Don Partridge died as I climbed out of bed.
Of course, I didn't know.
The day looked great outside the windows, the sky crisp and mile-high blue with no sign of the early cloud development along the Owens Valley mountain ranges that had plagued our cross country attempts for the past few weeks.
I stirred my coffee, eagerly planning a flight route along the magnificent Sierra escarpment while far away in an unimaginably dismal land, wisps of fog drifted through a lonely tree line and the drizzle from a pale, overcast sky fell mournfully upon the wreckage of a powered flying wing and the broken, lifeless body of yet another great pioneer of cross country hang gliding.
It was September 22, 1984.
