Scrappy's 30th Year Survival Party!

I know its kinda a crowded schedule lately for events but some things I just can't change. All are invited to celebrate my 30th year survival party on Saturday May 31, 2008. A little preemptive but I may be off island on the 3rd of June (and will need at least 1 full day of sleep to recover.)

Some have had their doubts as to whether I would make it to 30 but everything has been going great, but give me a week or 2.

Morning activities to be flying or surfing or wake-boarding dependent on weather. BBQ to be held at 148 Kuupua St. Kailua from 4:00-10:00 PM (My generous family's home). Pool, hot-tub, BBQ and beer... (keep the scotch away from Alex this time though...)

Bring something small with you if you can. If not, still bring yourselves, your loved ones, kids, pets... etc.

We can also secretly congratulate someone else's birthday who doesn't like to announce it as well.

After-party @ 39 Hotel Street, from 11:00 till the cows take me home.

N’update

If you have never visited this site before (welcome), if you have managed to miss the last couple of HPA meetings (shame on you), or if you have been flying uninterruptedly for the past several months without landing for beer, bathroom breaks or “quality time with your significant other,” you may not have heard that Hillery and Suicide are tying the noose on Peter’s 40th birthday; and they're doing it on the LZ at Kahana: 7 June 2008.

Here’s the nuptial update . . . “N’update” . . . get it?

Location: Barring inclement weather the location remains the same: Kahana Beach Park.

In the event of inclement weather, location will switch to the Waikiki Yacht Club.

We will let you know by 4 June 2008.

Camping: Thanks to Miss June Akers, we have secured 3 campsites; #1, #2 & #3. We can have up to 10 persons to each site. We have 5 parking passes each (15 total.) Reservation dates are Friday, 6 June 08 through Monday morning, 9 June 08.

Campsite #1 is closest to the LZ, and then #2 and #3 cover the space fronting the parking lot.

Time: We were scheduled for 11 am. However, have rescheduled to HIGH NOON.

Beverages: (Hillery thought we should list this first!!!)
Vast numbers of glass bottles and cans seems wasteful. Therefore, we have decided to provide beverages in 16 oz red plastic cups; in three varieties: “7up-like;" “ginger ale-like;" and “coke-like."

You can feel free to bring beverages that are “grape juice-like” or mix well with soda or juice.

There will be keiki friendly beverages on hand.

Bottled water will be provided in a “Costco-like” manner.

Food: Hawaiian kine – compliments of Kanak Attack—Lau Lau, poi, Okinawan sweet potatoes, rice, and haupia.

Mid-West kine – compliments of Peter and Hillery – MEAT (NY strip, bird, and fish), veggie burgers for the veggie-terribles, bake beans, green salad, various pupus, and CAKE (wedding & birthday.)

Rental stuffs: A large (20’ x 40’) tent will be sent up by the rental company Saturday morning; they will tear it down at the end of the day. Seventy chairs have also been rented for the day.

How you can help: We have had several folks volunteer to camp on Friday night to help with beach clean-up and set-up in the morning; additional help is certainly appreciated: Come early and stay late.

-flowers: We need bags and bags and bags of blossoms to drop from the air; please steal all of your neighbors’ pick-able flowers. They need to be at Kahana with ample time for pilots to hike up, launch, and drop.

-tables: We need, at least, six 4-6 ft tables.

-tents: Of course, bring your tents if you are camping. In addition, we could use, at least, 3-4 pop-up tents and a "house" for the beverages; perhaps a 2-4 person tent.

-chairs: The rental chairs will be picked-up around 1700 hrs. So, please bring your beach kine chairs for later.

-grills: We would like to have, at least, 3-4 grills and extra tools of the trade (cutting boards, knives, tongs, ect.) The more grills we have, the faster the food gets done. We would hate for people to be standing around, starving; waiting for fish!

We would like one grill to be designated “VEGGIE-TERRIBLES ONLY.”

-coolers: Need’em! LOTS of 'em! Please bring’em! Fill’em with ice, please!

