Tues 22 early bath
Chat to friends and family on msn and email my big budget gala premier special effects star studded blockbuster motion picture about…(its on youtube http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=JQIOlKyEhw4 )meet vic for brekky..America is one of the few countries I have travelled to that know how to do brekky… none of that bread and water they give you in Europe…Im not sure my arteries appreciate it as much as my taste buds …we fly deer creek again but its bumpy and vic has a gnarly hard top landing into some cacti and bushes.The area used to have large solid desert type vegetation but the local pilots cut it down to a level around knee high with chainsaws“to make it safer” whats left over looks like the bottom of a Vietcong pit trap…Hell live in general but his ankle is swelling and is tres painfull…I take off again but staying up is tough so I fly along the coast road and land on the beach with a big smile cos my feet are dry…I am completely surrounded by bikini clad Californian college girls all eager to get to know me!… I snap out of it and pack up…but all airtime is a good time…Vic retrieves me with his amazing expanding ankle elevated out of bigfoots window and drives the entire 30minuite journey home like that…he is a great character and very easy to like…born and raised in cali, garage full of boys toys and a stereotypical adrenaline junkie with a permanent grin ,tan and dozens of horrific wipeout, injury and death tales told in a machine gun Californian accent…this is a minor bump in comparison to some of his narrative requiring only an icepack and no shooting to end his suffering…he seems a little disappointed there isn’t more blood and permanent scarring…we chill next to his pool for a while and I return to my room to try to catch friends and family online before they go to bed…vic rings later to say his ankle is much better and we make plans for tomorrows flying…wooohoooo
Wednesday …something…I think
If it weren’t for this blog I would hardly know what day it is…dosent take long…muck about with rv red tape online this morning …sitting in the motel flicking through the tv channels… a t.v. evangelist stops me and asks me”are you all alone?”…huh?...”have you spent half you life in bars persuing sins of the flesh?”…this guys good…”do you feel the urge to send me $1000?”…not even close buddy… go to vics…it’s a little late to stop for brekky and we are eager to fly so stop at a generic drive thru for roadkill...tastes like shit but you can live on it…deer creek is on again and we fly a new part of the mountain a short hop and jump from the main takeoff…45 mins crusing the coastals in beautifully smooth laminar air…v small lift band but easy to stay up all day if you want….we need a little instability in the air to really rock and roll…zing in a few wingovers and land on the beach…everybody is awestruck and I land to cheers and applause!…I snap out of it and pack…vics buddy traig turns up and flys with us…spend the afternoon doing this…things could be a lot worse…we hatch a plan to travel to baja in mexico this weekend…I cant wait…lunch on the beach and chill at vics for a while checkin out baja weather and tomorrows possibilities…the only thing that seems to change about the weather is the wind direction and speed…that aside it is sunny and flyable every day…misty coastal early mornings sometimes…generally not up that time anyhow…wind picks up later in the day giving smooth evening coastal… getting the best of the techno wrestling nowadays and would appear to have shown the lappy whose boss…pat myself on the back…people lost money on that bet…go out too late to get decent food and eat more roadkill…rough…be glad to be able to cook again and save a little money…the steaks and stuff are lovely but a drain on finances…all the cheap food is crap…crash …
Thursday 24 grounded
Vic has to have the whole day taking care of buis…this is ok but I left my wing in his truck yesterday…div…vow never to be so far from my wing again…decideto spend the morning lookin for a jalopy to buy so I can give back the hire car…I find a cheap isuzu on line…I call…can I call back tomorrow?...theres been a death in the family…I don’t even want to ask…spend the afternoon sussing out the route to the takeoffs alone just for the crack…have enormous fun careering through the canyon hairpins in the hire car…it starts to smell funny … the brakes fade…i slow down…for a bit…lunch on the beach with a book…watch the kitesurfers…hmm…have a couple of butt clenching moments on the drive back to vics who is home by now and hang for an hour…keep forgetting to ring the hire car people to tell them I want to keep the car for a bit…its overdue already…eat…zzz…I weight shift in my sleep
Friday 25 sleds and heads
Chase up the jalopy…Breky with vic and head out to fly…v flat…2 sleddies…please blow…chill at the beach with vic and random surfers stoners and loners…people are pretty chatty…they really do call everyone dude and are excessively polite even calling you sir sometimes in general conversation…been called much worse even by my mum……and little or no shooting…mexico in the morning…hope its blowing down there...although there is paragliding in this area it is more a loose collection of flying buddies with no official club … they number 15 or 20…one or two of the older hands give formal fee paying instruction and guidance… http://www.monkeyair.com/photos.html ... very well by all accounts…and there are motivated and skilled pilots among them who know the surrounding terrain intimately and are still pushing its xc potential… all take offs and landings are improvised guerilla style and have been for years…find them just off the pacific coast higway near los angeles state county line and Malibu up deer creek road… I will be glad to be properly set up and mobile and get to some of the more inland big mountain sites for some good old rock and roll…research some…Barbie dinner at vics…he shows me his constitutional firearms…why am I am not suprised…get in the worlds favourite mood…pack… crash
Sat 26 land of the lazy drunk
Meet at vics at 8 and spend 2 hours waiting for his 13 year old daughter and her friend to be ready…they are going to drive some poor men to drink in a few years I have no doubt…(“some men spend years trying to unlock the mysteries of a womans mind…others try less complicated tasks like the theory of relativity”…albert einstein)…load truckasorus with all kinds of beach toys…wet suits gliders and stuff…drive to mexico…its much easier to get in than out with no checks at all…tijahana is the first town in mexico and is a lawless crazy place due to its proximity to the border and all the dope trafficing…so much so that the mexican government went as far as to send the army in to disarm the entire local police force amid allegations of widespread corruption…you need to be carefull…you don’t go out at night…god must be quite a bit more pleased however with his results on the coastline …surely some of his best with breathtaking views from 1500ft+(450m) high ridges for miles…pass some nice looking dunes…hmmm…we check out vics friends condo where we will be staying…a nice 2 bed with roof terrace and a distant sea view almost totally impossible to sell because of the current economic state… it sits empty along with 40% of the others on the gated development…mexicans seem to have suffered with the same now you have it now you don’t equity as the rest of the west…meet a local pilot named jessy at the salinas beach bar who takes us to the take off at baja beach for our first flight...conditions are still slow however but its possible to stay above takeoff height for as long as you like but very small thermals…cruise the cliffs for an hour and shoot a little in flight video… we eat dinner at the same bar and are introduced to a few more local pilots before crashing in front of the t.v at the condo...

