Crestline Soaring Society

Just one of those days Charlie Brown. To start it off I called Rob and Dianne and found their latest shuttle was 11:15, way earlier than I’m used to, but I had to take it. I launched from Crestline at 1:00 and owing to my midday landing phobia I was forced to fly for 5 hours.
Lift was abundant a few hundred feet above the ridge where I wanted to practice so I promised myself I would complete 10 circuits from the house area left of launch to Billboard before quitting. But gremlin thermals kept taking me to 6200 at Billboard so I felt guilty and had to zip over to Pine.
The last 5 times I tried Pine I got my pocket picked, arriving low in sink and quickly having to bail out. But today I arrived high and never got bellow 5800. Latched onto a well-defined core at 1600 fpm and watched the numbers on my altimeter move faster than the money digits on a gas pump. (Does anyone remember when the gallons moved faster than the dollars?)
After enduring two hours of the nice cool temperatures and effortless soaring I decided to head out front to Marshall and practice approaches for a top landing. (When I fly I make believe that one day I’ll top land Marshall like the big boys do.) Made a couple passes, but wouldn’t you know, I kept getting kicked up to 5000 by thermals. Dang.
Spent a couple more hours in the buoyant late afternoon air boating around the radio tower, Marshall, Cloud and Regionals. Flew with an RC glider at Marshall and saw a couple of deer on the move 200 feet below launch. That was a first for me.
And if all that wasn’t enough, at 6:00 the LZ threw me a steady 5 mph SW sea breeze to touch down in. My Sport 2 landed itself on the circle with just a halfhearted flare.
What did I do to deserve this?
In the immortal words of Rebar Dan: “Man this sport is way too much fun."
Is this a precursor for Wednesday?

Mike Z

P.S. The flight was really just 4.7 hours.