-ice: It is going to be a long, warm day. We would hate for food to spoil or (more importantly) beverages to get warm. Please bring ice; lots of ice. Think of it as an “ice” potluck.

We may need some folks to pick up some items to be brought to Kahana. Call if you can help or just listen for the Crazy Lady’s screams! We are going to download a bunch of music. Feel free to request any song or band; we’ll try to accommodate. Bring your CDs & ipods if you like. Remember to bring your camp lights and flash lights.

We recommend, if you are going to spend a lot of time in the beverage tent, you should plan to join the camping party.

Please, leave your comment below to volunteer for tasks, donate stuffs, or just to add your thoughts.

MAHALO NUI LOA

Hillery & Peter

See you at Scrappy’s Birthday Party!
Aloha

Memorial Day Weekend Wrapup

A marathon Memorial Day weekend of mishaps and milestones in mostly strong easterly conditions: many stalwart pilots made every day count, including some notable new (and old but rusty) locals and some bonus visitors who just happened to show up. Read on for the daily details.

Fickle Friday

I looked at Kahana in the afternoon, but it was super east and breezy, with clouds drifting slightly offshore. I heard that Sui flew Makapuu with One-eye, in what they described as light easterly conditions that barely got them to ridge height. Later, Dave reported a nice downrange flight from Makapuu to Maunawili and back in glass-off conditions under a low cloudbase.

Super Saturday

Reaper cancelled his student towing session because it was too strong and east at Sandys. Jetflap and Frank hiked Koko, then tried Juice, but apparently it was too strong and east there as well.

 

It was pretty east at Kahana but not too strong, thankfully. I joined the usual weekend dawn patrol out there. McStalker, Jim, Suicide and Ian (a pilot who has just moved here from California).

After initially hanging back and watching the others launch in conditions I worried might be too east, I eventually admitted it looked okay, and I soon found myself flying to Pounders with Jeff in the lightest thermic conditions ever, and he somehow managed to stay above me most of the time. Talk about ready for the Rat Race. Thanks to Jim for picking us up.

Reaper came out later to do a tandem with a new student - I'm sure we'll all be meeting him soon. Hilo Ken flew but had trouble staying up - Reaper thought he was super low and told him over the radio to make an emergency landing on the side of the ridge, but I was just getting back from my XC and I could see that Ken was still in the game, so I jumped on the radio and talked him into heading for the beach instead. He had quite an exciting time squeaking over the fishing lines and piling in behind the 12 catamarans parked on the LZ. Turns out Jiah's sailing club had come in from Kaneohe for a camping party at Kahana. She said she still wants to get back into flying but she's been really busy with work and a trip to Europe.

I scrambled off to Makapuu just in time to fulfill my dream of flying to the party. The wind was strong but it seemed flyable - not my favorite conditions, but we had an important mission after all. (Bellows was showing an average of 14 mph, gusting to 20.) Czech Pete, Fireman, Quentin, Jetflap and Ray all launched as well, and after hanging out for a while, watching Dave do donuts in the aerial parking lot, we headed towards Waimanalo to make history with our first ever landing at the beach near the clubhouse.

I headed over first, barely penetrating without the speedbar, and trying to keep my distance from the ridgeline, but I soon bumbled into an impossibly high patch of demonic bird-infested lee-side turbulence over the shoreline downwind of Rabbit Island, at around 1500 feet. My wing went away for a sickening moment, and when it came back to join me, we fought our way back out of that swirling nastiness and promptly headed back for a landing in the strong but smooth airflow down by the Heiau. Then I had the pleasure of watching all the other guys sail away in what they said was nothing but smooth air. I felt like Moses having to stay behind and not getting to see the promised land. Thanks to Bob for snapping me out of it and ferrying me over!

