Day 2 ECC Monday June 2nd

Since I'm flying pretty poorly, I'll have to entertain my readers more with tales of what we do when we aren't flying....

First off there was the Lake Highland (a temporary phenomenon) after the storms on Saturday... and Meesha enjoying it...

Then today, the wait on the launch line was maddening when conditions started to look good. Dana, a most extraordinary driver, was busy taking some of these shots.

I finally got off the ground, and since it was a right turn day, I felt like my glider was wrapping some in the light thermals and I was having a tough time climbing. I kept cutting inside of Jamie and after most likely pissing her off for a while, I just hung back to get a grip and mentally re-center. The big gaggle left me behind and I was climbing weakly near the start. Pretty soon I wasn't climbing at all, so I began a glide towards the others. I got so low I thought I might start-circle (and I guess only Davis gets to break down, drive back, set back up, and relight when he bombs out) so I got into desperation mode at 900' agl and held onto some 50fpm up for a while. This would prove to be the half hour or better that would put me behind everyone else, and keep me alone and in a much more conservative mode than was necessary for the day. Fly and learn.... But this thing finally turned on and I got pretty high when Campbell joined me (and climbed right through me!) but I was staying higher and finding good climbs til the goal. Campbell and I took different paths but pretty much everyone was in goal when I got there. I had a slower than ideal landing but held the nose out of the grass...

Dana came and got us all and we saw this on the way back to Ridgely.

PK begged us to stop...

We thought we knew how to do crabs...

PK had us all beat...

Maybe that will hurt his sink rate tomorrow. He's been kicking some ass!!