First flight of the year.

Last Sunday in Texas we had some pretty awesome weather for January. The Blipmaps were showing 6000ft for 3pm and 4000ft for noon. This is what the sky looked like at 11am on the way to Luling. It was feeling "right". Nice wind strength and direction, about right on the humidty, the dryline seemed to be right on top of us.

I didn't waste much time setting up and getting launched. I was eager to see if reality reflected the forecast.

Joel from Thermalriders towed me up in his newly tuned up Dragonfly. We flew through some good lift on the climb, and quickly got up. I pinned off after 1700ft in another climb.

It didn't take long to get to cloudbase at 4200ft. Joel came back up and joined me for a twirl.

My goal for this flight would be home at Canyon Lake. This was the original plan as it makes the retrieve easy and the scenery that way is nicer. However it would be 28miles into a moderate quatering headwind 21km/h and the sky looked better downwind. Tempting... lets see what the sky has to offer.

This flight hadn't been done before, so I'd studied the maps carefully. There's a dropzone to avoid at Fentress, and airspace around New Braunfels and San Marcos. Then there's a good stretch of trees into the hill country. I followed the San Marcos river, not really knowing how far I would make it. 

Heidi was following along below me. I was surprized to make it to the edge of the hill country. I had almost landed once, and climbed back to 5500ft. The thermal drift was a challenge given the climb rates. However I managed to get through the gap between the airspace and just when I thought I'd be landing alongside I35, I got another climb. It was a slow one and drifting towards San Marcos.

I topped out at 4300ft, it was getting late in the day and cirrus was slowing climbs farther. I went on glide toward Canyon lake. I did get one light climb, but with the drift it didn't help much.

I landed just 6 miles short after ~3 hours in the air. Awesome for January. Many thanks to Joel at Thermalriders for the tow and Heidi for the retrieve :) 

Being tourists in London

With just a few days left of our trip we headed to London. Jessica drove us and joined us for a day. It's much easier to drop the car and take the tube in.

We rode the Piccadilly Line into Green Park just in time to see the changing of the Guard, at Buckingham Palace.

Quite a fun little show.

A short walk from there is Big Ben and the houses of Parliament.

Westminster Abby (where most royal events happen) is across the street.

And Westminster bridge gives a pretty good view of the embankment. Grabbing a few good English Pies for lunch on the south side, we walked on down passed the OXO tower and across to St Pauls Cathedral. After a quick tour we headed underground to see the Wildlife photographer of the year exhibition at the National History museum.

We managed to find time to meet up with some college friends, before hitting the streets for one final day. I had some banking to do, to my surprise and Heidi's delight my personal banker was Daniel Craig - well it looked like him anyway.

And what trip around London would be complete with stopping at the Nationl Portrait gallery? Was great to catch up with Pat and Darryl there.

From there, we jumped on a double decker bus and concluded our city tour. Stopping at the Tower of London and the bridge, and gawking at the architecture one last time before jumping a flight back to Dallas. What a whirlwind tour !

New Year 2013

High up on the check box of things to see on our trip were the London New Year Fireworks. Our plan was a little last minute and haphazard, but we pulled it off. We caught the Oxford Tube into London (which is actually a bus), that got us the about 11:15pm I think. The Streets were closed to motor traffic for 3 square miles. It was human gridlock for the last 1/2 mile. This was no surprise, 250,000 people were estimated to be in the capital to watch the display. But where to watch the 12,500 fireworks from? We ended up on a roof of Carlton House, not a place that you could really get away with going any other time. But it was overrun, by a peaceful, excitable crowd, and the nervous security guards seemed happy their direction was mostly heeded. This was the grand finale from our perspective. Quite the atmosphere I can tell you and we were still almost third of a mile from the center

It took a long time to get out of the capital, this street was one of the ones away from the center and open to vehicles, None shall pass! and it was 00:30am. 1-1-13. We eventually got home at 5am.

