![\"Grand](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/paualready.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/20131128523_grand-depart-utrecht2015-img-b-300x199.jpg?resize=300%2C199\")
<\/a>Early last week I sent a text to our Gallant sailing friend Sophie saying we\u2019d be in Amsterdam in early July and, if she wasn\u2019t at sea, it\u2019d be great to get together. Somewhat surprisingly, Sophie replied she not sailing this year. More surprising for me was her invitation to meet in Utrecht and take in the start, the \u201cGrand D\u00e9part,\u201d of the Tour de France. Why the \u201cDUH!!!\u201d moment? For the past several years, we\u2019ve been pretty heavy followers The Tour. The 2010 trip was built around it taking in stages in
\nRotterdam, Brussels, Bordeaux and Paris. I know that late last year when the course was published, I looked over the route, but somehow just didn\u2019t put it all together. Senility creeps up on you.<\/p>\nAnyway, on Saturday we\u2019ll take the kids on the short train ride to Utrecht catch some EU marketing activity at its very best. The advertising Caravan, something you never see on TV, is beyond description.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
We spend a lot of time mapping out our little international excursions. This go around however, we seem to have had one good sized space-out moment. Early last week I sent a text to our Gallant sailing friend Sophie saying we\u2019d be in Amsterdam in early July and, if she wasn\u2019t at sea, it\u2019d be …<\/p>\n
Head in the clouds?<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-euro-2015-trips"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6E0Kx-rh","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paualready.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paualready.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paualready.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paualready.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paualready.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.paualready.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.paualready.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paualready.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.paualready.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"Grand](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/paualready.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/06\/20131128523_grand-depart-utrecht2015-img-b.jpg\")
<\/a>Early last week I sent a text to our Gallant sailing friend Sophie saying we\u2019d be in Amsterdam in early July and, if she wasn\u2019t at sea, it\u2019d be great to get together. Somewhat surprisingly, Sophie replied she not sailing this year. More surprising for me was her invitation to meet in Utrecht and take in the start, the \u201cGrand D\u00e9part,\u201d of the Tour de France. Why the \u201cDUH!!!\u201d moment? For the past several years, we\u2019ve been pretty heavy followers The Tour. The 2010 trip was built around it taking in stages in