Weds20…approach with caution
Wake up on a rv plot next to beautiful lake elsinore and go to disconnect my geny and connect up my lecky…i find a couple of spiders in the lecky box which dosent usually bother me but something about the bigger jet black one made me look twice…i call again on my sas training…I think its a black widow so i poke it with a stick to see its bright red belly…it is..i bet that’s not in the camp brochure…my first close encounter with a deadly poisonous anything…cool…I poke it again so it knows whos boss give it the middle finger and weight shift away…I decide to break my habit of leaving my boots outside the rv…they obviously like the shade and a bite from one of these will make you fall right out of your thermal …drive to the landingfield after brekky…its empty so I drive to launch and joe is there set up and ready to go…but he has no real time to fly and only came for a quick sleddy…I bid him bon chance and drive to the slightly higher launch where because of its size there is a better chance to top land…I have the mountain to myself and decide its safe to surf this beach(apocalypse now…there is no beach)once again house works and I am hoisted up for a lovely first 45 min flight 1500ft(450m)over launch and its tres thermic…I land for a rest and a drink for 15mins and the bell goes for round 2…I launch…I scratch past where the house thermal is with no joy…i scratch along the spine…I am 300ft below launch…I am going down…much disapointment…at least there was wind at marshals…I scratch some more…almost at the end of the spine i find a bump and decide I better try to work it cos going down alone with the little jeep on launch will be a real pain…after a 6 or 8 beats it breaks away giving me a small 25% collapse which I deal with easily thanks to the freex arcanes stability…this may not sound like much but I hardly ever get collapses and this thermal has snapped my head back like a rodeo bull out of the trap and im cranked over on my wingtip trying to stay in the core…never back down from a bully…as I clear takeoff height for some reason the croaky voice of master yoda before he uses the force to lift skywalkers x-wing out of the swamp are in my head…”always with you it cant be done”…I ride it up 2500ft where it slows down and gets bumpy…it then smashes through the inversion into the beautifull blue above taking me up another 1200ft…I cannot describe the feeling of elation this kind of flying gives me…better than any dope…only the love of a good woman can top it(and I do mean good)and only a free flyer would understand…its why im hooked why I go to big mountains and why I never want to go home…(well I mean…bloody croydon)I land after 45 mins or so and just sit alone on takeoff gazing over the parched flatlands with an indelible grin…I long for someone who will understand to share it with…anybody seeing me sit there alone with this expression would think I was certifiable…what can I do to top that?…oh…of course…I put my harness back on…an almost identical flight follows this time with the sea breeze marching in a while after I launch causing convergance lift all over the mountain…I now cannot miss and for an hour it goes up everywhere I fly…my adrenaline spikes and i loose it completely doing spirals wingovers and anything else I feel…I love to fly…when I eventually land the wind is blowing down the mountain and another take off is impossible but its 3.30pm…ive been there since 11am… what a day…I cant remember anything else after landing…my mind only replay the days flights…I don’t know what I ate or when I slept…simply the best…