Elizabethville on July 12^th was a great day. It seemed like a really good turnout including Doug Rogers, Joe and Karen Gorrie, Bob Beck, Russ Gibson, Shawn McDuff, Dennis Montero, and Alana and Jeff Harper (please forgive me if I forgot anyone). It was a particularly special day for me because after being unable to fly for several months due to a herniated disk in my back, and having not flown the mountains in about a year it was great to be back.

No one was in a rush to set up so we all began launching latter in the day. Shawn was off first, followed by Dennis and then myself (I, of course, lost track after that). After a few minutes at a few hundred over launch a nice set of thermals came through accompanied by a nice set of cummies. Circling up a few thousand feet I got my first chance to take a picture:

Elizabethville, from a few thousand (I don't have an altimeter) above launch. There are (at least) five gliders in this picture (one is in the setup area and since Jeff Harper was the last to launch, I'm guessing it's him).

My kids helped me annotate this one.

Zoomed in.

I'm not sure who this is.

The main thermal that came through got several of us up near (and in at least one case over) 3000' above launch. The cloud that formed was an indication of how nice this cycle was. After leaving the thermal to fly back out front and looking back, here is the picture I got of it:

On the way out to the landing field I wanted to get my own picture. If you look in the upper right hand corner of the first picture you will see a pond. Here is a zoomed in picture of my reflection as I flew over it on the way in for a landing followed by a second shot with the zoom off.

All in all, a great day of flying. I had missed the normal chatter of friends in the landing field after a good day of flying and it was great to be back. After packing up we all headed over to JoJo's for pizza before heading home.

Doug and Alana

Karen

The next day the sky looked perfect. I had things to do in the morning but at about three in the afternoon I began to set up in my front yard (It's great to have a motor). Following are a few pictures I took while flying around my neighborhood. I'm getting pretty good at in-air restarts so much of this flight was with the engine completely off (as opposed to just throttled back) even though I need to fix my prop break (since my prop free wheels when the engine is off).

Here is a shot of Green Lane reservoir after thermalling up.

The one of “Outlaw Farm” since the last one I took was pretty blurry. This one's not great because it's zoomed in. Next time I'll need to just be lower.

A closer shot of the reservoir.

Looking down the runway at “Butter Valley Golf-Port”

and then another shot zoomed in