At dawn on Thursday morning, I had what should've been one of the scariest experiences of my life. I went for an early-morning flight on a powered paraglider, a type of ultralight aircraft that resembles a go-cart with an engine, a giant fan (actually the propeller), and an enormous parachute. The experience was not at all frightening, though, because I was situated behind an experienced pilot and trusted friend (the aforementioned buddy of mine who owns the exotic animal sanctuary) who told me at every step what to expect. Due to fairly stiff winds, we only reached about 1000 feet and actually hovered for a period as our forward momentum was counteracted by the wind. It was AMAZING! We could see everything below, including Aric, who was filming and taking pictures. Now this was not entirely an act of leisure and diversion; it served as a practice run to enable me to become familiar with this type of flight so that we can attempt to find one of my missing research snakes from the sky. Since we will be able to cover a large area from the ultralight, we hope to be able to pick up a radio signal from a snake ("Abuelo") who has disappeared from our study site.
So unless Abuelo returns before the weekend, I may be making another flight within the next few days. I think I could handle that.
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