Then it was on to a wonderful evening at the HTMC clubhouse. Thanks to everyone who was able to join us for the night's celebration, and also a good discussion of some ongoing issues. For anyone that missed the meeting, the main news was that Quentin has spoken with folks at the city about ground handling at Kualoa and they are a bit more relaxed about it now - we will just have to make sure we stay downwind of the road and power lines. Please contact me if you'd like more details. Also, Quentin is working on an arrangement for us to legally access the ridge out at Nanakuli where the no trespassing signs have recently been posted out there - stay tuned for updates on that. Thanks Quentin! We welcomed Jared (new student) and Ian (California transplant) to the meeting, and enjoyed presentations of the USHPA awards we earned last year. Thanks as always to Rich for arranging the venue, and to Sui for the BBQ meat procurement and preparation.

Scary Sunday

The dawn patrol started things off again: Jim, Steve, Ian, and Hillbilly flew first in fairly strong conditions, but not too strong to keep them from getting up to around 2400 above Puu Piei at times. later, Sui eked his way out from the rotor behind the ridge after a disastrous launch attempt in strong conditions on a tandem with Frank's friend. Frank decided to hike down and go sailing. I launched soon after that, followed by Alan H. I toplanded as surprise visitors Mike and Ellen from SLC showed up on low launch with Scrappy and Jared. We watched the visitors fly short flights in pretty strong conditions, then Scrappy and Jared launched - I launched too and landed straightaway.

I met another surprise visiting pilot at the beach, Vlad from Seattle. He said he had checked the website, and he tried to call the Vice President and the Secretary on Saturday (who are those guys anyway?), but he couldn't get in touch with them. Next time he'll start at the top of the list I think. He said he'd try to come out to join us on Monday.

Scrappy and Jared flew for a while and stayed low and out front, but as the rest of us were enjoying multiple rounds of cold beverages at the landing zone (courtesy of Frank's friend), we noticed that the wind had turned super east and nasty there. We radioed to Scrappy and Jared that they should beat a hasty retreat to Punaluu for cleaner air to land in, and we drove around the corner and jumped out of our cars just in time to see them both splash down at the Punaluu beach park surfline in nuclear force easterly winds - I checked the Punaluu sensor later and it was averaging 18 mph due east at that time. They both got their borrowed gear a bit wet - but thankfully they escaped without injury or a more serious soaking.

Mellow Monday

Once again, the dawn patrol started us off at Kahana. Jim, Steve and Hillbilly flew first, in pretty strong conditions. Czech Pete and Sui came out for the next shift, eventually to be joined by me and visitor Vlad and Rich. Earlier, Sui had noticed a brush fire on the mountainside in Laie but by the time I was high enough to see it, I forgot to look for it. Conditions were light and sweet, and I was sad that I had to land on the early side.

Vlad had to leave to catch a flight but he wished he could have flown longer too. My first flight of the weekend and my last flight were by far the nicest and most memorable. I guess I could have skipped the rest - but then how would I have recognized the nice ones?

I'm sure I didn't cover every flight by every pilot this weekend, but hopefully I managed to hit some of the highlights. Maybe there was more east side action than I was aware of - I tried to fill in the gaps from the chatterbox. Let me know if I've left anyone out or if I am missing any exciting flying tales from the long weekend.

Para-Exploring on Kauai

A few of our pilots have flown on Kauai: Jon (long ago), Scrappy and Ray (recently). There is one paraglider pilot who lives over there, Glenn, who occasionally flies a little hill near the prison. I just heard back from a Colorado pilot, Andy, who I had advised to contact Glenn - apparently he spoke with Glenn's wife and checked out Glenn's site, but he found another spot that looked better to him.

Andy writes:

I ended up flying the Anahola Ridge/Mountain on Monday. I had a heck of a time finding a place to launch, and then once I thought I found one, it was another heck of a time getting to it, and it was only a couple hundred feet high, and the spot was barely large enough for my pack let alone my glider. But the conditions looked perfect and they were: E-NE at 5-10 mph I'd say, but great thermals cycles too. So I carefully balled up my glider and somehow I got it launched without any problems, still not really sure how I did it. It was probably the hardest/best launch I ever pulled off, probably because I really didn't want to pick my glider out of any of those bushes. I'm not even sure I could have if it had gone all the way in!

