Welcome Adrenaline Junkies

It's Sunday morning - and as unjust as it is, it's my last chance to fly for the next five days. Today's forecast is horrible, super stable air and a bad lapse rate, but I look on the bright side and realize I've got the entire day to enjoy the sky with my mates.

As I am loading my wing into the truck, my neighbor Earl, who knows I paraglide, sticks his head over the fence and says "Hey bonehead, what's up?" Earl has been calling me bonehead for a couple weeks now, and each time he does I can't come up with a decent comeback. But then it comes to me. I reply "It's going good, skinhead, what's new with you?". You see, Earl is bald, and if he is going to call me bonehead, I think I will start calling him "skinhead".

Earl asks, "Hey, do you have any wood screws, about this long?" he gestures with his index finger and thumb to show me how long the screws should be. Unfortunately, Earl knows I have screws, and nails, and tools, and everything else one would ever need to repair a house or a car, or a lawnmover... "Yeah, I got some" I reply.

Earl says I can give him the screws later, when I get back, and then he asks, "Are you going to jump off a cliff? I tell him yes, and then he says, "maybe you better get the screws now."

And this puts a smile on my face - because I get some recognition that my sort of fun happens to be out of the ordinary, adrenaline laced, gravity defying type fun, and pretty dangerous too. But its a good way to celebrate freedom before the next five days of sitting behind the desk, staring out the window at the cumulus as they go through their life cycle of birth, building, drift and dissapation.

Of all the pilots in our club, I have the most delapidated jalopy - this heap of mine just won't die. The upside is that because no one wants to ride in my rusted heap, I usually get to ride in theirs, and its AC and leather seats most of the time.

The drive to the top is a long one, and I look at the orchards and try to decide which are apple, and which are pear.

The pilot on launch hasn't flown in a while, actually since November. She is breathing hard and has that caffinated, nervous, jittery and jumpy look all at once. Clipping in, she begins talking to herself, "Ok - do I have anything hung up here...?" and Then she can't remember which way she turns to do a reverse launch.

The thermals are tiny, smaller than a wing, but as I fly through them, I can tell they have just enough energy to climb out on, but even if I turn the smallest, most perfect circle, its still not going to keep me inside the core all the time, so I decide to turn left, which is actually the only way I thermal. And once again, I tell myself I have to turn right once in a while, because I feel like such a Barney when during a right turn day in a competiton.

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