I don't know which to start with, the flight or Scott. I guess I'll start with the flight for 2 reasons: #1. even Scott would say flying comes first, and #2. you can all stop reading after the flight if you don't want to hear stuff about someone you didn't know.
So Mark and I were among the first group of pilots to set up atop Ellenville. There was a new pilot that launched earlier and got his first soaring flight- he was breaking down at like 11am so it must have been soarable EARLY! There was a severe t-storm warning for the area according to Accuweather, but I figured I wasn't ready to leave the people that shared my sorrow so we stayed nearby to fly there.
I was so nervous on the way up- checking in with Tony Covelli and seeing familiar faces of pilots who's names I forget.... I know some of them would know me (easy to remember the girls who are so few and far between) and I felt pressure to fly well and not make an ass out of myself by sledding out or something. I know my local population of pilots has seen me bonehead out a number of times but somehow this was different.
Harry S was setting up a Fledgling(?) that looked like it sat in someone's garage for like 25 years. Oh yeah, it DID sit in someone's garage for 25 years, and he proceeded to launch it and scare the shit out of us all when he turned back around towards the hill barely clearing the windsock. But he stayed up as did an Atos and a PG pilot. I was behind a kingposted glider for a while on launch and I launched after he barely had it cleared because I was anxious to get into the air. It was a while before I felt like this flight might actually be good. We weren't getting very high and it felt like any moment it could be over. I finally got a decent climb to 2500' over and everyone else was still tight on the ridge below. When Jamie launched it was back to being a little scratchy again and I went over to fly with him some. What a pain he is to fly near!!!! He and I went out into the valley and got our butts kicked some, he went south, I went north and then I saw that Mark had launched so I went over to see what he was up to. Mark's and Jamie's gliders are great to see in the air. Above them, you can tell who they are by the clear top sail. Very cool. I flew with them a while and when Mark started to really climb out, I tried to stay with him. Over 3K and I started getting cold. I got to base around 4100' over and just for long enough to say I cracked 4K, then I searched for sink to get to a warmer altitude. I had shorts and a tank top on and I was way unprepared for cloudbase! I followed Mark and Jamie a while, over Ellenville and way out across the valley. It was bulletproof now and I could go wherever I wanted and stay at 2500' over where it was comfortable. The air was getting so smooth and easy, nothing like the wire-twangers from earlier in the flight. Mark was plastered to the bottoms of the clouds and finally I saw him lose altitude and I waited until I saw him set up his landing before I even thought about landing myself. I was getting close to 3.5 hours and I had to pee. There were so many gliders still in the air- mostly on the ridge. Then I saw Jamie and I thought it would be good to wait til he was safely on the ground.... Mark's landing looked not-so-good but I was still at 2K over him so it was hard to tell. His glider moved out of the LZ fast so I knew he was in one piece. Jamie was doing wingovers like right over the trees by my estimate, then he landed. I came in and set up a big approach, and carefully came in on final, just to whack really hard. Oh well. I was beat. My old harness and glider combo is definitely not as comfy as the new set up. But the Litespeed 3 still flies really well, even though Al Ahl had to loan me some tape for a hole I wore in the sail. Ryan landed later after doing his first-ever loop. It scared the crap out of me when he got slow over the top. But he did awesome and it was a fitting tribute to Scott....
Which leads me to my friend Scott Jewell.
