If you have any interest in watching me nerd out with fun facts left over from my unused education, then catch me now. I'm not sure that I have ever drank as much gin in my entire life as I have this week.
The weather here has been unbearably windy, which does not make for good flying conditions. So that leaves us to some creative time filling activities. Let's see, we've played Bocce Ball, miniature golf, go-carting, swimming, mastering the art of the wave runner, and binge drinking. Oh, and a massive amount of trashy talk (I'll withhold examples- although, if you want to here some completely mortifying jokes that break every social and moral guideline, just ask me- I'm rooming with a ex-lawyer turned Alta ski junky).
The group of us staying here at Moms Motel, which is the perfect example of a dive motel, have set up a permanent camp in the dirt in front of our rooms. It's from this post that we have sunken deep into the socially derelict. Our title has become the 'Dirty Mouths.' We have hopes of gaining sponsorship from Orbit Gum. So far we've succeeded only in mortifying our fellow pilots, but for some reason, they keep coming back for more.
Chris is currently in first place in the Serial Class, which is the non-comp glider class. (A comp glider is a very fast, twitchy glider that has no DHV rating that most wives don't let their husbands fly). He's flying great, but it looks like we won't have enough fly days (because of the bad weather) for this competition to be fully valid. The up side is that XC Skies has forecasted flawlessly for each day's conditions! There's a saying that goes "Pilots spend more time looking at the weather than they do actually flying" and with all these no fly days people have been gathered in front of their laptops mastering XC Skies. This is good for us, and very good for our hopes of a vagabond's life.
This is Melanie, or as we call Mal-on-y. She's a retired smoke jumper- and Cliff, the ex-lawyer turned ski bum. This is the start line, look at the determination. I'm sure that there was some serious trash talking happening here that couldn't be caught with a camera. This is a no-nonsense group of athletes- otherwise known as "World Class Ass-leats".
Utter Chaos. This is a race track, we are supposed to be moving together in a forward motion. I guess Mel-on-y got confused and thought that it was a left turn day.
Check out the look on Chris's face. Priceless.
The Dive, and the 'Dirty Mouth' post, pre-camp assembly.
One of my swimming holes.
Yes, I'm working on my courage to jump off the bridge. I have two more days.
Waiting...
How high do you think they are?
7200 feet, over the Chelan Butte.
Goal. A school playground- a tight squeeze.
Chris' landing, perfect.
These are local daycare kids collecting autographs from the pilots. This pilot is Brian Webb, an awesome pilot from Australia. I don't think that they will ever forget the day that 40+ people rained from the sky onto their playground.
Here's something that will blow your mind. The guy in this video made me a 'Speed Jacket' for flying. It says 'Team Galli' on the back and it's blue and has stars! I know, you can't wait til I post a picture of it. This video of him is incredible: Mike Sandberg, otherwise know as Michigan Mike. He parachuted into the 1988 Olympic games in Seoul, Korea.
And thats all for now. Until I have something more of interest to share with you, it's Sarah G., signing off.
