Tuesday, August 7, 2012


Gena Tabery (SS crew)
29 July 2012

Julius and I towed Ron’s trailer (SS) yesterday from Kerrville to Uvalde, following Rick Sheppe, who was towing Dick Butler’s (DB) trailer. Ron and Dick had been flying for several days, working the bugs out of Dick’s Concordia and a few onto the leading edge of their wings, trying to achieve the mind-meld that will enable them to team fly against the rest of the Open Class.

All was fine with our caravan until we arrived at a Border Patrol blockade about 20 miles outside of Uvalde on Highway 90. Border Patrol re-routed all traffic onto a Farm to Market road that was wide enough for one-way traffic, but not for a highway’s worth of eighteen-wheelers and glider trailers. To accommodate oncoming traffic, everyone had at least two wheels in the dirt, kicking up a storm of red dust. One ought not to have been allowed to drive in those dust clouds without an instrument rating. When asked later what it looked like, Julius reported, “I don’t know. I couldn’t see a thing.”

When we finally completed our long u-turn into the Dust Bowl and arrived back at Highway 90, there was another group of Border Patrol cars and officers, carefully examining the cars of a passing train. Shortly afterwards, we arrived at a billboard proclaiming, “Uvalde Welcomes the World,” with a gorgeous photo of glider in flight. What a relief! We were beginning to wonder.

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