I had hoped to leave L.A. on Thursday, but work prevented it and I didn't leave until Friday afternoon. Unfortunately, I had packed enough firewood in my trailer for 3 days of bonfires, plus all the breakfast & lunch food for 2 days, so that sucker was HEAVY. I started chugging up the 5, and just outside of Valencia, on the first steep hill, the blazer started overheating. Made it to the radiator water rest stop and waited for the engine to cool down enough to open the radiator cap. Spent over an hour there in the heat waiting. Eventually topped off and was on my way. Then going through Gorman, the engine just stopped for no reason. I was dumbfounded. The only thing I could think was the fuel pump quit. Sat there for nearly another 45 minutes, on the side of the road, when I hear someone honking. Arriving out of nowhere, like Superman, is Malury & Tokiko. We discuss the options when my dad calls and says disconnect the battery to reboot the computer. The car started right up afterwards. Malury took my glider and decided to follow me, and off we went.
Took awhile, but we got to the 46, and driving along, counting all my many blessings that the car was still running and I would be able to get all the food up to Big Sur, around that time is when I hit a deer. Ran right in front of me, hit the brakes, but rolled right over her. I was shaken to say the least. What else could go wrong. Malury grabbed his knife in case we had to end the suffering of the poor creature, and together we walked back. It was a small doe, looked almost unharmed, but she was dead. We walked back to the cars when a pick-up truck showed up. The guy driving said he lived there and heard the accident, wanted to see if he could help. We explained what happened and he asked where the deer was; he backed the truck up, got the deer on the bed some how, and he was gone. Hope it tasted good buddy.
The car was still drive-able, mostly cosmetic damage, so on we pressed. Got to the campsite around 11:30pm and people could finally go to sleep knowing there breakfast made it safe and sound.
Saturday turned out to be THE DAY!!! Got to launch and it was blowing down pretty good, hard enough that people were bitching, moaning and complaining about the idea of driving down. Joe Greblo eventually launched in a good lull and started going up. We all followed. There was two or three areas that were cranking out thermals and it got crowded! Joe, Richard Shaw, Max Wagner, and Adam Newman all made it up to 8,000 ft, with Richard topping 8,400. It was an unbelievable sight of over 15 gliders circling and sharing the air of Big Sur, just like a good day at Kagel. It was beautiful. Hope someone got a picture.
Sunday was typical Big Sur with sled runs. The two exceptions were Mike Ivey who got above launch, and Orion Price who was last to launch and got a 45 minute flight.
The drive home had some more hick-ups. This time Joe Greblo and car followed me where I promptly over heated on the big rise on the 46. We stopped and removed the thermostat and made it to Paso Robles. There we found a leak in the radiator, the likely culprit for the loss of coolant. Put some quick-weld epoxy on it and finally drove straight back to Sylmar. What an exhausting drive.
Big thanks to Joe Greblo, Cyndia Zumpft, and Kat Shaw for organizing the trip and campsites. Special thanks to Malury & Tokiko for following my troubled car to Big Sur, and to Joe & Kris Greblo, Mike Ivey, and Tom Casper for following me back to Sylmar.
And yes, the flying was totally worth drive.
