RE: Interest in Gliding
The ideal thermal sites have somewhat varied terrain. People usually think something like a huge sod farm would be perfect. It is perfect when they are cutting sod and there are big patches of exposed dirt. When it's all grass, the thermal generation is unpredictable and unreliable. The perfect places have areas of ground that heat up next to areas that don't.
I often fly in a flood plain beside my neighborhood. The house roofs and streets generate thermals reliably when the sun is reliable. Being next to a large grassy field helps. Days with some clouds help too. MOF, those kind of days were what was needed back when I flew on a huge sod farm. The areas of sunlight moving along the grass made all that uniform ground heat up 'un-uniformly.'