A Nice quite ride.

One of the things I so enjoyed was a trip to Tehachapi Ca. There is a glider school located at the airport in Tehachapi. This little glider field was good enough to be a NASA training point. Several times I was able to go there just for the thrill of being able to ride in the front seat of a glider. These craft have NO power supply, no motor of any kind. You are hooked to a Cessna 182 by a thirty-fife foot steel cable and under or a little to the side of the front seat is a leaver. The pull plane would get you air born and moving toward the Tehachapi mounts at about sixty knots (about sixty-five to seventy miles per hour) and five hundred feet in the air. The pilot would let you know when to pull the lever, releasing the cable and everything changed. The forward motion almost stops. The nose of the guilder dipped just a little as the pilot would roll a little one way or the other, looking for an up draft to carry us higher. Quite and still it is so very quite, there are only two sounds. One is the popping of the fabric wings as they make their way through the air. The other sound is the whistle of the wind as the craft movers through the air that is caring it. You seem to be hanging in the air. The sense of motion is very close to gone. Have you ever stood and watched a bird of pray as it glided through the air, or circles. This is the closest I can describe how you feel, the ground just passes below you so quite with only your shadow now and then, as it moves alone the mountains to show that you are moving. The guilder moves in a slow circle as it comes closer and closer to the mountains. All at once the whole craft seems to jump straight up. As the pilot rolls the gilder into the updraft that we have just found. You just guide in a large circle, just a lazy circle as you go higher and higher, then you just seem to float, like sitting on top of a mound of whipped cream, the upward motion has stopped. You have reached the top of the updraft. Such a smoothness as you move through the air without effort, without power and without sound. Once more you float along just watching the hills and valleys pass quietly beneath you. You move through the air with the feeling that no one or nothing can hear you on the ground as you effortlessly move along the mountains. One day it was a little cloudy, you just moved through these mounds of whipped cream quietly and effortlessly. I could not help but think of the large birds I have seen in the air. I can remember as a child outside of Bakersfield seeing a huge brown bird in the air. You could stand and watch them for what seems hours and they never moved their wings, they just floated on the element we call air. Later I learned these huge birds were Condors. And here I am riding in the same elements as these huge birds just floating in the air no sound almost no sense of movement, only a passing shadow seen now and then on the ground below us. A time when you can consider the glory of our great God, reflect on what little problems you are having. As you look from one side to the other and enjoy the beauty and the glory He has allowed us to not just have but to see and enjoy. To float among the clouds of God and enjoy the thoughts of His glory and Majesty that we are allowed to get pleasure from His creation. To sit with your back to the pilot and allow the tears of gratitude to roll down your face as you reflect on Him and rejoice in knowing Him.