For those of you who haven't been to a weather pillar before, it's a lot of fun. As you know, the weather pillars manufacture the weather for their surrounding biome. Most people have only seen them on the horizon, stretching up into the clouds that gather near the top of the spires. There isn't a lot of security because the only access is about 300 ft up their sheer walls. But we've got flying bikes!

Landing is a little tricky because there's just a small platform outside the hatch, so we'll be coming in one at a time. We'll be circling in a holding pattern as Big Edna does a pinpoint landing and opens the hatch, then begin individual landings on a first-come basis. Once we're all inside we'll take some time to explore and hang out.

Bring a lunch! We'll be taking off from the apple orchard around 11am on Saturday. Hope to see you there!

I assume @Tara Yau got back from the Flying Bike Club field trip ok, right? Has anybody seen her since the weather pillar? When that warning horn started going off things got kind of chaotic, and we didn't exactly do a head count when we got back to school. And I have a funny feeling I saw her bike leaned up against one of those dusty consoles when we were all headed out the hatch.

@Tara Yau, come in!

Weather Pillars are off limits for a reason. We are glad that the members of the Flying Bike Club have decided to come forward with their admission of illegal entry into Weather Pillar 997a, and their honesty will be noted at the hearing.

As for the student reported missing during their illegal entry into Weather Pillar 997a, we are currently looking into the matter, but unable to comment on ongoing investigations.

Weather Pillars are extremely complicated installations. The equipment is very expensive, and consists of delicate instrumentation that has been fine-tuned over a century of careful study. Haphazard bumbling within them causing the slightest imbalance in their settings can have enormous repercussions. For your own safety, as well as that of the entire surrounding biome, students are strongly warned not to enter Weather Pillars under any circumstances. Ever.

Weather Jackson
Chief Sub-engineer Sector Wy'East 12
Weather Pillar Corps

As the President of Flying Bike Club, it was completely irresponsible of me to get everybody in this much trouble, and for the record I take full responsibility. I promise to make a full confession once I figure out how to get back.

When everybody was having lunch in the landing hatch at the Weather Pillar, I went off to find a bathroom. I followed the halls around but couldn't find one, but there was an elevator, so I figured I'd just take it up to the next floor and look around. Turned out to be some kind of express elevator, though, and shot up a long ways. And I mean a LONG ways.

The access portal was about 300 ft up. When the elevator finally slowed down and let me out I was at the tippy top of the whole thing. There was a control room, like a bridge on a big ship, and through the windows you looked waaaaay down to the clouds, and could see the curve of the whole earth all around. It was insane. I have pictures.

Then, I don't know if it was me or what but those klaxons started going off, and the elevator wouldn't respond and lights were going off and I thought the whole thing was going to blow up or something. So I left the control bridge and walked out onto the roof of the pillar. I just wanted to get out of there.

On the roof were a bunch of antennas and some random cables and stuff, but there was also a bike! Kind of a clunker. Obviously some kind of official Weather Pillar bike they must use for getting around the installation. But where would they go?

It was then I saw a landing platform, and beyond it, over the edge of the Weather Pillar, I could see the air was rippling. The clouds and bits of land I could see below were fluttering through it. I realized it must be some kind of jet stream, blasting out of the side of the pillar, and the Weather Pillar techs must use it to get around between the pillars. Because they use flying bikes!

The warning horns were still going off, and the elevator still wouldn't work, but instead of just waiting around to get in trouble I figured I should try and make a run for it. So I hopped on the Weather Pillar bike, and pushed off the edge of the platform and into the jet stream.

It was a lot more powerful than I thought.

I think now I'm in the Bahamas somewhere. It's warm, and there's lots of ocean around, and maybe some bigger land in the distance. Cuba? Florida? It's about my fifth weather pillar since I left. I haven't made landfall, because I'm so far away from school I kept thinking it'd be a quicker trip back if I could just find my way back to where I started. But that's turned out to be a lot more complicated than I thought.

The Weather Pillars have all seemed to be unoccupied. At first I thought that was lucky, but now I'd rather just turn myself in and be done with it. Luckily there are break rooms on each one where I've been able to find some box macaroni and cheese or chips to keep me fed. And now I do know where the bathrooms are. I'd pick up a phone or something in the control rooms but I'm afraid of messing something up. Hopefully I'll run into a janitor or somebody eventually and sort this out.

But in the meantime, please let them know it was all my idea, and I am the only one who should get in any trouble.