Day Two...

Thursday was a pretty good day. Not terribly eventful. After a big breakfast, I set up my bike and went for a little spin around Kniebis. It is a very small town, so that didn't take long. However I did find a bakery, where I bought a really good pretzel, and I got a bottle of wine at a little market. It was very foggy and cool. Definitely pretty grim weather. Nevertheless, I made it outside to run and ride the courses. It is quite evident that we will be running and riding on grass and gravel terrain. However, they are working round the clock to truck in snow to groom for the ski. It's amazing. Everyone talks about how industrious the Germans are, but there's definitely some truth to that. It will be a snowy highway running through an otherwise completely brown and grassy forest. Pretty funny.
Later in the day we went down to Stuttgart. We needed to buy some race tops for our uniforms. Fortunately everything else arrived with our shipment from Craft, so at least it wasn't as bad as last year's swimsuit debacle. We drove around for awhile until we finally found a place to park. The shopping area was really cool. They had a big walking mall and lots of stores. It seemed like a really nice city, but we only had time to see a little of it. We had dinner at a restaurant that served modern fusion cuisine, which was fine. Nothing authentic, but good nonetheless. I did have a really solid German beer. Can't remember what they called it but it was nice. We got back a little late last night, and I had some trouble sleeping. Hopefully the legs feel better tomorrow morning. Not sure whether it's the walking or the restless night but they're kind of tight today. I'll see the ski course today and, best of all, tonight is the parade of nations!
P.S. Let's hear it for Scotty, hanging in with the big dogs of the Tour of Cali! Keep it up homie!