Worked around a couple blue holes North of the home field and got stuck into cloud streets in the general direction of first turnpoint. Rounded that, headed back to the cu, first dying, second one taking me up to 6000' (after letting me examine possible fields
) and happily trucked back South to find the streets veering off into Class C
and blue on the way home
-- well there were itty bitty puffs every 20 km or so which worked quite well and managed to hopscotch from one airfield to the next for most of the way. A bit warm for trailer retrieves and every bit closer to home reduces the air retrieve cost. Got to a busy field during a traffic lull -- the freq was uncharacteristically quiet and there was no lift to be found; so time for my first glider landing on pavement. Nice touchdown and rollout, but the glider just kept rolling and rolling, even with double panel spoilers out. But the runway was long and eventually attempted a turnoff to the grass between the lights.
A few folks turned out and were quite helpful in pulling the glider to a spot on the ramp where it was out of the way. And there was no shortage of volunteers to position the glider on the runway when the towplane showed up
The employees and C-152 / C-172 students came out for cockpit tours.
Oh yes, there was a bit of noise from the tail skid on take off that took me a while to catch on to
Well, that's three of the fields North of home that I've landed on. Farther North gets more expensive, but there's local tows available
if they will fit you in. Another member did his 50 km. the same day and chose to land instead of flying back. He had to call for an expensive retrieve, but got a bit of a reduction as the towplane picked me up on the way back.