Oxford

After lots of good family time, Heidi and I headed down to my sisters place, close to Oxford. We of course explored the prestigious city.

We started at the Saxon tower, which has a nice view of the city skyline.

The architecture in the city is outstanding. So we put on our best tourist outfits and walked around taking plenty of pictures. Stopping in a few of the famous drinking establishments.

Connected to the Museum of natural history, the Pitt Rivers Museum has a collection of many worldly things. The gun collection, was quite fascinating from an engineering evolutionary stand point. The notes and historical explanations are quite thorough.  

Another attention grabber is the shrunken heads exhibit. I always wondered how this was achieved. Of course the bone is removed, and wood ball inserted to keep the form, skin stitched back up again and treated.Of course this info is all available on wikipedia these days -not that I am planning on having a go ;) It is a little creepy knowing these heads were once an alive person.

The villages around Oxford retain much of their history. In my sisters village, the row of cottages next to the local shop (for local people), has a thatched roof.  

And while the flood waters were receding, the Thames was still about 7 feet higher than normal, making this guys floating house a little inconvenient to reach.

Old places on the Welsh border

Close to the Welsh border with England, a 3000+ year old bronze age settlement site resides. The remaining recognizable man made feature is the Mitchells Fold stone circle. It was a nice reason to go trounce around some pretty landscape in some appalling weather. We found the Miners Arms a good place to warm up and the best pint of the trip.

Across the border into Wales we visited Montgomery castle and town.

I was hoping to hear someone speak Welsh or at least hear a Welsh accent, but even in the local pub the dialect was very middle English. A conversation we struck up with someone, found us talking to a musician that used to play with Deep Purple and another band out of Houston, Tx. Still, the town of Montgomery does have a good dose of history and atmosphere.

Inside the Church of St. Nicholas, is the tomb of Sir Richard Herbert. The entire interior of the church is quite intact, unlike almost all other churchs in England. On the way home we stopped in Bishops Castle, a funky little town, great place to eat and home of my favorite beer of the trip. Three Tuns 

Sterling. It boasts to be the oldest licensed brewery in Britain established 1642.

The next day, Ludlow Castle received our visit. Heidi and I took along my Nephew.

Who doesn't like to explore castles ?

We were a little dubious as to where the little fella might end up, so we decided against firing him out of the cannon.

Medieval castles are great for hide and seek.

Ludlow castle is one of the more extensive castles I've visited.

I think we were in there for the best part of 4 hours !

The views are outstanding, Even on a rainy day. The castle is quite photogenic. Would be fun to be at one of those medieval fairs in the summer.

The town of Ludlow is fun too, although with the jetlag, we were caught out by the closing times, well almost every day ;)

The rains continued and the town got a good wash.

Next up on the history visits was Iron Bridge the town which takes its name from, the famous 100ft cast iron bridge that was built across the river here in 1779. It was the first of its kind symbolizes the dawn of the industrial age. There are many museums in the town, we settled for the museum of brewing, which stayed open a little later and had an awesome cider ;)

England for Christmas

This Christmas, Heidi and headed back to my homeland to catch up with my family. It has been way to long since my last visit and Heidi had never even met Mum and Dad.

Tamsin and Fabrice kindly picked us up from the airport and whisked us up north to Shropshire, stopping for lunch in Ludlow.

Our Christmas cottage was like the movies, quite a culture change Texas to England.

We had time for one last shop before Christmas, and went up to Shrewsbury. Home for Darwin when he was alive.

We walked around the old town soaking up some historic architecture. The Castle and Museums were closed however, so we settled into a nice Pub, for a swift half.

It had been raining more than usual the last few weeks. The lower parts of the town were quite flooded.

All so soon it was Christmas! Family fun around the tree.

After a massive meal, it wouldn't be Christmas without a nice long walk in wellies. This is Cardingmill valley, east side of the Long Mynd flying site. Quite a bit of water gushing down the hill in all directions.

Boxing day, we popped around to the neighbors place, on a stroll around 'hood.