Anyways I launched off this little knob on the northern end of Anahola Ridge and I managed to get up to cloud base and over the biggest rocks, which is what I was after. It was spectacular. I knew there were plenty of helicopter/plane tours of the Na Pali coast (I saw them when I hiked the trail) so I did my best to check for them and such, but they didn't seem to be flying near this ridge at all, never had any encounters. I landed right back next to where I parked near the main highway in a little clearing (that does have a small "Keep Out" sign) and I balled my glider up and got on public grounds next to the highway ASAP. This field had nothing obvious going on at all, and I didn't feel like I was disrespecting it, or damaging it by landing in it.

I e-mailed back to ask some questions: how long did he have to hike? Could we call the launch "Andy's"? How much clearing would it take to make the launch worth using? How high did he get? Could he make the beach? How about over the back? Were there any people or livestock around? Would he mind if I posted his notes and pictures?

I think it took 20-30 minutes to get to the "launch" spot from the road. I'd be honored to have it named after me! It could be decent if a few bushes were cleared, but the way it was, I was almost falling off the slope to launch. The access was through a gate directly opposite an estate named "Tara." As I say, there was a small "Keep Out" sign, but it didn't look too serious. There was a washout/runoff sort of ditch that I encountered about halfway up that made it easier, but there was some nasty bushwacking to get to the runoff trail.

Max altitude was ~700 m, and that was probably 100-150 m above the lower cloudbase. I'm pretty sure I had the beach made on one glide, sort of wish I'd tried it or tried some other XC, but I really didn't want to land anywhere forbidden or land in any of that tall vegetation which I imagine would have destroyed my glider. I couldn't even think of going over the back since cloudbase was so low and all that terrain was in the clouds and it seemed like it was raining back there -- or at least it seemed low to me, since I'm from Colorado and we normally see cloudbase at 15-20,000 ft or even more -- but we don't always get to cloudbase either.

When I landed, some landscapers working out front of Tara gave me the hang-ten sign. Other than that, I didn't see anybody or any livestock, not even one of those roosters. There were a few white birds higher up near cloudbase, but they didn't seem to be soaring, even though I bet they were.

Certainly feel free to share my info/photos on your website if you think that's appropriate to do. I'm all about sharing and making things better if that's what will come of it.

I checked it out in Google Earth - as far as I can tell it's an ideal ridge for tradewind flying, facing ENE. Of course I don't know anything about the access issues over there, but it certainly bears further investigation. Any local pilots heading to Kauai anytime soon? Take your wing!

Meeting & Party in Waimanalo on Saturday, May 24

Please join us for our second quarterly meeting and party at the HTMC clubhouse in Waimanalo on Saturday, May 24th, at 6 pm. We encourage you to bring refreshments and pupus to share, as well as a few bucks for the BBQ collection plate. Cross your fingers for a good flying day at Makapuu beforehand - we're overdue to see some beach landings before our evening festivities.

Thanks to Rich for the clubhouse connection - and for remembering to reserve it a month in advance every time!

Your hardworking directors managed to stage an impromptu board meeting at the Kahana LZ after the Days of Jimmy event last Friday, so we actually have an agenda ahead of time for once. Here is my best recollection of our final list of topics, from my scribbled notes - please feel free to post suggestions for additional topics.

Agenda

I. Reports

A. Treasurer's report

B. President's report

1. New Pilots, New Ratings, Awards

2. Upcoming events: Wedding Fly-in, Rat Race

3. Website reminder: please use creative euphemisms when
referring to ice cold refreshments at flying sites.

II. Old Business

A. Ground Handling at Kualoa - Status Report from Quentin

III. New Business

A. Signs posted at Nanakuli - status Report from Quentin

Remembering Jimmy

Thanks to everyone who came out to make the first annual Days of Jimmy fly-in at Kahana a noteworthy and memorable event. I counted at least thirty on the hill and another ten on the beach, including Stefanie and Jimmy's family. We shared hugs and stories, offered toasts, and sent flowers sailing into the air above the ridge at Kahana, a site where we have shared countless memorable hours with our unforgettable friend.