All week I have been reading things about him since Paul Voight's first e-mail to a group of us. I couldn't comment, it would sound hollow and somehow make it a reality that he was gone. At his service, no one could comment, really. Like, where do you start? And where do you end? He left his mark on everyone he came in contact with. Scott Jewell was one of my favorite people on this earth. He was tough for me to deal with in person sometimes, but we shared so much in our e-mails over the years and he was the one person who I could tell anything to. He was instrumental in my life both from a flying perspective and a personal perspective. I sought him out originally to get my H3 rating, and although I didn't remember him from the Ellenville Fun Meet, he helped me out since he remembered me. While we were working the rating out, we found we had a ton in common and that's where I really got to know him. It was through e-mail conversations with him that I was able to remove myself from a very bad relationship back in 2001, and he was the one who urged me years later to get over my fears, follow my heart, and give my relationship with Mark a go. I didn't meet him in person until long after we knew the most intimate details of each other's lives. Like I said, I could bounce anything off of him, and over the years I did. When I heard about the FAX machine incident, I caught up with him when he was somewhat recovered from it. He made that scene into the funniest damn thing I had ever heard. The only way it seemed to effect him was by giving him more material for his humor. The last year or so he has come to the Flight Park a few times and really impressed himself on my kids, and they are saddened too by his death. Emily laments the trips to Wegmans and the sushi pig-outs they will never have again. He was my H4 rating official and I carry his name on my USHGA card wherever I go. His master rating, if I remember correctly, he got on my birthday the year I started flying. I'll remember forever the Chinese Buffet in Ellenville with my kids, Jamie, Jack and Scott, and how we almost got kicked out when other people started leaving because of their raucous behavior. The last time I talked to him was just before July 4th weekend. He was as animated and crazy as ever and I will miss him so very much. He was a sort of measuring stick for my life- we would check in periodically and he would make sure I was living my life fully and not selling myself short and not taking myself too seriously and keeping my flying safe and just brighten everything with his enthusiasm. Oh like I said- where do you start and where do you end? He gave us that awesome flying day yesterday. I can say I truly felt like he was there and doing loops among us all and poking fun at us getting so morose. He will never grow old and he will stay in my heart just like he was last week, last month, last year. My biggest regret is that I never had a chance to tell him how much he meant to me, so I vow to do just that- tell the people I care about that I have reserved space in my heart. I saw other people doing that as well this weekend. I wish he didn't have to do something so drastic as dying to get us all to do that. I ramble on, I know, but, where do you end when it comes to someone like Scott Jewell?

Dansville 7.26.06
I finally made up my mind to go to Dansville yesterday afternoon after driving aimlessly for a while. PG-HG-RW-Bob and I hooked up and headed down and we were surprised to find it blowing in pretty perfectly according to the sock and we set up fast. He had his back to the launch window when I told him to turn around and go NOW since a hawk was climbing out right in the slot. He had a slow ascent in the slot and turned left. He wasn't climbing real good, but on his first pass he was like 50 feet over so I got ready. It was the easiest launch I'd had at Dansville in a long long time. Truly a flat slope- it was much easier with the Sting this time. So I turned right and got just under Bob and we just scratched around only around 200' over at times but it was fun to be atop that ridge once again! He gave up the ghost first and went to the apartments to land (that's the reason I picked the Sting off the top of the car) and he used up most of the runway. I waffled around a while and wanted to go to the west (it was slightly cross from the west) where around 30 buzzards were hovering above the old spa. I didn't want to make retrieve a pain in the butt so I stayed on the SW piece of ridge and finally sank out. While not an epic flight- just 40 minutes- it was a really big stress and sadness reliever however short my reprieve was. When I flew over Bob's head while he was talking with someone in the LZ, I yelled for a wind direction. Bob points to the mountain. Okay, like, what the hell does that mean??? I had a no-winder towards the apartment complex.....
So the guy he was talking to was Eric Miluk- ring a bell????

Saw a lot of faces yesterday that I aven't seen in a while. Saw their faces WAY TOO MUCH, in fact. Katrin, Karl, Alex, Moritz, Dan S., Dan W., Paul S., Lon, Jack, Doug, Matt, Dave B.... who am I forgetting? Hammonsport just didn't give up any decent flights- except Doug picked a decent cycle and soared for 15 min or better- enough to sucker me into setting up again and never launching! Dan S. had a slow descent, I tried and had a scary launch but recovered, and Moritz and Jack and Matt at least launched. Ah, well, another day another flight! I think Mossy might have been better. The tow park was working for some. I am just not doing the tug nazi thing so my calls won't include there- so don't follow me to the mountains if you have a shot at a flight there. We got to socialize a lot and Karl, Katrin, Alex, Adam and I headed to Bin Bin for a chow down so it wasn't a total waste of a day.... Thanks Katrin for the retrieve off the knob on rte 54...

Outer Banks, NC
So my whole family met on July 9th in Duck, NC for a weeklong adventure. I had been looking forward to it for so long. It's different than anticipating an HG comp because there is none of the kind of stress that goes with comps.
I tried to fly at Jack's Mountain on Saturday the 8th. Dana and I waited for a LONG time. It was dead when I got set up, and continued to get deader as we waited in vain.... I didn't even dare take a sledder since the LZ is so rolling and a no-winder might have been slightly downhill... we went to a drive-in and waited for Mark and the rest of the gang to catch up to us in Harrisburg.
