Found another video from the last weekend ...

I am for sure spending too much time on the internet those days looking for the best way to travel next summer (minibus or caravan ... that is the question) with the group and pretending that a rainy day in Paris is not that bad. I thus found that video posted by another "vol et ski" competitor of the weekend in Les Saisies.

http://vimeo.com/2826016

I hope that the weather will be good for the one in Saint Gervais in few weeks. Thierry, is also organizing one in Italy as Chamois near Aosta. that would be great to also be there.

For what comes to the transportation , I am really tempted by the little Eriba caravan "Puck" but it is so hard to get a second hand and the new ones are just outrageously expensive. At that price, I would rather go for a second hand transit or VW California.

Back in the air ... Back on the net ...

After a long long period of radio silence, It started to be itchy and I had been thinking for a while to start to post again. Finally, last weekend activity was the perfect occasion. I could always argue that it took a real long time to settle down in Paris but this is had been done for a while already. The house warming party was real nice, the apartment starts to look like... an apartment. So it must have just been that I did not really feel like it. But now, the time has come to publish again and as I got time to take the weekend to go flying in the Alps with the pals... I took some videos with my Nokia N95. Only one remark to my pilot friends in the US : you gotta start organizing "Vol et ski" weekends. For more info look on the site www.voletski.fr. This session was my first ever, but it has been organized for over 12 years in different locations. In France, there is one competition almost every weekend and there are some more in Italy, Austria and Germany. Maybe elsewhere. In the meantime, have a look at this little video which tries to give a idea of the extremely stressful time we had.

Veronique was asking me while watching the video if that would give ideas to Arnel, Nova, Erik, Brad, Arturo, Jeff ...

I certainly hope so :-) !!!!

Time to Edit the MRAT fan club blog

The France Tour 2008 of the MRAT fan club is now over... The team spread all around the world but trip ideas for the 2009 tour are already emerging. The details of the 2008 edition will little by little be added to the MRAT Fan club Blog Fan club blog as we have been focusing on flying and eating and enjoying the trip last week and very little on blogging ... But I think we have enough material for documenting that trip properly :-)

Stay tuned

Renaming my Blog ...

I just changed the blog name from Antoine in California to just "Antoine". I was wondering if I should name it "Antoine in France" or "Antoine next step" or "Antoine at the farm" (this last one is a reference of a famous french comic that all little girls have read called "Martine at the Farm" and has nothing to do with my original point ...)

The point being that after giving it a thought, the location is not such a big deal. This is the continuation of the journey. Thus this will now on be just Antoine.

I am about to go for 3 days in a business trip in Europe. I will get a chance to see some old friends and that is just perfect. Veronique is on the way to the south of France and we wil meet again for the weekend. Time is flying so fast.

I can't stop reading the blog of Nova. This is such an experience that he is going through this year. Respect Man ! All the best to you and I am sure that we will meet in August. Our trip is shapping really well. I was discussing with Michele yesterday and it seems that we could eventually start by going to la Drome. I want to fly in Laragne but Michele also said that she had found another fantastic site that we must absolutely do... All sounds good.

Back to France

After 12 years. 3 countries and many experiences : here I am back in France. This is a new step in my life a the promise of being a good one looks pretty damn good !!! No pictures yet but already a lot of good things. For the folks visiting from the USA in couple of weeks, I need to tell you about the good things you will have to face : Religieuse au Chocolat, Terrasse de cafe et lunettes noires, Rillettes du mans et cornichons Amora .... Be aware that once you tested this, you are adicted :-)

So far , so good. Tomorrow we go and check the Van for the summer trip as well as enjoy a good lunch at Vero's sister. I hope that my stuff that is supposed to arrive by air will be here soon, otherwise I will be missing couple of things for the trip. But nothing critical since I took my wing with me :-) Vero is super excited about flying with us. We are looking for apartments in Paris and hopefully will find something nice.

More news of the Paris step to come ....

Soon time to leave ...

I finally got a chance to take my N95 with me while flying. For some reason, I always forgot to leave it in an accessible pocket. Maybe because this is one of the only place where I don't want to be disturbed by a phone call.

Anyway, here are few clips and comments (French and English .. some time mixed :-) about flying at Mussel Rock. This was a typical day, with sun but also fog layer above the cliff. What was unusual though, were the two whales that were jumping in the water. Sorry that they appears as little white spots only on the clip, but that was an amazing feeling to see them while flying. Believe me they are big !

So long pals... I promise to put my wing in the plane next time I visit.

Pictures and videos from this weekend in Hat Creek...

This weekend was just great. I managed to escape from the office early with the promise that there would be WLAN in the campgound. That was a hard bet, considering that there is no cellular network coverage in that area. I wrap up my stuff, rush home where I pack in 2" before Craig arrives to pick me up. I don't recall I left a place so fast :-)

Normally, in order to catch the glass off in Hat Creek, one need to leave SF at 12h30 latest. We left at 2.30pm. But call it luck (light traffic) and also not pit-stop, we arrived on site at 7.30pm. Just in time to capture that video of a BAPA member taking off...


This is Hat Creek ! We got a good 30 minutes flight in the evening warm air until the sun goes down. The weekend starts well.

Saturday was another story. Even though the weather forecast had predicted good air, what we saw was a strong south west wind carrying T-Storm after T-Storm. It was OK for Craig and me in the campground, but ask Monica, Richard and Erik who went to climb the Mount Shasta that morning (more than 4000m) and slept outside without a tent ! They did the summit in a strong wind and joined us for the dinner at the camp. That was a super evening.



You can see, Starting from the left: Erik, Monica, Richard, nice stranger and Craig at Potatoe Hill where we drove to this morning for a great thermal flight. Big blue thermals that took Craig and me way above the launch. Erik was less lucky, but hada great time.

Way better time than this dude from another group of pilot that probably got surprised by the thermal activity.

I promised to post those pictures so that the pilot could get a souvenir. As we say, you can only be considered as a true pilot if ou have landed in a tree. With this cateegory of tree we have a future champion :-) I am still a beginner, I only managed to go through a tree few years ago.








You can see the wing in the tree, almost in the middle of the picture. Bets are open if the will will be recovered.


I forgot to mention : the pilot is fine !

Next time, bigger team and we do it again.