No TDF Ritual

The Tour de France is, simply put, my favorite sports event of the year.  I really get into the Super Bowl and NCAA Basketball finals, but it's the Tour that I anticipate for weeks in advance.

For the past few years, my husband and I have done the same thing on the first day of the Tour.  We sit in front of the TV in our little get-away house.  I knit while he stays glued to the tube, usually with the Tour Edition of Velonews in his lap.  Everything else in the world stops.

This year's plans were no different. 

The night before, while cooking dinner during a thunderstorm, there was a brilliant flash and then a noise that sounded like an explosion.  This was followed by the smell of electrical burning, and then the power went out.  Three hours later, it came back on, and we surveyed any damage.  As you can probably guess by now, the lightning strike affected the TV; it zapped our satellite TV box.

We tried to figure out what options were available.  I called hotels in the area to find out if Versus was on their channel listing.  Nope.  We considered calling the one couple we know there who would understand.  It was too late and they probably had family visiting for the holiday weekend.  We even considered going home.  I cried.  It became more and more obvious that our ritual was not going to occur and that we would miss the first day, and likely the second day, too, of the Tour de France.

You may be wondering at this point, why we didn't consider just streaming online.  Well, we only have dial-up Internet there which is useless. 

I did, however, cast on my Tour de France knit-along project on Saturday morning.  This is going to be a Category 3 climb, for sure.   It's doable, without much pain, but I have to pay attention.  Each row is charted, with decreases, increases or other design features throughout.  This may be asking Robbie McEwen to get to the summit of Alpe d'Huez first.  More to follow in the next week.

In closing, how about that showing by Will Frischkorn on Stage 3?  He's a kid that I've watched race since he was about 13 years old.  I was going nuts throughout the entire stage! 

p.s. I have been trying to get this post completed for four days.  We are having Internet connectivity issues, on top of serious Typepad sluggishness problems, and having to use the desktop, not the fast laptop that I dropped onto the floor last week.  I don't know how the next few days are going to go.  So far, though, no crash.

Comments

[The Purloined Letter]

I clicked through to see the picture of the finished version. What a gorgeous sweater! It will look beautiful on you!