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This just in, from Desiree Crossman:

Last Saturday (April 27), John and I were driving around Clermont because we wanted to see what was around it. It doesn’t get dark here until 10:00 at night so we didn’t know what to do for a long time so we drove around to take pictures of the area. We drove up by Puy-de-Dome which is an old volcano that isn’t active anymore but has a lot of hiking trails. So we drove around that and John showed me the Clermont-Ferrand race track which apparently use to hold GP’s there.

We didn’t know what we were going to do on Sunday, so John said, “Let’s go to Paris,” so we did.

We called up our family and told them that we were on our way to Paris for the night and were gonna check out the Eiffel Tower. It was a three hour drive to Paris and that’s all we knew. We had no idea where to go, where we were going to stay, all we knew is the Eiffel Tower and that’s where we headed. We were completely lost in Paris and John was starting to get frustrated. But eventually we found a hotel next to the tower and had a great view from our window. We were so excited. It’s not often people get to go to Paris and not only were we able to go, but we decided to drive there. John and I thought, “well, why not?” So it was cool to do that.

But on Sunday, it was freezing cold and rainy. Of course our luck. It didn’t stop us though, we climed to the top freezing our hooskers off. We took a picture, but it was sooooooo cold and so windy that all you can see is my hair completely covering my face and John’s windbraker blowing him away. It’s a funny picture.

Anyway, we are in Jerez now and John got 13th. The crowd is phenomonal. There were over 100,000 people here and more throughout the weekend. Probably 150,000 give or take. That’s the minimum. GP races, fans go absolutely nuts. I’ve never seen anything like it. All night long you hear people partying and reving engines. ALL NIGHT!!! If only the motocycle enthusiasts in the US knew the atmosphere, it’s crazy. It’s neat. We’ve heard Mugello is worse.

We had a good weekend, though, and now it’s off to Italy for a test. Just following up and we’ll keep in touch.