Quitting

Mike and I drove over nine hours each way to Lookout Mountain last weekend.  We helped pass the time by listening to podcasts.  My favorites were the Freakonomics podcasts.  I loved the books and the podcasts are just as entertaining and informative.  One in particular really stuck with me.  The subject was quitting.  Yeah, that's pretty broad...could involve most anything...quitting a job, quitting smoking, there are so many things to quit.

According to Steven Levitt (one of the Freakonomics authors):  "Each of us encounters an unattainable goal about once a year.  Being able to abandon goals when they are unattainable is good for your health."

So obvious!  Yet it seems something I'm not very good at, nearly incapable of....even when the reality is staring me right in the face.  Can you imagine standing in a supermarket line and waiting for hours, knowing full well that the line was closed not long after you got into it.  I sometimes wonder how a reasonably clever human being (me) is able to look straight past the most obvious reality.

"Sunk costs" are the reason.  Levitt explains that those are the costs that you have already put toward a goal that appear so great that you find it hard to give up, even when you should.  Waiting on hold for customer service is one very common sunk cost.  Once I've been on the line for twenty minutes or so, I can't just give up and call again another time.  Having twenty minutes invested has, on more than a few occasions, caused to me waste yet another twenty minutes before finally getting fed up and hanging up the phone.  Having sunk twenty minutes of my time somehow creates the incentive to waste another twenty minutes.  How dense!!

So, it looks as though this is the life lesson the universe is sending me at the moment.   Some goals are not obtainable, not matter how determined we are.  It's just time to quit.  Period.

And you go home in the crispness of the night

While the landing field at Lookout was too much of a washing machine for me on Saturday, Ben and I went for a hike in Cloudland Canyon.  Ben has left the Bay Area and will be working with Joel Froehlich in San Antonio. He's just driven out from San Francisco with a 3 hour stopover in Texas.  We're in the same boat in a few ways, so it's nice to hang out with him and a hike in the crisp air was the perfect way to spend the afternoon.

The colors probably don't excite everyone the way they do me.  But, with the exception of humid and more humid, I haven't seen much in the way of season changes since coming to Florida.

Hey little sister who's your superman?

They really know how to throw a party at Lookout Mountain.  I went up over the weekend for the Women's Hang Gliding Festival and the annual Halloween party.  Not the best luck with the weather - not for me at least - but it was so nice to have a few days of autumn, something I see very little of.  Between the fall colors and the costume party, it was well worth the 9 hour drive up there.  Had I known absolutely everyone would be in costume, I might have tried to come up with something.  Instead I was the only dufus that didn't dress up.  

I wish it wasn't quite so far, I would make the drive up there more often.  I liked it.

Fun in the Wright Place

It was the 100 year anniversary of something to do with the Wright brothers - yes, I'm terrible, I couldn't even say what.  What I do know is that it was a good excuse to bring the USHPA board meeting to Kitty Hawk and an even better excuse to spend a few days out on the dunes.  I can't believe I had forgotten what a great tired feeling it is to come in from the dunes at sunset after spending the entire day out playing in the sand.

Kraig was kind enough to send us a Malibu.  Although the weather wasn't right for soaring, be got to pretend we were students again (and in some cases, be students again) and run up and down the dunes.  Once we tired ourselves out sufficiently, the PG boys showed up and we traded lessons.  We put both Rob and Nick in the air - well barely - and they returned the favor with some paragliding lessons.  What luck to have the two best (and hottest) pilots/instructors in the country!

Thanks to Ricker for the photos of me!!

Meet me in the summertime....we can move the air

Yesterday it seems, all at once, the summer finally came to an end.  This morning we all went different ways.  It was a sad site.  I will miss the time I spent with really good friends.

For our last day, we did a few really touristy things, starting with a giant hole in the ground - Meteor Crater - where we did what any good pilots would do, watched the birds circle and discussed how we might launch from the rim and thermal up over the hole.

.....then drove back to Phoenix via Winslow, Arizona where I just couldn't resist standing on a corner ;-)  They've made quite a corner here all from one silly song.  I had to play the song for Jochen who didn't really understand why I felt the urge to stand on a corner in this sleepy little town.

Wow, I'll sure miss the giant saguaro cactus and firey sunsets here.

Grand Day

We started out by breaking the cardinal rule of hiking the Grand Canyon....DO NOT attempt to hike to the river and back in a single day.  Ha ha ha....wasn't meant for us, obviously.  

Total distance was 14.2 miles round trip and I haven't decided yet which was worse, the downhill half or the uphill half.  The downhill portion is sooooo hard on the knees and the quads.  But the 5000 ft elevation gain in mid-day heat wasn't a walk in the park either.   Actually it was a walk in the national park and we really did have a great time.   We took 2.5 hours down, had lunch and a swim in the river and then walked up again in 4 hours.  

I'm sure this has got to be the ugliest bird in the universe.....Grand Canyon condor number 47.  He was quite tame and let us get really close for pictures.  I'm sure he knows he could knock us over in a single swipe.  

At the top we celebrated with a giant steak dinner where we sat just long enough for our muscles to totally tighten up for the hour drive back to Flagstaff.

