Tying
up the gliders
Mexico City Airport
Finally
there
Skydog
and Cassie
Valle de Bravo - Day 1
Friday, Jan 17: Seattle to Valle
To get my boys in bed at a decent hour my wife, Susie dropped me off at the airport 3 hours early. The guy who checked me in indicated my glider was oversized and had to be 62 inches or less width, length, depth combined. I was at 80. After tightening up my glider, and taking my boots and coat out I was still at 74. I finally took out my glider and hand carried it. My glider bag now had my harness, the van radio and my GPS charger.
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Beginning at 1 in the morning we flew thru Austin, TX to Mexico City. Well, wouldn't you know it. I was the only one of our group that was threatened $100 for the oversized glider and my glider was the only one that didn't make it when our baggage arrived. It must have been divine intervention. All I was missing to fly was my harness since I had taken just about everything out of my bag when I checked in. At Valle we met up with Superfly's Jeff Farrell who loaned me a spare Gin XO harness…I was set for flying. After landing in Mexico City we were shuttled to the rental place. We hung out there for about ½ hour while we waiting for our 3 vans to get geared up. We loaded up and were on the road, out of the city by noon.
The city was extremely smoggy. My eyes and lungs burned and I got totally plugged up. Hope it's better at Valle. Air cleared on the way to Valle and it was fine once we got there. Marc pointed out flying points of interest on our way in to Valle 3 hours later.
We drove to our lodging, Club de Vela Santa Maria S.C., "The Castle" for short, located on the lake front. After a bit of unpacking I headed up to our large room where I would be rooming with Suhas and Joe. After getting settled the gang decide to hang out at the LZ to watch the competition pilots land. It was cold and cloudy. I had low expectations for tomorrow's flight. We later went for a $2 street vendor taco dinner just beyond the town square. We walked across the square and had a few beers in a 2nd story bar overlooking the square. In bed by 9:30…real tired from the red eye flight and the day's travels.
