July 17

Angie bounced up this morning ready to go. I’m ready to go see my dogs, she proclaimed. We packed up and caught a cab to the airport. I tried not to think about the press conference that we were missing. Lance was speaking on behalf of the Presidents Council on Cancer and we desperately wanted to go. If we did, we would miss our flight. We had tried repeatedly to change our flight, but had no luck. We both hated to end our trip on such a disappointment. After all, it was cancer that brought us to France for the third year in a row.

Our funny desk clerk helped carry our bags out to the cab and took a picture of us in front of the hotel. I had hoped our flight back would be uneventful. It started nice. The terminal was brand new, only opened two weeks ago. It went downhill from there. Delta screwed us again, same as usual. We were barely off the ground when they announced our non-stop flight to Atlanta would be stopping in Bangor Maine to swap flight crews. As soon as they said that, I knew we would miss our connection, which would put us on the last flight into Birmingham at about 10:30. Which was the later flight we had tried to get so we could make the press conference. To top it off, the Delta agents in Atlanta had obviously had their “Be Rude to the Customer Training”, so we got just what we expected. Oh well, what would life be without its challenges?

In a few days we’ll look back at our pictures and put our 2003 photo album together and remember mostly the good times. Riding our tandem up the beautiful mountains in France, driving through the fields of sunflowers, lavender and wine vineyards, laughing at our food adventures and best of all, cheering a fellow cancer survivor on to a 5^th consecutive Tour de France victory. He’s never lost as long as we’ve been coming. Guess that means we’ll do this all again next year! Why don't you join us?

Jerry & Angie Kelly

LAF Peloton Project

South Regional Mentor

dogoodoften@gmail.com

Domino, ready to go for six.