The conditions were too strong for flying, but that didn't prevent a few of our most fearless flyers from vying to see who was "More Like Jimmy" as they took to the air under the tiniest of wings.

Dave and Scrappy flew an entertaining early session in the incredibly strong conditions. Then at the end of the day, after the winds had gradually increased from howling to nuking, Dave and Jorge capped off the day with the final flower toss.

After masterful high wind launches worthy of Jimmy's memory, they patiently worked their way up and out over the water until they reached exactly the right points in the sky to open their bags. They released hundreds of blossoms, shimmering clouds of yellow and white plumerias carried by the strong wind currents to sail spinning all around the gathering of family and friends on the ridge.

Dave's idea of gathering on the hill instead of at the LZ worked out suprisingly well - I think we may end up trying that again sometime in the future. Berndt posted some great pictures which I have linked into the top of this article, and below you will find some video I took as well the excellent pictures Czech Peter took. If anyone else has pictures or video that could be linked here, let me know.

May 9th, "Days of Jimmy" Coming soon!

Update: we are hoping people can round up lots of flowers. If anyone can help Bob pick about five Plumeria trees Friday morning, please get in touch with him or me, thanks.

Cancel work, call in sick, or just go AWOL, because on Friday, May 9th about 1pm, one year after the date of his passing, we will all be getting together to celebrate the memory of our friend, Jimmy Hall. For those who never met him, he inspired much of what we do here with our paragliders, and was one of the true action heroes. To help Stefanie and the rest of Jimmy's family honor Jimmy's memory, we will be putting on a fly-in. No competition, just flying and celebrating the spirit he left with us.

The format is to get as many people as possible flying. This event will be staged up on launch: toplandings, refreshments, everything, up on the hill. If you fly a tandem then bring it, Stef would like to get Jimmy's parents and sister in the air. I am thinking of Reaper, Jorge, Doug, Ray, Bob, Sui and myself just for that. I guess Stef is flying solo again, so she plans to fly solo, good to shake off the dust. We will be dropping flowers and releasing balloons, so it should be quite the scene.

Bring your party face, bring your glider, bring the tandems, bring friends, bring at least one great Jimmy story, and then let's bring it all up the hill, for bleacher seats to what will surely be an epic flying afternoon.

Look for future updates here on windlines.net.

I'm With Stupid

Nuking winds all day, 16 or 17 average at Punaluu. My turn to pick the kids up from school. McStalker took a pass. Obviously a good day NOT to fly, you would think. But my mother-in-law made a surprise offer to watch the kids if I got back early enough and I wanted to fly. Hmmm. The day before (another kid pickup day for me), I had jealously watched Czech Pete, Chandler and McStalker fly a sweet late evening XC past my house to Hauula. Maybe I'd get the chance to chase that flight today!

On my way home with the kids, Czech Pete called from Makapuu, and said he had just watched Jetflap launch from Crazys in a tiny wing and park it in a strong headwind - so it must be flyable at Kahana, right? I told him it doesn't work that way - Jetflap could launch Crazys in a hurricane. But I checked, and the Punaluu sensor was finally showing some reasonable speeds, down to an average of 11 or 12. Maybe Czech Pete was onto something!

The winds were only forecast to get stronger over the next few days, and here I was with a rare midweek babysitting offer, an hour of dim daylight left, and a flying buddy ready to go. I suggested we meet at Pounders and leave a car. You know, like, actually plan on flying XC for once, instead of just leaving the retrieve to fate. Pete's response: I like the way you're thinking! We left his car there and hustled back to start the hike.

We got to low launch and I had a feeling we might have missed the window - it was feeling a lot stronger than I expected. But we didn't say a word to each other about it - I just launched as quick as I could, and shot straight up. It was definitely nuking. I checked the sensor from the air and it was showing 14 average. Neither of us had working radios, but I figured we could make our intentions known well enough.

