C.J. and I left early enough Friday to get over to Chelan and fly in the early afternoon but by Wenatchee the winds looked really strong and there were dark clouds upriver towards the Butte. We stopped for lunch at Rocky Reach Dam, more to see how the area had changed due to security concerns since 9/11, than for the picnic potential. Lori and Tom had invited us to stay with them so we stopped on the way up the Butte to leave our non-flying gear in their house. On the top we could see that there were dark clouds, virga and probably rain to the north and east and south. However, conditions on launch did not appear to be unreasonable and it was blowing up Lakeside. We ran into Noah Briller and he and I flew to the Lone Pine LZ. I managed to scratch around the ridge long enough to eke out 20 minutes or so. We went back up but C.J. decided not to fly.
That evening we had a spaghetti dinner with Lori, Tom, Conrad and Darren Darsey and then helped cook and cut up the ingredients (which C.J. and Lori had shopped for earlier) for the Cinco de Mayo dinner Lori was providing in lieu of the traditional Beach'N barbeque. We heard from Darren that Larry Jorgenson and Tom Pierce, among others, had flown XC reaching Sprague, just short of Spokane, over 100 miles. Darren, himself, had done an out-and-return to Farmer, then gone back out to pick up Chris Culler.
Saturday morning C.J. got an early flight off "Sunnyside" aka Daybreak Canyon which had cross winds from the NW but also provided 800 fpm thermals, surprising for a 9:00 a.m.flight. I drove down to pick her up and sign in. We filled the Trooper up with Curt Boschek, Heather Smallwood, and ___, one of Kamron's workers, and drove back up. C.J. and I both flew and soared but the air was pretty turbulent and I didn't enjoy getting bounced around. On my landing, I was able to land right on the bullseye, scoring 150 points (including "style" points). Later we got a ride back up with Jack Lehman and I flew again, this time from the Green Monster. I scratched around and managed to extend my flight but, on my landing approach, I felt pressured by the proximity of Chris Roberts who landed right after me so I landed outside the spotlanding zone and scored only 60 points. Mike Brand caught my landing on video and posted it to YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYzjR6A7Nfg if you are interested. C.J. drove the Trooper down.
We checked in to our room at the Midtowner Motel, rested for a while (I discovered that I had not brought my swim suit so could not use the hot tub or pool), then went back to to the soccer field LZ for dinner. The Cinco de Mayo theme seemed to be popular and there was just about the right amount of food. Aaron and Steve flew in with an aerobatic display that got everyone out of the picnic shelter to watch.
Sunday morning we checked out of our room and dropped stuff off at Tom and Lori's again then went down to the soccer field meeting Heather and Curt just as they were driving out. We offered them a ride so they didn't have to drive their Outback up the hill. On top wind was light and north or northwest and we looked at Sunnyside again but decided to go with upper lakeside. C.J. volunteered to lead the way along the ridge to the junkyard LZ (although she found herself high enough at the numbers to fly over the back to the soccer field); Curt and Heather followed. I picked them up at the junkyard and we went back up. C.J. and I both flew in barely soarable conditions and I managed to hit the bullseye again. C.J. was also doing well on the spotlanding and she ended up taking the third place prize. I walked away with first place and chose the two nights lodging at the Best Western; C.J. grabbed the dinner for two at Campbell's. After flying, we had lunch with Curt, Heather and their son, Lars, then I begged a ride up the hill with Dan Heath and Gloria (in her new RAV4) to retrieve the Trooper.
Dan invited us to stop at their property near Cle Elum. We got there an hour or more later than we expected and they had already left but we got to see the area and it is quite nice. We were back in north Bend in time to have leftovers for dinner (good thing, because gas cost more than $60 for the trip).
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