WHAT STATE ARE WE IN?

Three of us were soaring out-and-return in two separate birds. I was in good shape but they were low and struggling. My way home looked easy, theirs more doubtful every turn. And it was getting late. From my advantage, maybe I could help them find a path up into kinder air, but how long could I afford to loiter before shooting myself down?Or if you’re the pilot in trouble, when must you insist a topside ally leave you to gravity? In a fair world this decision should fall to whomever has fewest options - apt also to be the lowest. Seldom is reality that simple though. If I got home and they didn't I could retrieve them that night, but if none of us made it the double retrieve could not even start until sometime late next day! Eventually all agreed that I should go.Casting encouragement over the shoulder as conditions improved downrange did nothing to soothe my conscience, but seemed to hearten them. Until their radio died. Hoping they could still receive without the power to transmit, I suggested they not talk, just listen, then kept chatting them along perchance it might help.And I had plenty to report. The air dried out, with boisterous six-knotters along a wide shearline and stronger clusters near cumuli. An hour after losing contact I was set for final glide. The street ran on but no longer toward home, and I was high enough already. Turning off to starboard I had the juice to run at 70 knots the all the way in, find no more lift and arrive with height to spare. Still feeling pointless pangs of ignominy, I sat back and tried to enjoy the ride.The shade trees at our desert strip were not yet visible from that distance, but I aimed straight for where they’d appear and began a series of short video exposures every couple minutes. As the long descent bore toward that growing spot of green, so did the Mojave lift that brought me so far so fast. Pitching over incrementally to stay on glide slope, I gained another 40 knots over 40 miles!It was an off day at the flight school, so expecting no one there I shot across those treetops at about 110… and glimpsed my girlfriend’s jeep between them.Uh oh. Caught doing the infamous low pass, and by a student pilot to boot! I deserve this.She met me as I taxied off, and the video ends with my opening the canopy to say, “Hello, I’m lost. What state are we in?” The ensuing kiss and other foolishness took place discreetly out of frame.(Oh, that state!)Half an hour later our compadres rolled in. Which means, if you think about it, they’d been overtaking me during most of their radio silence and were on their final glide before I finished mine! Hence the relish in their smug debrief that both deepened and voided my nagging guilt at having left them behind.As for next time…