Wide Open Spaces

One thing I love so much about the United States is that we have an abundance of wilderness area.  As much as I enjoy a cute little alpine village in Europe, there is nothing like the open space we have here.  You only have to drive two hours out of Phoenix and you can start a hike into the mountains and not see another person for quite a long while.

Dustin took us up to San Francisco Mountain today for a nice 10 mile hike that ended at a nearly 13,000ft summit.  We had a gorgeous view (which isn't represented in my photos :-( ) in all directions with Meteor Crater to our east and the Grand Canyon to our north.  It was difficult for this sea level monkey, but I had a great time with the boys up at the top where we were all a bit hypoxic and giggly.  We even managed a video-Skype call from the summit to Carlos to rub it in a bit ;-)

Tomorrow may rain so I'll follow the sun

Now that the Santa Cruz Flats Race has finished, Jochen, Dustin, Ben and I are  spending this week touring around the southwest.  These are the last days of Jochen's 6-month sabbatical and we're gonna show him some cool stuff.

After all our goodbyes, we left the Francisco Grande and drove to Flagstaff via Sedona.  The drive was very pretty.

Santa Cruz Flats Race starts today!

I'll be blogging from the SC Flats Race blog for the rest of the week.  Come check out the action here.  

More Pictures from the Pre-Euros

Day 5

Once again, a little improvement in conditions....slightly less stability today and apparently a great looking forecast for tomorrow and Saturday.  So, they called  a 97km task to the same goal as yesterday, but with a bit of dog leg further north.  Just heard that only Primoz made it in.  Jochen was about 30km short and Pedro just 11km short.  Haven't heard from Suan yet.

This might seal the win for Primoz.  Only two tasks remaining and I must leave at the crack of dawn tomorrow to start my long trek back to the US (via Liverpool)....I'll miss the end and I'll miss all my new Turkish friends.

Launch BBQ

This is the first time I've ever had dinner on launch at a hang gliding comp before ;-)  There's a beautiful view of the city lights from up there.  Adem, the organizer and the mayor of Kayseri and his entourage joined us and we laughed all night.  The hospitality here never ends.

Day 4

Back to a bit more stability today, but still flyable and taskable!  Just a 73km task today with goal out in the countryside again.  Looks like Frank (Spain) won the day with Primoz just behind.  Jochen, Suan and Pedro landed short in a difficult area.

Noel and I had fun on the dusty dirt roads today, even got to use the 4WD on the trusty Mitsubishi.  Jochen landed out in the middle of nothing where the powdery dust reminds me so much of Arizona.  Stopping to retrieve Suan, we kicked off a nice big thermal that got Frank up from just a couple hundred meters off the deck - and got him the day win!!

Scores Up!

Scores can now be found here.  It's still a very tight race with Suan (Italy) currently leading just ten points ahead of Jochen (Belgium) in second.  Primoz (Slovenia) and Pedro (Spain) are not far behind.

Day 3

Funny how one great day of flying can make you really fall in love with a place....and I wasn't even doing the flying!  (Yes, I know Gordon, I always say I love every place).  But it's true.  We got a bit of a respite from the stability and had a little 67km task to the southwest - as it turns out, a hugely undercalled task.  The boys had a fun flight with 500-700 ups and I got to check out the landscape outside this local area.  In many ways it reminds of southern California, like the Mojave Desert, without the Joshua Trees.

Looks like Jochen won the day just ahead of Primoz.  Suan, Pedro and Frank were all in goal with one very happy Turkish pilot.  The goal field was swarming with kids who loved to say CHEESE.

Little traffic problem on the way home from goal.

But we arrived back home in time to see the sunset behind the launch mountain.

Stars among us

Jochen and maria appeared last night on an hour long live television program all about hang gliding and paragliding.  Apparently the show aired internationally with plenty of commentary from the Belgian champion and the little FAI steward on the upcoming European Championships next year.  In the end, they convinced the host to have a tandem flight next year before the comp starts!   I think Jochen should consider a career change ;-)

Task 2

Like a few other places we've flown in Europe this summer, the stability plague seems to have hit here today.  The air was so stable the task committee (Primoz, Jochen and one Turkish pilot) decided a 32km task was all they could call.  Even then, Jochen and Pedro ended up in the bomb out field.  Jochen said he didn't make a single 360 during his flight.  Meanwhile, Primoz and Suan are just in goal now.

The meteo man here at the comp has quite a resume.  He has worked for the US military in Afganistan and is a full-time meteorologist here in Turkey.  His English is nearly perfect and I had a nice conversation with him on launch today.  He said that the change of seasons (end of summer to beginning of Autumn) typically brings the nicest and most unstable conditions for this area.  Unfortunately, the last few days' weather has been anything but typical (as we seem to have found all over Europe this summer).  I didn't want to jinx anything by asking him if things were expected to improved throughout the week, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Meanwhile, we're enjoying the Turkish hospitality and food....maybe Maria I a little too much!  We've also come in contact with some cool wildlife.

Jochen's advice for the day....better remove the ballast!

Bombing out isn't the worst that can happen though.