Sunday, April 30 was one of those windy days with lots of haze. It seemed to be another blue day without much prospect for soaring. Red Haines and his students were reporting good lift by mid-morning but I was the only private ship to assemble at Stanton. I launched just before 1:00 p.m. on what I thought would be just a another short flight. The first half-hour was in weak to moderate lift in blue skys. Then the sky began to change rapidly. Whisps formed everywhere and lift became strong. I was climbing well at 4,500 MSL in a thermal just South of Stanton when the Ka-7 with my wife, Bev, at the controls and Red Haines instructing, out climbed me in an adjacent thermal. When the Ka-7 departed to the West, I dashed over and received a rewarding elevator ride. "Wow," I said several times aloud. Cloud base was at about 7,000 MSL! With all that altitude and lift everywhere, I just had to go somewhere -- anywhere. On a whim I turned south, into the wind, rapidly gained airspeed and moved the flap handle to -4 degrees. I was off to the races! Oh, what a thrill! The dash to Dodge Center included just one brief stop to gain a little altitude. I'm sure a more experienced XC pilot could have made it without a turn. Streets had formed and I was in a good one. I was now at Dodge Center but what next? I turned west for Owatonna and called Stanton ground with a position report: "This is Glider Echo Xray at Dodge Center proceeding west to Owatonna." I believe it was Tom Rent who responded, "Permission Denied!" Too late, Tom. I was on my way. Crossing the cloud streets was exciting and I stopped just twice to thermal before arriving over the Owatonna airport at 4,000 MSL. There I caught a really good thermal over I-35 to just under 7,500 MSL! With clear sky to the west and cumulus clouds and whisps to the north and east, I followed I-35 over the town of Faribault and to the north side of Northfield. Part of the trip was in weaker conditions and I thermaled numerous times since I didn't know whether to just blast on through or try to stay high. Staying high turned out to be the right choice since there were large areas of sink to the west of the cloud line. (What was I doing over there where there were no clouds? Prospecting or experimenting?) Once safely back under clouds, lift improved to strong and, as I headed east toward Stanton, I began to play. I would dash off in any direction trying to see just how far and how low I dare go and still find a way to climb back up (all within safe gliding distance of Stanton, of course). With 3 hours now on the clock, I decided to try for a personal best of 4 hours. So, off to Cannon Falls via Randolph and Lake Byllesby then south along Highway 52 to take a look at my farm from the air. Make a note to fill in the rows where trees were harvested last fall. Just killing time and watching the clock. A long 30 minutes to go. Butt now getting sore and the day is clearly dying. Edging closer and closer to Stanton, the final half-hour was in very weak lift between 2,700 and 3,400 MSL. As the time slowly marched on, it was clear that the day had died and, at just before 5:00 p.m., I entered the pattern for landing. Now safely down, the clock showed an elapsed time of 4:01:42. A very exciting finish to a really fine day. "Wow," I said again. "Not a bad second glider cross-country," to no one in particular – to everyone. Oh, I think I will now include a barograph and camera on every flight -- just in case. You just never know when the day will pop. Chris Cooper, N135EX