Coco in China

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Our second flight was at 9 in the morning and instead of hitting town we all headed our to the boonies. I was thinking about soloing Tracy, but it's a little strange burning the butane (even pressurized) and it was getting late. We got into a thermal that sent us in a complete circle with about a 500' radius, then picked up speed. A large crowd came out of nowhere when we landed about a mile from a road.

Last night was winded out so we drove around the 1/4 mile square town square, blasting our burners for the thousands of people lining the streets. It was pretty neat.

This morning we drove 1 1/2 hours out into the grasslands, took a dirt road a few miles, and then just drove overland to a nice spot to take off that was shelterd by a hill.  The wind changed so instead of flying back to the road, we were told to fly about 15 K to a railroad and they thought there might be a road there. We were also told to not cross a river because the trucks couldn't get across. We flew about 45 minutes with winds picking up to 20+ on the surface. The chase truck chased us cross country and could not keep up.  I saw one of the Chinese pilots land in a cloud of dust, and drag, and drag, and drag somemore so I thought this would be as good as place as any. I was thrown partly out of the basket and drug on my bak for 30 yard before getting myself back in the basket for the next 60 yds. Jan stayed in the basket and was fine, I am somewhat scapped and battered, but not really injured. We just got back to the hotel and have not heard from Humpty or Denny Flik.  !
 Th!
e last I saw Humpty he was still
 up, almost out of sight, with winds gusting well over 25. I'm sure he will be fine because there is lots of room to set up a landing and drag. The chase may be interesting.  His truck also went overground also.  With grasslands for as far as you can see  it's like finding a raft at sea. They gave each pilot 6 bottles of water to take with them on the flight. I'm going to go see who else is back.

More later.
Gary

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