Eric Smith, Eric Tucker, driver Wendy and I headed down to Miller *very* early. We got the the LZ around 8:15, and the forecast looked pretty good with the weather service predicting top of lift around 12900 but Dr. Jack saying more like 14000. They were calling for L&V winds in the morning, 10 NW in the afternoon.

We hiked our stuff out to the north and east launches and set up. Eric Tucker was first off the north launch on one of Eric's numerous Falcons. He has a great, strong launch and got away well. Not too much lift that early (around 10:30) and he didn't have his vario along, but he got an extended sled ride with time to cruise around the LZ a few turns before landing. A nice job.

I was next at 11:15, found no lift along the cliffs and started to fly out but found one about half way to the LZ. Got to 9000 over launch by the time Eric launched, maybe 20 minutes later.

We boated around the Huachucas for a while at altitudes to 13200, getting a ways west of Carr peak before coming back (it was predicted NW in the afternoon) and heading into the valley. I was impatient and headed for Palominas a little bit early; predictably found myself low over the school along Rt. 92 looking for something, anything. going up. Eric saw me frantically scratching and figured I must have found something good - that misunderstanding cost him about 4000 of his 12000 feet. After 15 minutes or so between 60 up and 60 down at 800 AGL I finally caught something drifting through and was able to join Eric in a real thermal back up to 9500.

We continued west slowly, never getting much above 9000 and having to stop frequently to thermal. We got past the San Pedro by a few miles, and Eric landed at a ranch about a mile south of Rt. 92. I was by the highway, figured landing with him was better than guessing the ground winds at my location so zipped down, circled overhead until Wendy and Eric Tucker found us, and then landed.

Right after that an *extremely* irate rancher/landowner tore up in his pickup truck and started yelling at first one of us, then another, making the rounds and then starting with the first again. He's apparently had several years of escalating trouble with illegal immigrants, Border Patrol, Minutemen, environmentalists and "libruls." I can't believe he called us "libruls". Me, sure, but Eric Smith? That's just crazy talk.

Finally Wendy started chatting up the rancher, they found they knew some of the same people, and things de-escalated quite a bit. He was still grumpy when we left and told us never to land there again, but it was a big improvement from the point at which I was pretty sure we were going to spend the night in the Sheriff's lockup for defending ourselves from a rancher attack.

Still, that wasn't enough to spoil a really nice day. It turned out to be a 19 mile XC as measured on the topo map. I was in the air 2:45, Eric about 2:15 or so.

But next time I'm landing next to the highway.