Sun …after last… motorheads
We head to the bar for brekky of shallow fried Mexican pancake type stuff filled with meat and veg…exelent…I eat more than everybody else and their leftovers…mum says I must get my nurishment…the sky is still overcast…I curse under my breath…how long can this last?untill we leave probably…there is a group of paramotorists on the beach who seem to be having the time of their lives using a quad buggy contraptionops to break props…bits of prop and shredded debris pepper the beach area around them after each failed launch…they should wear flak jackets but don’t even wear helmets…the language would make a sailor blush… they seem to be able to produce a spare each time from an unlimited supply at their collective disposal…this cant be cheap…props are $200 each and ive watched them change 2 at least in the last 20mins and they are also working on the engine…I imagine their parts man giving them the engines for free with an evil smile when they were children like some kind of dope dealer …then they are hooked for life and strung out needing their daily fix of spares…they certainly are adept at breaking them…we go over for a chat and diplomaticly decline the offer of a tandem for the girls…images of their bloody cadavers cartwheeling across the sand and lawyers obscure our vision…the wind is very light and impossible to fly so this passes as the afternoons entertainment until we are invited to a barbie by brent…a friendly american pilot running an exelent guest house on the beach…the spread is fit for a king and I enthusiasticly set about helping to make it fit for the bin…we spend the evening drinking in great company with all the local pilolts watching some of brents flying videos on the big screen,,,he has enough to play continuously for weeks…he also has years of experience of the local sites and weather and is known localy as baja brent…find him here http://www.bajabrent.com/wst_page4.html or at the salina beach cantina about 35miles south of tiajuana…a more than safe distance…we leave in the wee small hours after more enthusiastic best wishes and photos for my journey than any one man deserves…thanks guys…
Mon 27ish backspin
We are asked politely not to let anymore constitutional explosives in the guise of fireworks off outside the condo…vic had treated the girls with a display the previous night and I guess the neighbours just didn’t appreciate the noise and colours like we did…we advise to them would be to start drinking heavily to compensate...they don’t…breky of nice mexican omlette ..we find the boys and girls bid them farewell and start heading north…the wind has blown the top launch out so we stop at the dunes we passed on the way in…its not quite strong enough to fly properly but we pass someenjoyable time kiting up and down them while the girls race around on a hired quad…I start trying to emulatate those I have seen climbing walls and cars and see how much better at kiteing I would like to become…its realy not easy…bit more wind maybe… resolve to spend more time doing so.. lunch at a small fishing village where everyone parks on the beach…predictably the sun comes out.for the first time since we got to mexico and the sky looks like it could be thermic…i curse a little more..we head for the heavily manned u.s border to que for re-entry along with the other hundreds per hour who hope to be deemed worthy to enter the land of the free...every day thousands of people attempt to cross legally or illegally into the states by every route possible including a treacherous 3 day hike through the desert and over the mountains with whatever they can carry in search of an escape from generations of squalor and economic hardship…not everybody makes It in..not everybody lives…things are not generally much better for many of those who do as they can be treated little better than slaves by their new tasakmasters …the grass is always greener .. we reach the front of the long slow moving que…the obligigotory armed crue cut closely inspects our documents twice…he makes telephone enquiries …he fingers his sidearm…I am very polite…he is a little thrown by my new style british passport with the chip on the page…apparently her majestys government neglected to inform him of the change …he waves us through after a thorough search without a smile or welcome…he seems a little disappointed he cant shoot anybody this time either…stay up late to catch the bank and a couple of friends on line and crash at vics

