Windy with OD skies

Last night the walk round town was a community thing. – As the band played walking by our hotel all ears & eyes had to see what was up. Looking out the window a good 400 people maybe 600 walked in procession, the priest and crucifix, candles and banners in full regalia.

I almost always join in in such events and yesterday was no exception. I learned a couple songs fairly well and a couple I could humm. – It ended in a lovely mass and more communidad.

Today many thought it would be canceled or – I don’t know – I say go to the hill and fly, after all, it is Valle.

Nice task, I jumped right on the gun and was first off the hill just as the launch window opened. – The director, at just seconds later, was running to launch to say – “wait wait wait, has anyone launched?” - just as I launched it started to rain – I flew right into the beginning of a little squall and he wanted to hold or push everything back 15 or 30 minutes – but nope – I was in the air and it was too late.

It turned out great because had we delayed it is doubtfull anyone would have made goal. –
The afternoon really developed into an active system and most were happy to be on the ground in the later afternoon. –

I had to make a tight little save right after launching – it was just starting to work and a hard ½ hour of work paid off giving me a wonderful flight – I was very close to not scratching out and was the only comp pilot in the air so all eyes were on me at that point – nothing else to do on launch till the rain stopped.

Once it cleared and I got up it was routine – Made it to the very end of el spina for initial climb into the start gaggle and it worked well – The glide to the first point was easy and my line gave me a boomer right at the tag which made Meguey easy. Got some friends there and had a convergence line back to SerGordo.

Out front of that I found myself distracted and lost some very nice lift. – I never really got back into it or got high again – just sorta bebopped along in what seemed like boaty convergence but it kept letting me down and next thing you know I was looking for an LZ.

I landed with JC in a nice field and we had an easy walk to a cab for the ride back. The landing was a bit vertical – setting up over 130ft trees then dropping in – reminded me of my landing at Lion Rock. Anyway I slid in through a gap in the trees and set down sweet.

Tomorrow I have to do well to get back into the top 10 US pilots in this XC flying event with waypoints. – No competition only fun and good landings.

P