Tour de France: Yorkshire!

Phil and I were at Mount Bakery at 5 a.m. today, when it opened for live viewing of Day 1 of the 2014 Tour de France.

We were fervently hoping to see some of our Ilkley Blipfoto friends on TV, but given the propensity of American television to run many, many ads, the first place name we heard the announcer say was Skipton, which we visited in 1998. I expect our hopes of seeing Ilkley were lost to those ads.

However, the countryside we did see was lovely, the excitement of the spectators infectious, and how wonderful that Day 1 had such marvelous weather!

I, on the other hand, am under the weather. At least it's something new -- hives (uticaria) that woke me in the wee hours with their itching. I can't remember having hives before, although it's possible that I did in the past, and compared to the health issues that other blippers are facing, it's just a nuisance. I expect that the insect bites I've had in the past couple of weeks triggered this reaction.

Fortunately, my doctor's practice has an after-hours urgent care center open on the weekends from 11 a.m.-5 p.m., so I'll be heading over there in a few hours (I'm writing this at 8 a.m.) to find out what relief measures are available.

In other Blipfoto journals, (1) BerkeleyBlipper posted a fantastic Independence Day blip (don't miss her words, as well as her image), which deservedly made the Spotlight; (2) Phil posted a great photo from last night's beer festival, and (3) our friend DWBham did some major cycling herself yesterday with her husband and son, and now they're in Scotland! Cheer them on!