Day 550: Salton Sea PPG, Day 7 and Five Chukkers

Shabbos here was just amazing, with non-stop flights all day long.  There must be over fifty pilots here this weekend!  I walked over to the RV park and said hello to all the folks I remembered from last year.  A number of pilots flew PPGs in from Glamis, a three-hour flight, then flew back in the afternoon.

This morning I got up early to get in my 11th flight since we arrived:

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I took off and was joined by Greg, who comes here each year with John.  We had a great time flying together and filming each other flying:

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Greg is a second year pilot.  We jokingly called him “ten minute Greg” last year because his flights were so short.  Today we flew for about half an hour:

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Here’s a frame from Greg’s video of our flight:

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The skies are busy here today, even as some pilots head home or reposition to fly the dune field at Glamis:

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M and I replaced the kill switch on his motorcycle:

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We drove into Indio to watch the weekly Polo match at the Empire Polo Club:

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We arrived at the end of the second of five periods of play in the match, called chukkers.  Between chukkers, the spectators take to the field to replace divots made by horses and riders:

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It was sometimes hard to understand what was going on, but there’s no denying the excitement of watching a dozen horses and riders thundering towards the goal posts:

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At the end of the chukker, the lawn Zamboni comes out:

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More crowd-sourced divot repair:

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The final chukker:

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The score was tied at the end of the match, but after applying the appropriate handicaps, one of the teams did win:

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During our trip to Indio, we bought propane, filled the truck with diesel, bought gas for the PPG and M’s motorcycle, visited an ATM, and mailed a couple letters.  While Trish and M did the food shopping, B and I did the laundry.  It was a busy day!  On the way back we visited this building-side mural Trish had heard about in one the towns along the highway:

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Our last stop was to fill up our water bladder at the Arco station to fill up the RV.  We got home a bit after sunset.

Day 548: Salton Sea PPG, Day 5
Day 551: Salton Sea PPG, Day 8

2 thoughts on “Day 550: Salton Sea PPG, Day 7 and Five Chukkers

  1. Looks like you are having a grand time! I love that mural. Chukkers looked pretty fun too! Every time I see those flying pics my…stomach…clenches a bit. Meanwhile I’m looking forward to some SCUBA diving in Koh Lanta Thailand soon.

    • Yeah, I’m just now able to take off without having to do deep breathing to calm myself down. It’s the strangest thing, I don’t particularly like being near cliffs or in tall buildings, but somehow sitting it a flying lawn chair 1000′ above the ground isn’t a problem.

      I would like to try Scuba someday, we snorkeled the Keys in 2012 and that was amazing. Scuba is a lot like aviation, I imagine – safe so long as you pay attention to set-up and maintain awareness while doing it.

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