Fall From Glory

Well, so much for videos and newspaper articles on the glories of paragliding! Last evening, Deke and Austin suited up to demonstrate the sport to Deke's brother, Max, and his wife, Dianne. We were all gathered in front of the barn while the guys revved up their motors and prepared for take-off. Austin got airborne easily and was circling in the pattern waiting for Deke when Deke punched in the power and started his run. For some reason his parachute fell off to the right, and in trying to correct the "wing" Deke ran straight toward one of our culverts. At the last minute he tried to jump the ditch only to land on our paved lane on his knees. He flipped on his side and rammed the propeller into the road. It splintered. Knees got bloodied and punctured some. Nothing hurt but his pride.

No more flying in the near future, at least until the new prop arrives.

Ah, the fall from glory!

Splintered propeller!

Bloody knees

"A Little Closer to Heaven"

Well, the boys went flying and the Journal Courier newspaper posted this online video.

 

What do you think?

PPGing Online

A week ago Monday, someone from our local newspaper contacted Deke to request an interview with him and Austin to demonstrate their PPGing. The man, Mike, met them at the Delphi airport and shot about an hour of film. One interesting aspect of the filming occurred with Mike hooked Austin up with two GoPro cameras. I saw some of the pre-edited film and it looked awesome. The whole 2-minute segment will be online this Friday (Aug 17) at noon ET when you go to jconline.com. I don't exactly know what the link will be once you get into the newspaper but I suspect this is a weekly video of something of local interest posted every Friday at noon.

 

Bountiful Harvest

I went to the garden today...

Flying High

Deke and Austin flew their powered paragliders last night against one of the most breathtaking sunsets imaginable. I know these pictures do not do it justice, but just try to imagine the scene.

Well Glory Again!

This early morning when Deke and I sat on the front porch drinking our coffee, this scene developed in front of our eyes. It was glorious and I just wanted to share it with you.

We traveled to attend Mark's promotion ceremony where he pinned on the rank of AF Major. Even Erin and the kids joined us for a wonderful day of being together. So proud of Mark! While there, we celebrated C-Bear's 3rd birthday. She loved the candles that looked like crayons and it was everything I could do to convince her not to color with them. And she licked off the bottoms of each candle when she removed them from the ice cream cake. So much better than eating a real piece of the stuff! When we left Mark and Lori's, we spent two days with the Varnell clan. The men went choo-choo training and the women went shopping. Yeah! What fun.

Mark's promotion to Major

All of the grandchildren together again

C-Bear's 3rd birthday

"I'm proud!"