1-4 July 2015
1 Jul, Wed – We left around noon so we could meet who lives in Peshastin, for an interview for
an article C.J. is working on. He said something about milepost 111 so we were
looking at the road markers as we hit US 2. It turned out that he was actually
referring to a brewpub called Milepost 111 located just across the bridge in
Cashmere. We had a beer in the air conditioned pub and talked for an hour and a
half. By then it was getting on toward 1600 and it was still hot with the
thermometer near 100 deg F. I decided to go for gas at Costco ($2.959) in E
Wenatchee as drove through Wenatchee itself to see the extent of the Sleepy
Hollow fire which had burned the hillsides as well as a couple dozen houses and
some businesses. With a full tank we headed toward Chelan along the west side
of the Columbia since we hadn’t used that route for a while. Lori wasn’t in
when we arrived but she showed up not too much later and invited us to join
Tom, Aaron Rinn and Maria for dinner. Fortunately C.J. had brought salad
makings and snap peas to share. It was hot at night but an oscillating fan helped
keep it cool enough to sleep.
2 Jul, Thu – We drove up the Butte early to get there
for the nominal time of the pilots meeting (1100) and got a briefing from Meet
Head Lenny Baron for our launch director job. It really wasn’t much of a job
with only 30 pilots in the meet. The PGs launched early and the HGs went later.
There were a few free-flyers, but no hassles. After everyone had taken off, we
checked XCFind.com and saw that there were big flights from Rampart: Owen and
TJ had gone SSE to Quincy (123 km), and Brian Franklin had headed E and then NE
and had passed Leavenworth and was heading for Chelan! We drove down to the Chelan
Falls LZ and were there (along with Jeff and Cherie Slotta) when Brian arrived.
He was dehydrated and headachy, but very exhilarated by his flight. His driver,
Chris Irish, arrived within minutes and after packing up, they headed back to
retrieve Brian’s car at Rampart. We went directly to the house Lenny had rented
for the Baron clan and joined the other volunteers for a tasty dinner of BBQ
skewers, salads and drinks.
3 Jul, Fri – Same schedule, same job. After getting everyone
launched conditions still looked doable so C.J. got her wing out. But shortly
after, the wind picked up and she packed back up. We drove down to the soccer
field LZ to try to give Aaron, the scorekeeper, his computer so he could get
started scoring the last day’s results. He was still out flying a good triangle
(which would have given him first place if Jeff Beck hadn’t flown 10 miles
farther ending up just beyond the Idaho border in Rathdrum). To kill time we
went over to the north end of the Chelan Falls Park where the Dog pilots hang
out and got in the relatively warm, but fast-moving water to cool off. Later we
gathered with the rest of the CXCC folks for a taco dinner and award ceremony
at the picnic shelter. Lenny stretched the awards out overly long so everyone
who didn’t leave early (most of the PG had left) missed the Chelan fireworks.
We caught the end of them around 2210 as we drove through Chelan. Lori had
hooked up a portable air conditioner in our room and it worked very well – we
had a comfortable night.
4 July, Sat – We were on our way by 0930 and home shortly
after noon. We rested up and C.J. made the ice cream “batter” for use in the
old White Mountain hand-cranked ice cream maker. Around 1600 we drove to Susan
and Reed Brockway’s house on the E shore of Lake Samammish to join CJB in her
quest to blow up everything that floats. There were lots of guests and only a
few were pilots but we got to meet lots of new people, especially when C.J. got
the ice cream maker cranking. (Unfortunately, either we didn’t have the right
mixture of ice to salt, or the container was too full of the batter because the
ice cream never got to the thick and frozen stage.) As it began to get dark
fireworks displays could be seen all up and down the lakeshore and across the
lake. This despite the city ordinance prohibiting fireworks. No one came to
arrest anyone as CJ and her fellow ordnance experts blew up several small
boats, a large model of the Shell drilling rig, and a large three-masted model.
We left around 2300 and when we got home fireworks were still being shot off.
No fires, thank goodness!
