I had intended to set out for Houston as soon as I had flown, and I hurried people so I could, but I still was the last person to leave the field. I drove along the scenic Columbia Gorge, then past the Lincoln statue in Wyoming that Brett finds so frightening. I turned right at Cheyenne and arrived at Denver at rush hour. Although Denver motorists are much more polite than those of Seattle, that experience set me sufficiently back that I had to drive from Trinidad, Colorado to Houston in one interesting day. Texas is big, and no Interstate highway runs directly from the Panhandle to Houston. They let you go 75 on most of the back roads, so I made pretty good time. I tried to station another car about 100 yards ahead to intercept deer, but Texans are onto this trick, so we would do a little dance to see who would lead. Texas road crews aren’t squeamish about fast traffic. Some construction sites had 80 MPH speed limits and no sissy “fines double” signs. Texas does have signs warning you whenever there is guardrail damage ahead. I thought that was a little quirky, but I guess it’s good to know. My GPS led me on a toll road around Houston. There was no toll booth, but occasional flash photography. I later learned that I had committed a crime by driving on that road without the required RFID sticker. I turned myself in, but the authorities had no record of violation by the stealthy Prius.
I went to the contest site Thursday to fly some stunt. The Houston flying site is really nice and open, with two lovely concrete circles. There is a swamp to the north with some low trees. I have a combat plane in that swamp, a result of a flyaway at an F2D team trials long ago. I was deterred from fetching it by reports of serpents infesting the swamp, to wit: cottonmouths, copperheads, rattlers, and coral snakes. Locals also warned us of fire ants, an armadillo who lives under the sidewalk, and a “honey badger” who resides in one of the combat circles. The latter, according to the infallable Wikipedia, is poppycock, but good training for F2B team members, who will be cautioned about drop bears at the 2016 world championships site. The only vermin I saw at the team trials site were some ibis (a goose with a nose like a mosquito) and thousands of grackles, talkative birds who swarmed through the circle while I was flying stunt, but mostly sat under cars to keep cool. I did see a black coyote in the hotel parking lot.
Topic: Grand Tour of Stunt 2015 (Read 6261 times)
