I'd like to join you. The current forecast winds are a bit odd for the monsoon (NNW) but at least they are light. I'll plan on being at I-10 and Houghton at 7:30. I have a late night tonight but will check the board for any changes when I get home.

I'll be at Eric's house about 7:00. See you all tomorrow.

So how wsa the flying?

I went tandem with Eric. We had a hard time finding the right cycle. We finally decided to launch. For some reason our launch was not good. Eric felt like his feet were trying to run in slush. I felt like I had a terrible grip on him and the launch was ackward for me, I was probably holding him back. After getting off and finding some thermals my right leg felt like something had released. It was the knee strap. It cause my harness to hike up on my upper body and my legs were dangling and not behind me. I'm not going to lie it scared me. We flew for about 15 minutes and started to make our descent. I knew the knee pads would absorb alot of the impact so I decided to flex my toes so I landed on my knees and toes. It worked pretty well and the landing was actually fun. We both came up with a face full of pollen but happy.

Saturday was another odd sort of monsoon day - not typical in any sense of the word. Winds were predicted light north. When we got to the SE launch it was light and seemed to be mostly over the back from the north, though the aerostat indicated south. We hiked out to the east and north launches and it was also light, but there did seem to be some cycles coming up the north launch. We all set up, and having the easiest glider to assemble, I was ready to wind dummy about 11:30. After waiting for 5-10 minutes I took a light cycle and immediately found a thermal off launch that I took to about 8,500' before it seemed to fall apart. I continued to work some irregular lift that kept me mostly between 8,500-9,500, and one time got up to about 10,200. Despite the clouds building over the mountain tops, the thermals were small, inconsistent, and sometimes rough. In the meantime Rafael got airborne, and after hitting some lift off launch, he eventually started to sink out and made his way out to the LZ. Eric and Whitney were next on launch, and had to wait about a half hour before getting a launchable cycle. Unfortunately, as Whitney described, they didn't get any consistent lift off launch and also had to head out toward the LZ. John then waited on launch in light and variable conditions for another half hour. He was almost ready to pack up when a light cycle allowed him to get airborne. He scratched valiantly, finally getting up above launch altitude, and working up near where I was hanging out. About that time I decided to head for the LZ, and I hit some major sink along the spine. However, I found a thermal just over the hills above the LZ and started back up. John joined me and eventually took it to over 10,000. I decided to continue to the LZ and found a lot of lift just as I had made the decision to land. But coming down in a Falcon is not all that hard, and I had an uneventful if inelegant landing in light and switchy conditions. John flew for about another half hour before also joining us in the LZ. John got about an hour and I got just short of two hours on this atypical monsoon day. Congratulations to Whitney for the tandem flilght, and many thanks to Debbie and Reese for driving, moral support, and helping us out on launch.