Belgian record flight: 255 km from Quest to Madison

On Sunday, the winds were pretty east and I was the only one who wanted to launch pretty early for a long flight. The day did not start as early as other days did, but I could launch around noon. The first hour I was just drifting with the wind and surviving. I got pretty low, but from then on, the thermal became better and I could start heading north. I also needed that by that time, because I needed to avoid the forest I was heading for. Click the tracklog image for more details:

From then on I was flying from one beautiful cloud street to the other, but I could not take advantage of them, since they were east-west aligned and I needed to go north. But the thermals were there and the lift was decent.
Once past Gainsville, I finally had a cloud street lined up in a direction I could follow and I could start making some real distance. Here I'm crossing 200 km (never done that before):

The terrain I flew over changed and so did the light. It was a majestic sight. The lift was wide but still good and flying was easier than ever before. When I had 250 km and I saw the highway, I thought it was time to land. The flight deserved a better landing than I did. Somehow, the landings are not as consistent as they used to be. Most of them are good, but this one wasn't nice.

I derigged the glider and went to the restaurant next to the highway. Thanks a lot to John Theoret for picking me up and bringing me back to Quest. We arrived there at 2 A.M. with a very good weather forecast for the day after :-) Here's the video, the first half may be a bit boring, but the second half has some really nice footage:

Now I need to get the papers done, to get the Belgian record ratified. Cross your fingers!