Up in the Air

Once you make a decision, the universe conspires to make it happen.

― Ralph Waldo Emerson

The past couple of days I’ve been up in the air—literally.  Yesterday I left Manatee Hammock Campground and headed north.  As I mentioned in an earlier blog, I made a reservation for flying a hang glider this morning in Fernandina Beach.  When I made that reservation the weather was predicted to be clear and sunny, but by yesterday that had changed significantly.  I looked at weather.com yesterday morning before I departed and it was predicting a 65% chance of rain today.  Bummer. That likely meant no flying.  “Oh well,” I thought to myself, “If it doesn’t happen, then I’ll just find something else to do.”  I decided I’d at least give it a shot.

That's tall!

 Fernandina Beach is only a couple hours north of Titusville so I had some extra time to explore on my drive.  I made a stop in St. Augustine, which was only about an hour or so north, right on the coast of Florida.  St. Augustine is the oldest city in the United States.  Well, it’s even older than the United States is, as it was originally founded in 1565 by a Spanish explorer named Pedro Menéndez de Avilés.  That name likely doesn’t sound too familiar to many people, but the name Ponce de Leon probably is more recognizable.  Ponce de Leon is believed to be the first European to have landed in St. Augustine more than 50 years before it was founded, in 1513.   He was on his quest to find the fabled Fountain of Youth when he came across St. Augustine (I guess that explains why so many retired people move to Florida).    There actually is a place in St. Augustine called “Ponce de Leon’s Fountain of Youth Archeological Park.”  It claims to be the original location of Ponce de Leon’s landing and they also sell bottles of water that are supposedly from the Fountain of Youth.  For only $10 for three bottles, you can bring home the secret to never growing old.  However, I found out that it is a privately owned park and that its claims of being the original location are dubious (aren’t all tourist traps dubious, though?), so I elected not to go there.

This was my workout for the day

Instead, I went to the St. Augustine lighthouse.  I figured that if there was a chance that I wasn’t going to be able to go on my hang glider flight, I was at least going to get an aerial view some other way.   The lighthouse is old:  the one that currently stands today was built in 1874.  It actually replaced another even older lighthouse that was built in 1737 but which collapsed and fell into the sea.   The tower itself is quite stunning. It’s painted brilliant white with a black stripe that spirals up to the top like a barbershop pole.  The top is capped in bright red, and the keeper’s house at the bottom is bright red as well which gives the lighthouse somewhat of a whimsical Christmasy look.  I went inside and climbed the 219 steps to the top to get a view of the surrounding area.  At one point, I leaned way out over the railing and held my camera out to take a picture pointing straight down.  Even though the rail came up close to my armpits, I still had a brief moment of uneasiness as I stared the 164 feet down to the ground (which, for my swimming friends, is just about equivalent to a 50 meter pool standing on end!).  I carefully brought my camera back to the safe side of the rail, descended the tower, and made my way back to my van.   

It was about another hour and half drive to my campsite for the night, and along the way I found not only a Starbucks (Grande iced caramel coffee with whipped cream), but also a Trader Joe’s. I was so excited—it was the first Trader Joe’s I had come across since Seattle.  It’s not that I haven’t been able to get the foods of my extravagant diet at other stores along the way (spinach, peppers, tortillas, cheese, Minneolas, apples, and of course dark chocolate), but there is just something comforting about shopping in a store where I’m familiar with all the brands, the packages, and the prices.  That’s one thing that Trader Joe’s does right:  you can walk into just about any individual store and things are laid out pretty much the same in all of them.  I loaded up with about a week’s worth of food, and continued on my way.

50m down.  That's like 25 seconds
of freestyle...(when I was younger)

When I got to my campground in the late evening, I again checked the weather for Fernandina Beach.  It was better, but not promising:  the chance of rain at 7:00am had declined from 65% to 45%, but it still was predicting gray and cloudy skies for the day.  I wondered if I should just call and cancel the trip and have the day free for something else since it looked like it likely wouldn’t happen.  “No,” I said to myself. “I’ll go and perhaps the fates will smile upon my determination.”  I looked up at the sky and told it that it had a bit over twelve hours to clear up its act. I set my alarm for 5:30am so that I’d have time to pack up and leave and make it to the beach in the morning, and then went to bed. 

I ended up waking up at about 5:00am, somehow thinking that I missed my alarm.  I sat up in a panic before realizing it was still dark out, and as I checked the time I also went over to weather.com to see if the outlook had improved at all.  Its prediction for 7:00am:  a 5% chance of rain.  The fates had apparently smiled on me.  I got things packed up, took a shower, and made my way to the beach.  Along the 30-minute drive, the sky looked uncertain:  there were spots of blue mingled with stormy blotches of gray.  At a few intervals the windshield became speckled with drops of water and I had to briefly turn on the wipers.  I again looked up at the sky and this time told it that all I needed was a bit over an hour of cooperation.  I heard it whisper back, “I’ll see what I can do for you.”

View from the top

When I got to the airport, I found my way to the little hangar where Hang Glide USA was located.  I parked my van and went in.  A gentleman of about 50 years old was sitting behind a fold-up table with a laptop computer and a few pieces of paper on it.  He introduced himself as Kent and asked if I was there to fly.  “I hope so,” I told him. 

“Well, it looks like the rain is holding off for now, so if we get out there quickly we just might make it,” he said.  He handed me a blue and red jumpsuit, a headset, and a helmet.  “Have you ever flown a hang glider before?” he asked me.

“No, but I was hoping you have,” I told him.

He laughed.  “I’ve never done it either, so we’ll see how this goes.”

“That’s fine,” I told him.  “I went sky diving before I came on this trip, so if anything goes wrong I’ve already got practice on the falling part.” 

I got into the plane first, climbing up into the back seat.  I say “plane” only because it had a tiny little airplane-looking body.  It really was nothing more than a hang glider with a seat and a big propeller in back.   I left my legs hanging over the side so that there was room for Kent to get in in front of me.  My arms were left hanging out the sides (I couldn’t get any pictures from the air as I wasn’t allowed to bring any loose items up. That was good because they would have fallen out).  We taxied quickly down the runway and took off.   As we ascended into the air, I could feel the force of the wind pushing against my helmet and it was actually difficult to move my head.  My hands still dangled over the sides and my feet were just barely inside the tiny cockpit.  It was kind of like being on a motorcycle tied to a giant kite.  We flew about 1000 feet over the beach. 

Somehow two people fit there

Out over the ocean, I could see the dark clouds with rain falling, and I even could see a rainbow, but where we were flying was clear.   Kent pointed out things in the area below:  Egan’s Creek Greenway, which is a swampy area he said is full of alligators, bobcats, snakes, and other wildlife, the resorts on the beach, a nuclear submarine base, a cardboard factory, and the only two bridges that connect the island to the mainland.  We flew down lower over the beach and waved to people that were out collecting seashells, and we passed in front of a little row of restaurants and bars that were on the sand.   The flight lasted about 40 minutes and then Kent said it looked like the rain was coming close so he decided to land.    We touched down and returned to the hangar.   We both extracted ourselves from the small seats, took off our helmets, and went inside.  By the time I had taken off the jumpsuit, I could see rain starting to lightly fall outside.  I thanked Kent for the ride, got in my van, and departed.

 As I was driving away, fat drops began falling faster and faster and splattering on the windshield.  I turned the wipers to their highest speed to flick the water out of my view.  I leaned forward, looked up into the gray clouds, and thanked the universe for cooperating and allowing my little flight to happen. 

Snazzy suit...not so snazzy hair cut.