kengineer

Diddled around doing nothing Saturday, then around 2:30 I got off my butt and packed for a hang gliding trip. Headed up to this great flying site in Washington. Managed one evening flight in fading lift, 14 minutes, then camped out with the flying crowd and got two more flights this morning for another 25 minutes. Loaded up the glider, hit the road, and at 3:00, as promised, I presented my gamey stubbly self to my mother for our mother's day outing. Took her out to Thai and then per her request took "a stroll" through a riverside park. I gotta love my mom. Her "mother's day stroll" turned into (her idea, not mine) a two hour, four mile trek through the nature park, up an animal trail on the bluff, then doubling back through the residential neighborhood to the parking lot, all in sweltering heat. So, yeah, I'm inching my way up this slippery dirt trail the graffiti artists use to get down the bluff to tag the mausoleum, towing my mother behind me, and she's LOVING it. She couldn't stop talking about how much she had enjoyed our walk. So the next time I find myself 7,000' up some trail skirting around the flank of a mountain with a 40-lb pack on my back and my hiking buddy fending off the dehydration heaves and I'm calling it my vacation, I'll know which side of the family I got that from.

My dad, bless his heart, liked to sit in the sun with a magazine and a beer. I imagine I'll get around to that after my hips give out.