I went Skydiving!! June 6, 2009

Marjie and I have been talking about going skydiving together for ages... and we finally set a date...June 6th -the first Saturday of my summer - it was a gorgeous sunny day - a great day to jump out of a plane!! 14,000 feet up - 120 miles and hour....Cool, huh?

This is me on the way up....we jumped tandem..our 'guys' are sitting right behind us..they are checking their gauges to see how high we are....I am looking out the window thinking..."oh crap, what was I thinking?!?!?"

Notice I am so nervous that I am already white knuckling my straps.... there is no training ...my guy, Frank, basically said that there were two things I needed to remember....1) arch my back during the entire free fall and 2) "don't ever grab my hands"....and that was it...so I played those two rules in my head over and over....

we were the last ones out of the plane...my heart was racing so fast!! It was very counter intuitive...your brain is saying no...it was like forcing your hand...crazy...

I love this picture...in actuality, on the inside, I am scared like never before...but on the outside...I am fierce....hahahahaha!! Notice the raised eyebrow...yeah..that's right....

and then we jumped..more like...fell.... it was like falling into a cold natural spring..it just takes your breath....going from standing there to that fast all at once....like Frank said...."it is something you have to experience..you can't it explain it to people..."

we dropped that far from the plane in shear seconds....i did a little bit of math and you free fall for about 2 miles ..but you cover it in about one minute....so all of these pictures were taken all in a 60 second time frame....the rest of the time, your camera guy flies off and then parachutes to the ground in a fast spiral..while we take a slower ride down...but the free fall...was the exciting part for sure...it seemed to last alot longer than a minute....

at first, you can see me pretty much holding my breath...after we spun crazy - felt like out of control when we first jumped out....I saw no sign of my camera guy who was taking pictures and video of me all along...then when we were facing towards earth, there he was right in front of me...

my camera guy held out his foot for me to grab hold of for fun...he was just a smiling...facing me on his back with these wing like things on his suit to hold him steady right in front of me for the entire free fall part of the experience...

so I told myself to get it together so my video and photos that cost like an extra 100 bucks weren't just me looking like I was gonna die or something.....

we take a little spin again, for fun...this shows how high we were...we were way above the clouds...Adam said from the ground, you couldn't see any signs of us until after we had pulled our chutes and then it came down as a little speck to start with.....

skydiving is a great way to get a face lift....our cheeks get pushed by the air back towards our cheeks...i didn't even know i had that much loose skin on my neck until i saw my pictures....the wind in the face was incredible....pushing up your nose and dried out my mouth......i remember ..as you can see in this picture..i was trying to relax and breath slowly out of my mouth....trying not to hold my breath, but just relax...didn't want to faint...my mind was having a hard time processing it....

and then after about 30 seconds of time, i began to just have fun....i was okay and in the moment....

here we are going through the clouds....felt like a cool mist....that was so much fun...as a little girl, I have always daydreamed of just being up there with the clouds....it was neat to actually be there ...in the clouds -

this was probably my favorite part....

you can see that Frank has to cover his glasses - he has to be able to read his altitude meter to know when to drop the shoot...thank goodness he did...i was totally oblivious and just enjoyed the mist and the clouds....

yeah, I am free......free fallin'.......

every muscle in my body was tensed up...i am surprised that I wasn't really sore....he tells you to hold your arms like this....i guess so the air doesn't snap them into and it keeps them out of the way of the chute...not sure...i didn't ask why...i just did what he said....

i knew we were about to pull the chute and the ground was coming in better and we were clear of the clouds...so i decided to give my 'roller coaster' scream a try....

he gives my camera guy the 'fly away' cue....so it is time to pull the chute....

i love this picture....when he deployed the parachute, it was like putting on the breaks..and we ended up in more of a standing position instead of parallel to the ground.... I think I about broke poor ol' Frank's legs....he had wrapped my legs with his and when we came to a sudden stop, I went stiff....so he was like..."let go of my legs..." "please! relax your legs!!" I had like a death grip on them.....oh, and I did forget rule #2 once...you know, "don't grab my hands" - but he yelled out "Don't grab my arms!!" - and I let go...oops..it was instinct to grab hold of something when you are falling...right?

here I am...I never saw my camera guy after he flew off into space...but Adam said that the camera guys race to the ground with their chutes ...by spiraling down like a bunch of dare devils, drop their chutes, and then run over to catch their person coming out of the sky....pretty neat...

Frank tried to get me to steer in the parachute and do some spinning tricks, but I did one spin and it took my stomach like the free fall ride at six flags...and after the free fall I had just done, I said, "no more of that ".....

My landing was really good and I give Frank a big Thank You hug.... He called me "Mrs. Westbrook" the entire time...once he found out I was a teacher, he just kept calling me that...just a big flirt...:)

Glad I went - it is checked off of my Bucket List....Next......