With a forecast and a early morning reality of light winds, combined with conditions that looked like they would soon turn blue, we struck camp and headed out of town toward Big Spring and the US Nationals. Pete Lehmann flying the tug to Leakey. Dave and Russell driving to Leakey with Russell ready to fly the other tug to Big Spring tomorrow.

This year's WRE never did work out, most likely as we came too late in the season (after the Worlds) and didn't get the conditions that we come to Zapata for (unlike the first three days of last year's encampment before the hurricane). Very little over running. Never cu's in the morning through the trip from Zapata to Laredo. On Tuesday we had cu's in streets for the first time for Pete with a late start and for Zippy and BJ after they got past Laredo and to Uvalde. No cu's to get to up on the Edwards plateau.

We got three speed records near Zapata but late in the afternoons when there were light winds and a sky full of high cu's. The conditions are incredible in Zapata even when the conditions aren't there for records. Three hundred mile flights are still quite possible. Very fast triangles are often possible. The thermals are big, the cloud bases are high.

We make it difficult for ourselves trying for home runs, leaving the air field at 10:30 AM, without cu's this year, and just hoping to run into lift before we glide to the ground. Dustin landed 28 miles out with me on his one and only attempt. I landed short three times out of three. Zippy landed short twice out of four attempts. BJ two times out of five. We were all behind locked gates and had to work our ways back out to the public highways. Even Pete who launched much later landed behind locked gates.

Next year maybe we'll have the option of trying a different strategy and get there in mid June. It's hard to coordinate all the resources (tugs and tug pilot) and ourselves (and gliders) to get to this forsaken corner of south Texas.