In NC, we waited until Tuesday the 11th to hit the Currituck Airport. Cheryl and Steve Larson (from the Florida Ridge) are running things there and doing a sweet job getting lots of tandems done. They were doing mile highs when we arrived. My sister Laura, and my brother Richard were there with me and Mark. I had loaned Laura my Sting and I had my old Litespeed. My brother wound up taking a tandem, which really surprised me. And it scared the shit out of him, which surprised me even more. He does that Ultimate Fighting stuff. Seems to me that stepping into a ring with someone who basically wants to kill you, and a ref who isn't going to stop him, is a whole lot scarier than a little old hang gliding flight. But I digress...
So Mark gets towed up and I am screwing with Laura's weird quick link system. He is all over the sky and we are sweating our asses off on the ground. She gets a tow, but the weak link breaks pretty quick. Then Steve gets her hooked up with a barrel or two, and I get towed up next. Never have I hit so much sink off tow. I lost a thousand feet in half a minute and was scratching around. I never got back up to tow altitude and Mark sank out then as well. Steve tows me up again, right after my brother goes tandem. I had a chance to fly around them for a little bit, but again, I could barely climb up above 1600'. I saw Laura getting towed up and she got off really low. I had some altitude to try to get over to her when I saw her climbing really well, but I came in underneath and never got her climb. I searched around a little and saw her leave to go back where the tandem was earlier. I didn't follow and I would up watching her get high while I hit the ground AGAIN!
Frustrated, I take another tow as she is sinking out. Still I don't stay up long no matter how hard Steve tries to find cohesive lift. Oh well, I think I got an hours' worth of airtime between the 3 tows. Never getting high enough to cool off though! But I did have both of my siblings in the air with me at the same time and that was very very cool. And my brother's expression at the end of his first ever flight- PRICELESS!!!!
We had some kayaking and fishing to do and the weather was stormy in the late afternoons so we kept busy and beached it a lot. Until Saturday, the day we left. My son Adam, and daughter Dana, tried the dune lessons with Mark's son, James. It was a blast watching how they do that there. Poor kid there teaching them found out afterwards that his students were the Nat'l Women's Champ kids... He was pretty funny about it. It was great watching Adam launching and Dana really starting to put it all together from her tandems and stuff. James is a natural, I think.
So that is most of the hang gliding part of our vacation. It was a pretty minor player but still monumental in it's significance for me. Never have Laura and I flown hang gliders together before. She's towed me up and she is the one that got me into it in the first place. So she can brag about my competitions and still say, "yeah but I can still kick her ass in the air".

Well, I haven't written in a while-not because I haven't flown ( I have, but not much)- but i have been busy with my new job. A job I really like! Free of that stupid bitch that I worked under at my last place of employment! I am a lot busier now that I am full-time and it doesn't always bother me to stay and get done what needs to get done.
June 24th was a hugely fun day at FLAP. I decked it after a short time on my first flight but when I towed up again, I got a slow painful climb near the water tower south of the field. When I finally got up to cloudbase (only 3K), it didn't seem like there was much else going on and the climbs were very few and far between. I sank low after a long searching glide and headed in to land again but caught something at 500' that took me back OVER the bases and in between, and the next hour or so I spent surfing around them and playing hide an seek with Scott Rowe and Dan Spier. What a blast! It was reminiscent of my Dragonfly flights with Bobby Bailey and I can't really say much more about that here. After winning "last one on the ground", I saw my honey Joe with his ankle all wrapped up in ice. Later he finds he did some pretty nasty damage to the whole joint. Bummer, so one less person to play that game against.
So anyhow, I have flown a bit since. It's just not turning into the most flyable of conditions or circumstances lately. I am reluctant to foot launch with my new harness again and I am not too thrilled with the prospect of flying my old Litespeed/CG harness. I'd love to have a Sport2 or something like it to fly the hills with. Maybe I'm getting burned out. I need a big XC flight to get my interest sparked again. With the proximity of the flight park, I haven't been down south in a while and when you can get a big flight in and still get home for dinner, it sometimes seems like too much of a time investment. But I long for a wonderwind flight, and hanging with other pilots (PGs!) afterwards at Bib Bin or something.... soon I hope.