Some Pictures of the Rouyn-Noranda area that we have.

We really enjoyed the city of Rouyn-Noranda that was the host city for the race this year.  It was a town of about 40,000 people with a lot of the people working for the mining company.  They mined gold and different metals that are in the area.  We stayed in a nice hotel right on the main street and it made it easy to walk to everything and enjoy the people that were moving around all day long.  It was nice to see alot of the people from the city either walking or riding which is a big difference from the states for sure.

One of cool things that happened was while we ate breakfast in the morning at the hotel a elderly women came in every morning and sat at the table next to us and talked about the world travels she has done and how she grew up in the area.  She spoke English rather well and that was a nice thing as she was able to tell us about the area and where the races would be.  She had learned English as a young girl from the soap operas and that her family owned a restaurant and the tourist form the US would teach it to her.  She was a fun person to talk every morning and she made sure she got there to eat by us and talk to us.  She said she was going to miss us and that she loved Maddie and Jess, thanks for the good times in the morning Claire.  

Other then that Cece and Dexie were able to walk around the lake every morning as the paved trail around it was a real nice and about 5 miles.  Also with our room key we were able to go to a health club down the block for free so we all used that everyday which also helped pass the time in between the races.  Also when it was raining it was something to do.  It was real nice to that we could walk to all the places to eat and there were some awesome places to choose from.  Wish we had more time as there was a ton of them that looked nice but we never had a chance to get there after the the races were over.  But other then that we walked around the city alot and took in as much as we could while we were there.  Now it is back to the real world and work.  Later..