by Mike Chevalier
Judy McCarty wrote:
> At Woodstock it was cross from the west to varying degrees
> during the day and quite cloudy. Steve Kinsley, how did you
> know? Homer, Tom, and Mike Balk made it to Harrisonburg;
> Mike C to Mount Jackson. Hopefully we will hear their
> stories firsthand. Kevin was headed that direction but I
> don't know how far he got.
I launched at 2:45, turned right and after getting enough altitude started the trip south. Tom and Mike were working over the rock pile near the gap when I got there low on the ridge. A few minutes later I was about even with them trying to get higher for the jump. Mike B. went first losing lots of altitude reaching short mountain below the ridge. Tom and I went for it a few minutes later not being all that high over but gaining most of the way across. Tom made it comfortably across but I having started a couple hundred below Tom got to the ridge well below the top. Can't wait for that new glider, it should make such trips a bit easier.
So for a few minutes it was pucker factor for me until I got a couple hundred over. We
found light ridge lift on Short Mtn. with thermals to about 2000 over, launch that is, Short Mtn.
stands about a thousand feet higher that Woodstock launch. Reaching the end of Short, my
fingers were getting cold, I wasn't getting high enough to make the jump back comfortably and
we still weren't able to get hold of Adam the driver leaving the retrieve situation a bit sketchy. I
decided to glide out and land near route 11. It looked like an easy glide at first but I hit massive
sink and had to land in a field close to the ridge where I'd picked up John Dullahan once.
I packed up, stashed the glider and hiked out a jeep trail about a third of a mile to the road. Only two cars passed in the next mile and a half walk out to route 11 and neither picked me up. By this time I'm cursing my luck as it's getting dark, Adam hasn't been heard from and I'm gonna have to hitchhike.
Lucky me, the first vehicle to come along was a 1965 Ford, Left Wing Communist Hippie Van, driven by locals from Fort Valley. They're on their way home and give me a beer and a ride all the way to launch. Ed, the driver, says he watches us from home behind launch. By this time it's 6:30 and dark, Adam is just leaving launch so I tell him where Homer, Mike and Tom are and take off to get my glider. A shooting star catches my attention as I'm driving south. It seams to veer and split in two.
Reaching the jeep trail I dig out my flashlight only to find that the batteries are feeble. So
much for the Energizer bunny, I'll have to walk in in the dark and save the batteries for the return
trip when I'll be carrying the glider. After a few minutes my eyes are well adjusted to the dark.
Suddenly a bright object appears in the sky, headed towards me. Moments later I find a strange
craft hovering overhead making a low humming noise. A blinding shaft of light envelopes me, I
feel a strange weightlessness and suddenly I'm on board the craft. I'm surrounded by short gray
beings with gray 
skin, large heads and large black eyes. A few unknown medical tests are
administered and in minutes I see Earth recede in the distance.
I'm whisked away at warp speed to a distant planet called Tralfamador. Several other terrified humans are on the ship. We communicate with the aliens by thought as they do with each other. No speech is needed. I'm put on display in some kind of zoo. My quarters are tastelessly but adequately furnished with merchandise stolen from Sears & Roebuck. The food served me was green or brown tasteless mush. For entertainment I was provided I Love Lucy and The Price is Right reruns on tape and a stack of tabloids to read. They explained to me that their studies indicated that this was Americans preferred form of entertainment.
I'm required to mate with Tralfamadorian women. No romance involved, just industrial
grade bonking. They are trying to create a hybrid race. So far it hasn't worked out well. I get a
chance to check out some of their technology: impervious metal films you couldn't put a knife
through, music CDs the size of a dime, an anti-gravity skateboard.
Eventually I was put on board another ship and warped back to earth and returned to the same
spot where they had taken me from. It was a dark night, I found my glider where I'd left it. I
reached the truck, checked the time and date and found that although I had been on Tralfamador
for several months I had only been gone from Earth for an hour. I stopped at Burger King in
Edinburg and had some tasty food for the first time in months. I checked my flashlight on the
walk out...they had charged the batteries. MC
