October 25, 26 and 27 of 2002
Raven Ruined...Almost
It was the usual cold and dreary drive out to Spruce View. October in Alberta is usually the first real month you can sense the comeback of winter. The weather was looking OK for the weekend but I could feel a spook in the air. This is our clubs annual Halloween get together and fly-if-we-can weekend. I don't know how many times I've made the drive out to Raven but this was my first time with the clubs balloon in tow so I was hoping for some good weather and a chance to log some serious training time. I had Connie booked for Saturday morning and I was going to hunt around for another instructor once we got a few flights in. JF had committed to instruct on the Sunday morning so I was almost fully booked for the weekend.
Raven is about 35km east of Innisfail Alberta on the #54 highway . This is ranch country with the Rocky Mountains foothills about 30km to the west. Great country to fly in when the winds are from the west (most of the time). The Raven Rally takes place at Lind Thens' dads (Oscar Caron) place. It's a balloonport made in heaven. A round area carved out of the bush along the Raven River where you could easily launch up to twenty balloons. This year we had lots of space with Ralph Dowson, Richard and Heather Clark, Jack and Shelagh Bailey, Walt and Linda Then, Andy and Connie Schulthess and myself all bringing balloons to fly.
Friday evening is traditionally a meet at the Spruce View restaurant evening. Not sure how the tradition got started but who am I to buck tradition. I'm pretty sure we where the first to arrive at Spruce View and I think we even beat Walt and Linda. No one had the desire to fly that night. Maybe the snow had something to do with it. Rosanne and I meet up with Bert at the restaurant where he proceeded to have desert before having dinner. That's the way Bert and sweets get along. Later that night I hooked up with Ralph and we headed out to the farm just in time to help with the unloading of supplies from Walts' van into the Roundhouse. Oscar even had the fire going before any of us arrived.
Saturday morning briefing was at 8AM (make note of that time). The temperature was "dammed cold" and the winds were straight out of the east (heading into the hills) and the snow was still falling. That's a formula for breakfast. The stove was sparked (a number of times) and breakfast was on the griddle in no time. Bacon, eggs, toast and those little potato things with a thousand names. You know tater-tots, hush-puppies, mexi-fries..... The grub was devoured as usual and everyone began their day heading off in different directions with the next briefing around 3:30PM. Some of us went to Red Deer, some to Caroline and some back to the hotel for a nap.
Saturday evening brought more of the same weather. Not as much snow but the same horrible direction. Break out the Turkey Cooker and lets deep fry some Turkey. Now if you've never tried this you should put it on your list of things to do before you die. Deep fried Turkey is one of the tastiest things on the face of the earth. This year we saw three medium size birds hit the oil. Jack Bailey did his usual carving job to perfection and the birds were the hit of the evening. Next came the costumes, pumpkin carving and balloon stories that traditionally occur on the Saturday evening in Raven. I can't comment on the rest of the night as we headed back to the hotel early with a baby who needed some sleep time. Raymond was tired too!
Now if you've ever spent a weekend away when there's a time change you can appreciate how difficult it is to coordinate a group of people to be at a give place at a set time. Old Time? New Time? When do we change our clocks? What time is briefing? This is difficult stuff to get squared away even without the time change. Well, yours truly got it screwed up. Let's see if I can get this straight. Saturday briefing was at 8AM. If you change your clock back one hour then the sun comes up at 7AM. Got me so far! Me being the keener balloonatic that I am thought that this would mean that briefing was at 7AM. OK... where is everyone? Walt had given us all an extra hour of sleep this morning and I was an hour early. Briefing was still at 8AM. This gave me a hour to get things squared away in the trailer and to do some paperwork so the time wasn't wasted. Not like those people sleeping.
The weather this morning was OK. The direction wasn't the best but the 6,000 ft. wind direction allowed you to come back towards the launch field. JF and I launched at about 9:30AM and landed 4km away after a 2hr flight. We almost made it back to the launch field but the straight south was missing. Last to get back to the Roundhouse meant that the breakfast was a rush but it still tasted awesome. We did get to salvage one flight on the weekend but for me it's more about spending quality time with friends and family.
See Yah Next Year!
Steve
Booooooooooooooo!
