HIGHLIGHTS:
 

1. The day didn't look too good as we left for Avenal since we had fog in Fresno for the first time this year. And it was an early date for fog compared to our normal first fog day.

2. At Avenal there were few members, I guess because of the bleak look of the sky early on. Jerry Smeltzer, Joe Anastasio, Steve Schery, Hanna Marlette, and I constituted the total sum of members on hand.

3. The low overcast kept us grounded until mid-afternoon. Then, Jerry Smeltzer, Joe Anastasio, and I flipped coins to see who would be the sniffer. Joe lost but Jerry opted to go up in the 1-26 to check the conditions. He came back much too early and felt there was little in the way of lift to go after.

4. Finally, the wait got to Steve Schery and Hanna Marlette and they decided to see if the lift conditions had improved since Jerry's flight. Sure enough, they found something to work and we wondered at their tenacity in remaining aloft. Of course the overcast skies remained and they were working something like the earth giving off a little heat combined with the cold air aloft, and that translated into lift.

5. Later on, Joe and I went up in the Blanik and we, too, found enough lift to remain up there for nearly 40 minutes. We gained nearly 1000 feet from our lowest point up to about 3800 msl. While we were aloft, Alex Caldwell launched in his Nimbus 3 and although he seemed to be coming over into our thermal, he never made it and we lost sight of him in the haze.

6. Sure enough, as we prepared to depart Avenal in late afternoon, the sky amazingly cleared up completely as though there never were any clouds around earlier. And that clearing took only about 5-10 minutes in what might have been a very large and dry air mass replacing the moist air mass. Oh well, another day at Avenal but nice to get out and enjoy the scenery.