Pete shot straight up from launch and soon joined me in the parking lot above the rhino horn. I was feeling pretty uncomfortable with the windspeed, but seeing someone else rise up to join me gave me a new confidence. After all, we had a plan right? We had to save Pete's car from the nighttime vandals at Pounders!

After levitating straight upwards to around 1800 feet, we drew near enough to exchange hand signals in the fading light. I gave him a tentative thumbs up to gauge his state of mind - he pointed downrange. I was surprised to see that - but if he was willing, I guess I would try too. I pointed downrange in agreement. He seemed unsure of my intentions - he pointed downrange again. So did I! In response, he turned towards Punaluu, and I followed.

As I followed, it really seemed like I was crossing Punaluu Valley faster than I expected, and I turned back well before reaching the ridge, only to find myself in massive lift with a stonking headwind. Pete was rising straight up over the ridge behind my shoulder, and seemed to be slowly drifting back. I held my ground with some speed bar, and quickly rose up to about 1800 feet again.

I finally started to admit that the wind was quite a bit stronger than I had bargained for, and I stomped my speed bar hard to punch out over the water, crabbing with a slight downrange heading. I figured I'd skip the Hauula ridge in this amount of wind, since the ridge there was shorter and deeper, and I'd just see how far I could get taking the shoreline route out front. I cleared the shoreline right above my neighborhood, and started to assess my landing options. Even here out over the water, I barely had any forward speed, so I knew I had to keep pressing the bar and crabbing downrange to find a beach where I could safely back into a landing.

Meanwhile, over my shoulder behind me, Czech Pete had gamely stopped at the Hauula ridge to gain altitude. I wondered if he'd be able to punch out from back there. Maybe I'd land short and he'd be able to punch out and actually make Pounders. That wouldn't be so bad at this point.

I kept my heading and found myself sinking slowly and still needing some speed bar to maintain my position slightly offshore. I passed Hauula Beach Park, feeling low with less than a thousand feet, and started to eye the skinny beaches beyond that. The tide was super high, so none of them really looked all that great. I was still hopeful that I might be able to glide to Pounders as I crabbed into this mighty headwind.

I got down to a few hundred feet at the beach just before Pounders, and I had to make a quick decision - should I land short in front of the mansion here, or shoot across the water low for the goal? Either way I knew I'd be flying backwards as I descended to land. At the last moment I flew through some buoyant air that lifted me enough to make me think I'd make Pounders. I continued my crabbing approach over the water and passed just ten feet over the rock outcropping, looking down to see the bodyboarders at Pounders looking back up at me in surprise.

I kept my glider pointed offshore while I looked back over my shoulder to back into a landing at a spot where the sand was still visible above the high tide. My feet touched down inches from the surf, and I spun around, only to find my wing already brushing against a row of tall ironwood trees. No room to kill the wing, and this wind was ready to pick me back up! I managed to kite my wing laterally a few yards until a narrow gap opened up, and somehow I turned my wing vertically onto its ear and let it drag me through into the park, where I reeled it in and grabbed one corner to hold it down. I think I may have kissed the ground.

I balled my wing up behind some bushes and ran out to check on Pete. He was super high, and making barely perceptible progress in my direction. Finally he descended out over the water at Pounders, and began to make the same backwards approach I had made. Just before he swung over the beach, I obeyed a dark impulse and grabbed my old point-and-shoot camera to capture the landing in video mode. Who was I to disobey dark impulses at this point?

So I watched through the viewfinder as Pete backed in, touched down on a tiny strip of sand, turned, and got half his wing instantly snarled in an ironwood tree. Doh! I pocketed my camera and ran over to help. Pete skillfully kept the free half flying while I helped pluck the snagged half out, just enough for him to collapse the whole thing safely on the ground. Whew!

