By Thursday morning, Dick and Deb Williamson should be home in Auburn, watching the Tour de France on Outdoor Life Network in air conditioned comfort if they choose.

Just don’t blame them for falling asleep, OK? It won’t have anything to with jet lag. It’s just that Lance Armstrong via satellite and Lance Armstrong via plain, close-enough-to-throw-a-bottle-of-spring-water eyesight are two entirely different animals.

There are three types of people in the sporting world: Those who do, those who watch, and those who go.

Dick and Deb have been there, done that and picked up the free hats and T-shirts. They took plenty of pictures of blurry dudes in helmets and spandex and sound like two people who just watched the Super Bowl, World Series, Stanley Cup Finals and a sudden-death playoff at the Masters all rolled into one.

Standing six-deep by the boulevard in Tours and around a bend in Blois to watch Stages 3 and 4 of this year’s Tour was a little like standing behind the velvet rope and watching Elvis walk nine steps from his tour bus to the back door of Madison Square Garden.

You don’t see much, and you don’t care.

“To be here is probably enough, just to have experienced it,” said Dick Williamson, a retired Bates College professor and coach and avid cyclist. “I think the best way to watch the race and see it all obviously is to watch it on TV, but if you want to experience what the Tour de France is all about, you need to come here.”

Williamson gave the Reader’s Digest version of his whirlwind journey on a cell phone as he rode a train to Paris, seven days after he and his wife christened the vacation by beginning their own 60-kilometer-a-day joyride through the French countryside. They rented bikes.

Those of us who haven’t ridden a total of 60 kilometers on a bike since we were 9 would have joined them Monday, when they watched a road stage that began in La Chataigneraie and ended in Tours.

Dick and Deb camped out 150 meters shy of the finish line and admittedly felt and heard more than they saw.

One young woman within arm’s length of the Maine tourists wore a hat to shield herself from ultraviolet rays.

“The breeze from riders going by almost whisked the hat right off her head,” Dick said. “Once they round the corner, that’s it. Most of what you get to see is the before and after.”

The Williamson’s son, Dustin, gave the initial sales pitch.

Dustin watched two stages of the Tour in 2004 and sold his folks on the merits of a week in Europe.

“He told us we had to see it for ourselves,” said his dad. “And he was right.”

Tuesday, while nearly a kilometer from the finish line, felt like more of a ringside seat.

Blois is one of the smallest cities on the Tour. Dick and Deb positioned themselves on a corner for the team time trial, catching glimpses of a new pack of riders every five minutes.

Yes, they saw Armstrong.

“His team looked superb,” Deb said.

Put it this way: Dick and Deb were standing much closer than you and I would be if we purchased $800 seats from a scalper and watched a blue dot named Tom Brady throw a 2-yard touchdown pass to another blue dot named Mike Vrabel from Section ZZZ, Row 52, Seats 17 and 18 at The Game With the Roman Numerals at the end.

Thanks largely to Armstrong, the Tour de France is a similar circus. And like soccer’s World Cup, it has worldwide impact that most of us don’t comprehend.

“What struck me were the unbelievable logistics of putting this on,” said Dick. “You go to a different city for every stage. The riders get up every morning, eat breakfast, run the stage, put their bikes on the team bus, go to the next city, go to sleep and do it all over again.

“There are 2,400 cars. We’re talking major media from every country represented. Each city has to close the streets down for an entire day. It’s really something to see.”

Or not see.

“Oh, Debbie’s taken a lot of pictures,” Dick said. “Some of them are pretty good. Others, you see the blur as they’re going by.”

The way too many of us go through life, in other words.

Not Dick and Deb Williamson. They went, they worked like crazy to get there, and they were rewarded with memories no remote control can provide.

Kalle Oakes is a staff writer. His e-mail is [email protected].