With Walla Walla now a successful memory, Alan and I headed to Park City to drop off the van before flying to Arkansas for the Joe Martin Stage Race. En route we stopped for some lunch/coffee in Boise.
Big City coffee. Ironically in a small city.
We drove on to Park City.
The view from Jon's host house on the hill above Main Street. We should all be so lucky.
Alan and I were so lucky as to get a ride to the airport. As it turned out we were flying with a lot of luggage between 5 sets of wheels, bottles, spare parts, tools, and clothes. Just about as much as the two of us could drag through the airport.
Not sure what to say about this sign in the Little Rock airport. I'll let you be the judge of exactly what type of magic happens in this area.
Time to kill before picking more people up = time for some refreshment. Best meal $4 can buy.
Since we flew out to Arkansas we didn't have the luxury of our usual team vehicles. But we made due with some very nice rentals.
First things first: take all the bikes out of their Pika packs and make them whole bikes again. Glad to have a day to prepare before racing started.
Birds eye view of our Ford Focus. Things were beginning to come together at this point.
Oh, and if you didn't think that your tax dollars were getting put to good use: think again. TSA opened and inspected each and every one of the 9 Pika packs that came on this trip. They also stole my glue. Bastards.
Ready for racing in the sun.
Slightly more cramped than usual.
The first stage of Joe Martin is an uphill time trial at Devils Den state park. Bikes happened, lots of teams were there, but most importantly the park rangers had ATVs.
Since we felt that sharing a title sponsor and a bike sponsor was not enough, we elected to also share a parking lot with our friends from the Jamis Hagens-Berman pro team.
However I can see how the trailer is a good idea. Our hotel rooms was a bit on the full side.
Getting up before the first road race was very reminiscent of Seattle. Oh rain, I've missed you so.
I wasn't the only one making adjustments for the rain. David modified his rain jacket for the combination of slightly warmer temperatures and moisture. The rumor is that the Castelli rain shirt will be out sometime this fall. Obviously models have already been selected.
The stage 2 start was also in the Wal Mart parking lot. This is how things get done in the midwest.
Guys staying warm in the van before stage 2. 
This was supposed to be a picture showcasing the beauty of Arkansas. Hopefully that came across. It was green. They have rivers. Not just Wal Marts.
Peloton! We went to feed Danny in a 4 man break, which meant we were next to the road when the peloton rode by.
After a hard day of bike racing burritos are a pretty good dinner option. Flying Burrito was the mexican food choice for this trip.
Crit day featured Danny and I wearing matching T shirts at lunch.
Just to make sure people knew we were together, we also wore our matching sunglasses.
(Programing note: there were pictures of the crit. But they were bad. In general most crits look the same. Espacially at the big races, the same teams/mechanics can be seen in the pit. Just to fill the space, here is a picture of the Redlands crit.)
If you ignore the plam trees its the same.
And with that comes the end of the Joe Martin Stage race. So all of the bikes headed back into the bags to fly to Silver City.
We even had time to check out the local customs. Staz and Danny shopped for suspenders at Wal Mart.
Steve gave the motorized shopping cart a try.
And we ended with a night out on the town. For bike racers that meant froyo and home by 10.
On to the Airport and Silver City for The Sram Tour of the Gila!
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