Day 205

I Seem To Have Forgotten Something

I woke up early like a workin' man this morning. I decided to accompany Ally to her job and give her a hand for a few hours. She's a little swamped at the moment, and next Friday's deadline is pretty strict. Her mother took us out for lunch to an amazing Indian buffet.

I then dropped Ally back off at the office and decided to do a little driving. Do you remember seeing these power lines and this moon before? (I promise, there's a moon in this picture. It's just right of center.)

Well, I was driving and thought that I might try to get some more pictures from that same pullout. The last time I was there, I took a good lot of pictures and very few of them turned out well, so I thought I'd give it another try. As I was pulling up, I noticed a guy rooting around in his Windstar
(Pack up your mom's car
Back up the Windstar
Kick in drive and arive at the megamart)
and came out with an RC glider.

I was standing at the edge of a large slope taking pictures, and he walked up next to me and asked if I'd like him to wait a minute. Of course I told him to go ahead, and he lightly tossed the gigantic foam wing off the hill and the thing took off.

I struck up conversation with him, and he told me all about the art of flying an RC glider. We were standing in the perfect place when there are northwesterly winds ("although today it's coming slightly west of northwest") because the northwestern-facing slope we were at the top of creates great updrafts for the glider to sit on. If they were to have been northerly, across the street would have been the better place to be. Then during the more rare and exciting southeasterlies, you can toss them right off the parking lot of NCAR.

He told me that he half expected a whole troop of gliders to be up there by that time of day with such favorable winds. Apparently this is a thing among semi-retired older men. Since these flying wings are no more than foam, a small motor to control two flaps, and maybe a paper-clip or two for weight ballance, they are fairly indestructible. Therefore, these older chaps start to battle and try to drop each others' out of the sky.

By this point in the conversation I bid him farewell since my camera-carrying hand was turning blue. "Standing in 20 mph winds for long will do that to you when it's this cold out. That's why I'm in my ski suit." Sure enough, the guy was wearing a one-piece purple ski outfit (that he told me was 13 years old) complete with gloves, beanie, and goggles. Yeah, he was well prepared to stand there all the live-long day.