Tues 15 July touchdown
Arrived L.A.X 3:45pm after close to 12 hrs on the plane,tired malnourished and cramped. The hour spent on the tarmac in London waiting to take off was especially fun.The worlds favourite airline hasnt left me in the wordls favorite mood but at least the armed crue cuts at U.S customs don’t insist on a cavity search…My flying budding Vic,who knows exactly what to smoke to get you in the worlds favourite mood, did his bit toward melting the ice caps by meeting me at the airport in his too tall two storey S.U.V canyonero ranchero or whatever and took me on the coastal route to his house via a Thai diner on the beach…nice one Vic… visited a couple of paragliding sites started research on rvs to buy and crash at vics…the large ornimental hall clock welcomes me to America every hour on the hour all night…but this is America and nobody is shot…nice

Wed 16 lift off
Hang with Vic today…eat a huge yank brekky and go out see vics guys at work..drive Vics vet…1st flights at deer creek one of the local sites…an easy enough take off but a tight landing on the side of a canyon road…I start to see its not quite for beginners but not so bad…nice conditions for a maiden flight …thermic to 200m over takeoff and fun learning the sourrounding terrain… fried batterd seafood lunch…my arteries are still shrugging it off…2nd flight is a sleddy at a coastal mountain… I miss the beach landing and am in the sea to my waist!!on the rocks!!!cane my vario!!!!vic tells me they have all done it twice so I don’t feel so bad..but what a doughnut…still nobody was shot…hire car…find room
Thurs17 on the hunt

Vic comes by with loads of maps and shoots off to work… I have a sub for brekky and begin route planning for serious rv hunting …Drive allover looking at rvs by the dozen…begin to develop repetitive strain from all the salesmens handshakes…see some good deals…and 03 double slide 26k miles fully loaded with nice interior catches my eye…also need to see an 05 with low milage Eat a fantastic steak dinner and crash…no shooting...
Fri 18 narrowing it down

Sub for brekkie…Loads of rvs on the biggest lot iv ever seen.drove into l.a…given the hard sell all day…not enough food for this shit and too hot to listen to jabbering salesmen…sorry salespersons all day…I wonder if they all use the same dentist with smiles like that…met vic for a steak…flying all day tomorrow…nuff said
Sat 19 The ghosts of deer creeks

Met vic for brekky… drive to deer creek to fly…hurrah…the mountain is completely covered in cloud…boo…vic assures me the boys will fly anyway and I think he is joking then at the top we almost fall over laughing as the unmistakeable sillouette of a phantom like glider materializes alone out of the dense mist slides across our path and disappears back into the fug like an apparition…wtf…the ledgend of the ghost of deer creek is born…as we pull up on take of another half dozen pilots are taking turns to fly one at a time in the soup that has enveloped the mountain…I am informed California state law prohibits paraglider pilots from not flying every day and to not do so would be unconstitutional…the state department had just upgraded the nations alert status to orange(whatever that means) so not wanting to be mistaken for a terrorist I get ready for the strangest flight Ive have ever had…preparing to hurl myself into the misty void it occurs to me the bhpa would have a fit…what does cavok stand for again?strangely enough everybody flys and even more strangely for Americans nobody is killed…this cant last…we leave and go to little sycamore known localy as lil sickie whore where things are much more normal but dying conditions make staying up tough…2 sleddies…more red meat for dinner... wrestle with video editing…threaten to shoot it… bed



Sunday20 on the up
Too big pasta brekkie quick look at local rv dealer…over to vics and then to deer creek…scratchy to start but clears and lifts nicely by midday…fly till 3.30 practicing top landings and begin to realy feel connected thermalling on my glider again after growing rusty in the uk and begin to get reacquainted with the sky… great day with 2 to 3 hours in the air…start to get used to flying with no vario…becoming slightly more sensitive this way and love every precious second in the air…more wind soon I hope but not much in life soon but flying so it must come…another exelent steak dinner after viewing and editing the day on vid and still…life is hard J
Monday21 more rv hunting

American breakfast tv serves up shootouts dumped bodys and hysterical 911 recordings…no wonder some people don’t want a t.v… on the surface all is well but anybody whose eye you catch here immediately asks you with a big smile if you are well… sometimes just to make sure you are not an armed crazy I think…drive loads of miles looking at r.vs again and decide to have a deal on one at last…I have seen dozens…a cool spacious 04 model with all life support systems intact…the process of changeover may take Days with all the red tape…have to go back tomorrow for more schpiele…but am a little exited at having somewhere portable to live…there is still a way to go but things are happening…meet vic and eat Mexican dinner…more technowrestling…bed

PROLUGUE

This journey has been a long time in the planning and longer in the waiting...

this journey has no destination...

The best thing you can do with time is to loose track of it...