Arty's Ultimate Ultralight Adventure

Wednesday, May 6 and Thursday, May 7

We woke up Wednesday to misting drizzle and no ceiling. Another morning of relaxing and waiting. Randy also discovered that the great horned owl is a ?she? ? hunting for food for her single chick.

The weather report said the weather would be sunshine by 10:00 a.m., but 10:00 a.m. came and went ? as did 11:00 a.m?.noon?1:00 p.m?.2:00 p.m. By 3:00 p.m. the ceiling had lifted to about 2000? ? plenty of room for us to fly beneath. We were airborne quickly, but just as I was leveling off @ 1000? I heard Randy on the radio. ?Arty ? my EGTs are really high. I?m going back to the airport.? I turned and re-entered the pattern. He checked his spark plugs and they looked fine, so he decided the problem must be in the instrument. We took off again.

We flew a straight GPS route since we were over miles and miles of cultivated fields. They looked to be 30-50 acre parcels, divided by dirt roads. Very, very few farm homes or buildings ? just miles and miles of green and brown. And flat, flat, flat. No trees except around the occasional farmhouse. We?re on the high plains.

Here they?ve curved the road so it goes around the irrigation circle.

From the air, sometimes the plowed brown fields become an optical illusion.

In the midst of all the irrigated fields, there was a long snakey dry river.

I imagine how it used to look when it was all prairie grass and populated with bison and Indians on Appaloosas. I know that my knowledge of that time period is heavily influenced by non-accurately depicted novels and movies about the Old West ? yet I bringing the romanticized pictures to mind.

And before we left the Texas plains, I got some shots of Randy in the air:

New Mexico looks very different from Texas. It?s an abrupt topographical change and it?s clear we won?t be following fields anymore, but rather flying the highway.

We landed at Tucumcari, NM about 20 minutes before sunset. Winds were mild ? but by the time we got back from dinner, they had picked up and setting up my tent became a real exercise in frustration. Both of us finally gave up the idea of camping under our wings and dragged the recalcitrant tents into the corner of a building for protection.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

If you checked my and Randy?s SPOTs before reading this, you know that we?re in a field 35 miles east of Santa Rosa, NM. I don?t know if the SPOT terrain view shows the red dirt landing strip we?re on.

We didn?t get out until noon today ? my fault, as I was getting technical advice for my Anywhere Map. (More about that in a later post.) The winds didn?t seem too bad at first, even though it was hot and the density altitude was high. After 10 minutes I started getting bumped around. Still not too bad. I looked down at my Anywhere Map and saw that I was only doing 32 mph over the ground. Sigh. Then a thermal caught me and I bounced up 500 ? before I had a chance to dig into the seat. (I have a 4-point harness, but when it?s really windy I sort of scrunch down. Hard to describe.) Then a sink and I lost 1000?. I applied full throttle and couldn?t climb; still dropping, but very slowly. If it was just up and down it wouldn?t be too bad, but it was upsy-daisy from side to side as well. Not fun! After another 20 minutes of this, and seeing that at my ground speed I?d be over an hour getting to the nearest airport in Santa Rose, I radio?d Randy that I was going to look for a place to set down.

Randy radio?d back, almost chortling with the fun he was having. He had caught a thermal and ridden it to 10,000? @ 1200? per minute. ?What fun! I?m going to do it again!? His ability to handle the wind far exceeds mine. I started looking for a place to land ? and saw what looked like a red dirt strip up ahead. Closer and closer, yes, it?s definitely a landing strip. I flew its length to make sure that weren?t any hidden traps, then circled and landed and radio?d Randy.

So right now we?re both sitting under our planes listening to the hot, hot wind blow. But I?m not complaining, because the wind is all that makes the heat bearable. (Of course Randy pointed out that if the wind wasn?t blowing we wouldn?t be suffering the heat, because we?d be flying!)

Randy has his camp chair and is on his computer ? I?m sitting on my duffle bag and am on my computer. How neat is this? A local farmer drove out to see what was going on. We can walk to his house if we run out of water, which we will since it?s only 2:00 p.m. and it?s entirely possible that if the winds don?t die down (which they?re not expected to,) we?ll be here overnight. I?ve got raisins and Cheetos and some of Kathi LaVasseur?s cookies left, so I certainly won?t starve. Randy has some survival food also. And the farmer might take pity on us if we really do have to spend the night here. (Randy said that he?d prefer to turn around and go back to Tucumcari for the night ? turning back had never occurred to me, but it would be vastly preferable to trying to camp out here, if last night's wild-tent-rodeo was any indication.)

I?ve got some neat pictures of this place, and will try and get them uploaded to this post in the next few hours. Right now I'm going to get out a tarp and my towel and lie down and see if I can nap.