Albuquerque, NM

 Today Sandy and I fulfilled a shared desire to ride in a glider.  Actually that was my desire, Sandy's desire was to ride a glider as pilot/passenger and live to talk about it.  Flying first, Sandy was the first glider in the family.  Rick, the guy really controlling the glider, has been doing this for over 40 years which is good, but what really convinced me that he was the man to take us soaring is that he and I were at Ohio State at the same time.  The takeoff was exhilarating, though rougher than I had expected.  Air chop continued until Rick released us from the little tow plane.  After that it was smooth sailing.  Inside the cockpit we could easily talk without raising our voices as the sound of the air rushing around the aircraft was a "woosh" like loud whisper.  Soaring is when the glider actually gains altitude without the aid of the tow plane.  We spent a great deal of time looking for the thermals that give us that lift.  We released the tow rope at 10,000 feet.  At 8,500 feet we caught a thermal that took us back up to 9,300 hundred feet.  Rick explained that the 800 feet of altitude equaled an extra 8 minutes of flight time, four minutes up, and four minutes back down, explaining that the fall rate of the glider is 200 feet per minute.  On the ground Sandy said Rick told her that too, but she didn't want to hear about anything called a "fall" rate.