Too Good, Must Fly

I had no intension of flying today having spent five hours aboard a Boeing 757 yesterday, with the engines running the entire time as the airline sucked the fun out of the air. Until, I saw high thermals and convergence forecasted over the Mendos. Everyone at WSC was planning for a foothill tow, as today was too good for a "sissy" mountain tow. I requested a mountain tow anyway but my ego pulled the release over the foothills at Bear Valley. I worked hard to East Park Reservoir and crawled up Goat Mountain saving good tow money. I then crossed to Snow Mountain arriving low where last years burn fortunately worked well despite being covered in snow.

I climbed out to cloud base for an awesome view of The Snow Mountain Wilderness.
A worked East towards a nice convergence line marking it's way North over St. John.
I worked the windward side of the convergence North and would occasionally climb high above the clouds in strong upper level winds that felt like little "wavelets." Over the Northern mountains I found the cause of these "wavelets" when I spotted this lenticular cloud capping a cumulous cloud on the convergence line.
Although the thermic, convergence, wavelet above the convergence cumulous lift was great, I was 45 miles out and it was getting late. I topped out above 16,000' and turned around at Alder Springs with Sheet Iron Mountain, Snow Mountain and Goat Mountain aligned for my course home.
I maintained good altitude back and once I closed my course at Bear Valley I continued South. The lowering sun made beautiful reflections off Clear Lake and Indian Valley Reservoir.
I crossed the Rumsey Gap and turned the Capay Valley for final glide. The excitement wasn't over as I managed a bumpy 15 gusting to 18 kt crosswind landing on "one-six" at Williams after a 4 1/2 hour flight on a day that was too good to miss.