As we bundled our stuff into his van, Pete said he knew when we got to low launch that we probably shouldn't be flying. He had been surprised to see me launch, but followed me out of a morbid sense of curiosity. Once he got up high he was sure I'd want to cancel the downrange mission, but my hand signals convinced him otherwise and he stuck to the plan like the good sport that he is. We were happy to have got away with it, but we agreed that only a couple of really stupid pilots would not talk each other out of heading downrange on a day like this. But hey - enjoy the video!

Clouds and Showers

Condensation and precipitation defined the atmosphere at Kahana this weekend: sinewy cloud bands, roving showers, spontaneous low mists, dark bottomed squall clouds, towering cumulus castles. Over a dozen pilots came out over the weekend to surf the ethereal waves and avoid the occasional downpour, including some fun and unexpected additions to the regular Kahana weekend crew.

On Saturday, Jeff scored an early trip to Pounders to avoid an incoming squall, after which I brought him back to hike up for his second flight. Steve flew the early session as well, and was proud to pull off his first toplanding. For the second shift we were joined by Nick, Czech Pete and Suicide (on his latest new toy), for some very interesting cloud surfing and many tantalizing bay crossing attempts. Doug came out later to fly a tandem with Matthew, and Alan H. stopped by for some kiting. At the end of the day we buzzed over to Kualoa to watch Reaper give new pilot Jared his last few training flights.

On Sunday, I made an early flight to Hauula to escape from a set of squalls that drenched Jim out of the air and soaked Steve as he waited on launch. Scrappy brought me back, and as Steve was landing his soggy aircraft, Scrappy and Hillbilly hiked up for a marathon cloud surfing session that lasted all afternoon, punctuated by occasional toplandings. Czech Pete and Arizona Chandler joined them, followed by Reaper, Mad Dog, and new pilot Jared who seemed to thoroughly enjoy his first high flight. Welcome to the club, Jared!

Czech Pete took some amazing pictures of the misty scenery this weekend. I did my best to capture some of those cloudy vistas, but my old point-and-shoot camera just can't compare to the one that died in my recent bog landing.

Aloha from J Hole

Aloha from the mainland, friends!

Brian and I returned to Jackson Hole about a week and a half ago now, to FULL ON WINTER!! It has been snowing, freezing at night and on a good day, creping up to 50 in the sun mid day - whoop, whoop! I am none too pleased about putting my bikini in a drawer in favor of a wool hat, long underwear and SHOES, so I repeat the following mantra: "It's 82 degrees and sunny" while keeping my fingers crossed that the foot of snow lingering in our backyard will melt before June.

In the meantime, Brian has been working hard to get his window washing biz back on track. The calls are flooding in and this season is looking as if it will be a big one! I have been going to the pool (I close my eyes and imagine it's a chlorinated ocean), doing my exercises and walking on pavement and simulated sand - the snow. I am feeling good and have been inspired to start two businesses (making natural body products and offering professional handwriting and calligraphy services - stop laughing!). My third job will be managing All American Window Cleaning Services - Bri's business. Damn...I better get to work!

We had a FANTASTIC time on the Salt River in Arizona - the six day multi-day "transition trip" we took after leaving Hawaii, but before returning to Wyoming. The whitewater was rowdy and constant, the food plentiful and scrumptious, the beer flowed like water and the sun beat down on us almost the entire time - it doesn't get much better! We went with a great group of people, ranging in age from 25-65, including a doctor, two fishing guides, a massage therapist, a scuba instructor, a bike shop owner and an X-NFL player. The HUGE Saguaro's kept watch over us the entire trip. We managed NOT to run into a single scorpion or snake - YEAH! We did however, spot a Gila Monster climbing up a rock...COOL! For "Hawaiian theme night" our friend Dave put on the grass skirt and coconut bra we brought him from China Town and entertained us by attempting to follow the enclosed hula instructions. You would have loved it! I've attached a few pics of the trip for you to check out.

Hope you are all well. MISS YOU LOADS!! COME VISIT!
Love, Kelly and Brian