Updates - Personal and Le Tour

I'll start off with Le Tour and put my personal stuff below the cut (on selected places where I post daily) so here goes...

Tuesday's route ended with a Cat 2 mountain - not a high category, but
many of the riders were tapped out by then and cracked on these slopes.
Additionally, there was a very tricky and technical downslope into Gap.

Yesterday's Le Tour was hilly and very hard on the pack, but Froome is still in yellow and the Alps are even closer. Today is an individual 32 km time trial with two Cat 2 mountains the focal points. All of this leads to tomorrow's incredible stage - Alpe-d'Huez - TWICE! Unless there are falls or complete breakdowns today there probably won't be much shuffling in the ranks. Tomorrow? Well, tomorrow will be another day that will break the peleton apart. Maniacal laughter is echoing in my head as I contemplate tomorrow's battle royale.

Today's route is short, only 32 km, and an individual time trial. The fact that
two Cat 2 mountains are part of it will aid in increasing the time gaps before we
hit the Alps for real tomorrow.

Now for personal news. Sometime between 7:00 p.m. Monday night and 8:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, my father-by-marriage died. He died in his own home, an accomplishment for someone who is 95 years old. A lot of that was due to the daily care and visits that my DH made, as well as the visits and phone calls from his daughter (my sister-in-law), grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Obviously we'll be tied up with things like funeral arrangements, etc., and this will pull me into a church again (I'm always rather surprised that I don't burst into flames when I cross that threshold). But my DH will need my support and I'll give it to him.

It's been hard on my husband. It's not that we didn't expect my father-by-marriage's death, he was 95 years old and in failing mental health. It's more that as prepared as you may be for a parent's death, it will always hit hard when it actually happens. So...now it is my own generation who are the elders in my family and that's rather frightening. Now to just get through the next week or so...