This past weekend was my last chance to get tuned up before going to down under for the Herald Suntour and the Tour of the Southland. I had a nice 50 mile road race and a 65 lap crit in CT all supported by the Mohegan Sun, followed by another 58 mile road race in RI on Columbus Day. The entire weekend was fun; the races were good, the results were good (1st, 2nd, 6th), scraping the rust off was good, and the host housing was great. Plus Mayo very faithfully made the trip from VT to CT. She's nice. And pretty.

I felt the slightest bit like a mega superstar, since I was swarmed by the paparazzi after my race.

Before hand, I really got psyched up and had the juices flowing for the race by doing a puzzle at the Splaine's house. It looks really easy because it's just a map of the world. So getting the land part of our planet Earth isn't very difficult, but the enormous amounts of blue water made for a difficult evening and morning of puzzling. Ruth does not look put off by the difficulty. Probably because she's happily turning 20 in 24 hours.

So that's the last update from the USA. Wish me luck!