I had a wonderful flight on Friday. I had a personal best for time aloft (4 hours 15 mins), altitude (just of 7k AGL), and solo flight distance (30 miles). It was also my first time sharing a thermal with a sailplane, and my first time flying over Kettle Moraine (see the image) which is where I go mountain biking.

One of my favorite parts of the flight was when I was 15 miles away from the airport and getting very low. I had picked out my landing field and was under 1000 feet when I spotted a bird turning circles over a corn field to the south of me. I quickly flew over to the bird and sure enough there was lift. It was slow and first but eventually I found the core of the thermal and made it back up to 5000 feet. I was so glad I got LASIK because otherwise I don't think I could have found that bird!

When I first got the the field the bird flew away. I had luckily learned a lesson from a wise pilot awhile back: "Never follow a bird that is trying to fly away from you."

At this point I decided the weather was not good enough to make the flight all the way home or to lake Michigan, and I did not have a driver lined up to come get me, so I decided to try and make it back as close to the airport as possible. After another low save over a sod field I had enough altitude to safely fly over the town of whitewater and back to the airport. By this point the clouds had completely decked over. The lack of sunlight usually means thermals are done, so I assumed my flight was done. At around 1500 feet my vario started to beep indicating there was some rising air. I found a spot where I was able to stay between 1000 and 2000 feet for over a half hour turning around and around and around. Then all of the sudden the thermal "turned on" and i started to actually gain altitude. I thought I was the last person in the sky, but at 5000 feet I reached to top of the thermal and was surprised to meet Dale and Terry there. They apparently saw me turning down low and joined the thermal above me.

I slowly flew around and floated back towards earth. At around 2000 I decided the day was done, so I did some fun high-speed turns and spiraled back towards earth. A good landing put a nice end to my day. My neck was a bit sore the rest of the weekend from all that time in the harness, but that's nothing to complain about!