Watching the conditions before a great flight. Thanks to Wendy for the great shots !

This was a great launch. However, it is the strangest looking shot of a glider that I have ever seen. Click on the picture and you will see what I mean. If I saw this before I flew,, then I would be doing another pre-flight ! Don't look like it should even fly.

Okay guys, here is my report from Jenkins, Alabama for today.
On the way down to the site, that the wispys were materializing, which meant that the cummies weren't far away. The weather reports that I always look at was showing the direction was good, however I wasn't too keen on the mostly cloudy part. They really missed that part,,,thankfully. We arrived at the LZ to leave a vehicle or two there and shuttle up.
It was nice to see when a fly day is called, and to help save a site, so many pilots show up. If everyone knew how good it was going to be, more would have showed up. However, it was rodeo/ rock-n-roll air, and I love that kind of stuff. Others didn't. There was 8 pilots on deck today. John Furman, Don & Stacy, Mak, Philip Dabney, Keith Nunnley, Eric Carden, and myself. It was honkin' at times(15-26), so we waited awhile to see if the cycles would calm down, and fortunately it did for a while. John suited up first, and I was happy to let him be the wind dummy, and I followed shortly behind him. He picked a great cycle and launch off into a nice thermal and was over the tower before he got there. It looked great to me, and I got my hang check and walked it on out. We had plenty of people for experienced wire crew today. What a luxury. I picked a sweet lull to 10 right in my face, with movement on the trees in front & to the sides. I also launched into another thermal, and was over the cell tower by the time I got there. Apparently, it picked back up a few minutes after I launched. It was approx. 3pm when we took off.
No one else launched until 6pm. After the sun went behind a bunch of deep,dark cloud, it calmed down a bunch. It was still blowing 15+ on launch, but the thermals where history. Keith & Philip took to the skies and got a short extented sledder. Maybe 10 minutes. It was almost calm in the LZ when we landed.
Top altitude gain was by John, dang it. He birddogged off me most of the day. He was able to take a nice one that I was in to 3,450 over launch. Every time I found myself coring a nice one, I looked up and he was making a beeline to where I was at, haha! HOWEVER, I did get to see the top of his sail for about 30 minutes.My top altitude gain for the day was 2,200 over. He flew for 2hours & 30 minutes. Myself, I got 2 hours.
For my 3td flight on this most specktacular glider,,,,, I'll take it ! Just wait until I get wired in... then Maybe,,,, I'll do better.
That's my story, and I'm sticking to it! ! ! ! ! !