We actually sat at the gate in Dulles for another 30-minutes before we left, so I thought that would have given them enough time to transfer the luggage - but I guess it didn't happen like that.

I arrived in Frankfurt about the same time as Taylor did, who was coming in from Venice. We had enough time to eat some german fare and then shower/change before the 12-hour flight from Frankfurt to Cape Town. We were styled out in an Airbus 340-600 which is a huge plane. The second picture above is me in the bed position of my seat - I got almost 6 hours of sleep on the way...pretty sweet!

We arrived into Cape Town at 5am and waited for our luggage. Taylor's stuff had made it (his road bike, a case with rollers, and his normal bag) but none of mine made it...which includes Taylor's TT and pursuit bikes, my bike, and my bag with clothes. Yeah - I get another day in the same clothes! Luckily I did have 3 outfits in my carry-on when I left on Monday.

It's cold and raining here in Cape Town. They've been having a lot of rain for several days, but they say it's going to break by the weekend...maybe even tomorrow. We stopped by the track to check things out...it's cold concrete, and many have said bumpy. Originally we were going to build up Taylor's track bike and let him ride a little just to get a feel for it, but instead we just looked around. Colleen Hayduk from PA who is on the US team was there with her dad, and the New Zealand team were the only folks at the track at 7:30am. After our the track scouting mission we went to breakfast and then stopped in a bike shop by the track.

The bike shop is owned by the Willamse family, who happens to be good friends of Allan Wolhuter a native South Africaner who is friends with the Phinney's and who works at Wheatridge Cyclery. It was cool to have a little connection here so far from home. Even more ironic was the fact that the Willamse family is heading to Las Vegas this afternoon for a vacation!

After Taylor had a picture taken with the bike staff (he definitely gets the start treatment in bike shops), we drove to our hotel - The Cape Milner Hotel. On the way, we saw some rainbows - I took them as a good premonition for the trip (pics below). With that...I'll sign off for the today. You can drop me a line with any questions at apexcoaching@comcast.net I'll try to answer as I get time.