Here we go again!. Hard to believe a year has passed since I was there last. Still very vivid in my memory. Seems that happens as you get older..long term memory is much better than short term. That could be to my advantage as I can still visualize the routes I flew last year, but then again with around 160 folks flying this year it’s a case of follow the leader.
I leave on the red eye tomorrow night (Tues 19th) at 11:45pm and get to Toluca around lunchtime Wednesday. There I will pick up a taxi and get dropped off at my apartment. Yes Apartment! This year I had planned on going with John Mann, but he decided that getting married was a better option so dumped me in favor of his new bride. Thanks John!I guess my face isn’t that good looking these days! However the price was right for the apartment and although outside of town is en route to launch. I got the bottom floor which is a little studio.
Downtown Valle is quite quaint, but very very busy and at around 3:00pm all the cars in the surrounding area descend upon Valle like crows. Car after car jam the streets and the smell is pretty bad. So this time I talked to my friend Claudia whom I met at Saint Marcos a couple of year’s back and whose boyfriend lives in Valle. Turns out she moved there last year so she helped me get setup with an apartment. Pretty sweet!
It’s only about 2 miles out of town so a short taxi ride away but is in the country side and I am looking forward to that. However not being able to speak Spanish could be a problem, but then again do have an Iphone! So I have a number of phrases already on the phone that I can play to the folks I meet, like, where is Valle de Bravo?, can you take me there?, how much for a taxi?, no way dude!, etc. This of course is all due to the Spanish app I downloaded from the app store but it is pretty basic. So thinking ahead, I shot down to the Duvall Ixtapa restaurant and asked the bar tender to repeat a number of phrases I think would be pertinent when I land out and recorded them on my Iphone. A cheap translator! We shall see how that works out.
I finally managed to fix my pod harness speed bar that I have been having problems with about 6 weeks ago, the last time I flew. Wheelie Bob (Dave Wheeler) told me to just cut off the bottom step. So I did and I think it will work just fine. Just need to remember how to fly now. i also added two lead pulleys to the bottom of the seat plate to act as guides so the speed bar line stopped getting caught at the corner of the seat. I drilled two holes in the wooden seat plate at the corners and attached the pulleys with nylon plastic tie straps. We shall see how that holds out.
Finally a few of the Seattle folks arrived home late last night including Ralph, Paul, Kevin, Stephanie and Matt Cone among others. For first timers they said it was great fun having a lot of the Seattle crew down there and they flew every day bar 2 so not too bad. No real bad stories other than one day where at the top of the lift the air was real trashy and folks were taking collapses left right and center. however they all got back safely.
So now I made a list of all the things to take down and have 95% of it packed. So all in all all set.
Now I just need to be able to do better in the comp than last year. Had a couple of good days flying but didn’t manage to hit the start cylinders on those days so basically came in almost last in the field at the end of the comp. This year I just plan to fly high, stay high and follow and see how far I get. Has to be better than last year right! :-)
Good luck and have fun!
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