Drew's Solo and Snow in Tucson

It has been a busy few weeks. On January 13th, also the day my brother turned 25, Drew was cleared to fly a glider solo. I am very excited for him and he has been flying safely by himself ever since.

Here is a picture of Drew with his flight instructor Kurt going over all of the paper work. Kurt is another wonderful instructor with the Tucson Soaring Club that Drew and I have both really enjoyed flying with.

Here is a picure of me with Drew right before his take off. I think he was kind of nervous but I knew that he would do great and I was just really proud of him. Flying solo is a really liberating experience, as cheesy as that sounds. Anyway, it was really fun to watch Drew solo becuase unlike me he was a bit more aggressive. Drew was able to actually do some stalls on his first solo flight that me and the other instructors could watch from the ground. But to summarize his flight in short I will just say that both his takeoff and his landing were perfect, not that I expected otherwise. After he landed, I got to cut off the back of his shirt, which is now hanging in the clubhouse right next to mine.

This last weekend Tucson actually got snowed on. It was very odd. I tried to go mountain biking with my friend Jenne but by the time we reached the trail head, which was up near Oracle, there was already several inches of snow on the ground. If that was not bizarre enough, by 7pm that night it was snowing and sticking in central Tucson. There was even enough snow accumulation for Drew, [m] and our friend Lan to make a small little snowman.

Riley with Snow on her back. She looks like the inverse of a dalmation.

These are the palm trees in my back yard with snow. I never thought I would see this.