From New Zealand.
I was competing in a regional contest on a 300km task. Five of us ended up
landing in the same field on a dairy farm 2 hr drive from the airfield we
took off from. After landing the wife of the dairy farmer came walking down
the stock race to see us with her two young kids. One four and the other 6.
She said she was inside the house and the kids where in the front yard when
suddenly the youngest came runing into the house and starting shouting
excititly that there is a plane landing in their field. She looked out but
couldn't see what the fuss was about and as she hadn't heard any aeroplane
engine she thought the kid was playing a game. She sent the little one out
side again and a couple of minutes later she was back inside saying another
plane was landing. Same story again. She looked and didn't hear the engine.
All five of us where pretty low by the time we had made the decision to land
and all arrived one after the other into the field. We where visible while
approaching but disappeared behind some trees into the field so everytime
the Wife looked out she couldn't see anything. By the time I landed last,
the kid was just wandering into the house to annouce in a rather bored voice
that another plane had landed in their field.
The wife then decided to take a short walk to get a better view and was
rather surprised to find 5 gliders parked right where the child had been
pointing the whole time. We all got invited back to the house for a beer.
Which we all partook in. Then ended up having a barbecue dinner with the
family while waiting for the crews. The husband decided we needed more beers
as we had depleted his meagre supply, so jumped into his truck and shot of
into town to the local tavern to get more cans. The tavern he walked into
had one of our fellow competitors in it waiting for his crew. Seemily he was
standing at the bar with a beer in one hand and a local wench under the
other arm and a small crowd of locals listening to his prowess as a glider
pilot defying the odds and the elements to make it this far in his state of
the art weapon. He had landed on the other side of this little village from
us on his way to the final turnpoint. Our farmer said that a whole bunch of
guys had landed on his place. When our intrepid pilot asked where that was,
he laughed lustily and annouced to the listening throng that he would win
the day as he had gotten farther than us. When informed by the farmer that
we had all rounded the turnpoint and we where heading home he had to admit
he may have been a little hasty with the scoring. That gave us all a great
laugh when the farmer relayed all this on his return with the beers. So by
the time the crews showed up we where pretty tanked. My wife who was my crew
at the time took along time to forgive me after I had enjoyed a nice
barbecue dinner with dessert and drinks and the best we could get her on the
way home was a cold service station pie.