Mark: Day 6 may have been great but, according to the girls, day 7 was even better. Today started with 8am skydiving for the girls. Today is my day to write the blog so I'll start it off but the girls will also add their perspective since I stayed on the ground. First thing we had to do was watch a video that talked about the inherent dangers and risk of death. Very inspirational. The girls then spent about twenty minutes signing their rights away followed by a meeting with their tandem jumpers, Jimmy with Alli and Ian with Jessie. My main concern at this point came when Alli and Jessie were filling out the forms. The couches we were sitting on smelled like a beer soaked sofas you would find at a frat party. That, accompanied with the fact that all the staff were 20-something males gave me pause.
The girls geared up and before we knew it they were getting in the plane to jump from 10,000 feet above the airstrip. I watched as the plane rose to altitude and saw two specks emerge. Three or four minutes later and they were both safely on the ground. The girls were beyond thrilled and wanted to jump again. Both guides filmed the entire jump so we waited for about twenty minutes and bought the DVD's. can't wait to watch them!
After skydiving we had one more stop on our way to Denver: Colorado National Monument. I wasn't sure what to expect here as I did not do much research. I know, hard to believe. We stopped at the visitor center and got recommendations for hikes and overlooks. Only two short hikes totaling about 1.5 miles. We all thought this was a beautiful area that was definitely worthy of becoming a National Park one day. A 250 mile drive to Denver would bring our day to an end. On the outskirts of Denver we found ourselves in a mini Cannonball Run as a dozen elaborately painted Lamborghini's, a few Porsches, and one Corvette raced by our car. At first I thought I'd try to keep up but decided our poor little Corolla had been through enough. Tomorrow we will spend our last day in downtown Denver touring the Denver Mint and catching a Rockies game.
Jessie: At first I was nervous about jumping out of the plane, but after listening to Ian talk about the basics I realized that it was very unlikely for something to malfunction and that all I had to do was jump and let gravity do the work. It also didn't hurt that Ian was cute and very easy to talk to! He gave me a tour of the surrounding area on the way up and then before I knew it we were jumping out! The initial feeling of freefall was pretty nerve-racking but after a couple seconds that nervousness changed to exhilaration. It was so exciting, I even got to steer the chute, but even through my excitement I still looked pretty nervous on the camera footage and pictures. Even so, it was the best day I've ever had and I can't wait to do it again.
Alli: BEST DAY OF VACATION EVER!! Skydiving was absolutely amazing! Granted, I was a little uneasy about it in the beginning. There was more than one occasion when I asked one of the instructors if my harness could be tightened. Dad and Jessie both seemed to get a pretty good laugh out of my nervousness. To make matters more interesting, my diving partner, Jimmy, was very flirtatious, calling me pretty and beautiful on more than one occasion, as well as sharing some sexual jokes on the plane. I'm sure my responses weren't the smoothest, as I was preoccupied with the possibility of becoming a human pancake in the next 5 minutes if things took a turn for the worst.
I was first to jump out of the plane, and all I could think seconds before the jump was how much farther down everything looked with the plane door open. Jimmy went over the formations one last time and helped me scoot out onto the ledge under the wing of the airplane. Everything seemed to play out in slow motion: looking down at the ground below, leaning forward, and suddenly plunging 120 mph to the ground. There's no way to describe the feeling of free falling 10,000 feet above the ground. I wish I could come up with some eloquent description other than it being awesome, but the whole thing left me speechless. Well, not counting the parts when I was screaming my head off. After what seemed like forever, Jimmy pulled the parachute, and we spent the next couple minutes getting doing sharp turns and flips through the air. It was so much fun! The closer we got to the ground, the easier it was to make out Dad standing at the edge of the landing field. Finally touching back down on the ground, Jimmy and I exchanged high fives and last minute pictures before we walked back to the main building. It was such an amazing experience - and one more thing to cross off my bucket list!
No comments:
Post a Comment