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Published: March 5th 2008
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Texas is really big. They say everything is bigger in Texas, and they’re right. Including adventures.
Normal day. Actually, I slept in a bit more than usual and woke up to the boys singing “Rise and shine and give God the glory” to the girls. I looked a Sarah and asked if that was our wake up. Breakfast was amazing home made cinnamon rolls. Yum. Today was a no-work day for most of us. The kids got to go play at a ranch and ride horses and go fishing and all this, and we told them our plans, which made them really nervous, but we’ll get to that later.
So, Texas is really big. And I know this from when I was 2 miles above it today. Yep, that’s right. In a Cessna 180. Then I jumped out of the plane. I so went skydiving! So fun! Kyle, Sharye, Sarah, Beth, Harriet (African auntie) and our hosts daughter all went.
First, they make us fill out like millions of pages of waivers saying we won’t sue if something goes wrong. But we have to do all this while watching the instruction/training/safety video. Once we were done signing our
Dancing
We had handles on our arms and pants and so we were holding each others legs up ;) lives away, we got suited up. Kyle and Sharye were in the first plane. Wait, let me preface this by saying that when we were in West Memphis, they saw the movie The Bucket List, which is where this all came about. So, Kyle and Sharye and Beth and Harriet started getting in their jumpsuits and harnesses. Kyle’s was a bit short, needless to say. After a few minutes of training with the jump masters, Phil and Sam, they were off to the plane. It’s quite a small plane, not really room for 3, but 5 went in it (1 pilot, 2 jump masters, 2 students.) Takeoff.
The others and I waited and waited for the plane to come back. We thought we saw it several times, but it was only a bird. Sarah and I took lots of funny pictures (we were not suited yet) and laughed a lot! Originally we were worried about peeing our trousers in the jump, when really it was during the laughing that should have made us nervous! Then, when it finally came, it was between us and the sun, making watching fairly difficult. Soon two dots that were supposedly our friends came
out of the plane. Kyle’s chute. Sharye’s chute. Kyle came down fairly quickly and, because of his height, was not allowed to land standing (he had to slide on the grass.) Sharye’s took forever to come down because she weighs so much less.
Beth and Harriet were next. It was very fun. Harriet is the first African auntie with ACC to ever skydive (we might be the first chaperones even). Very fun. She would have never thought of considering it before.
Sarah, Marysa and I got suited up and trained. We were laughing so hard again! I was bouncing off the walls, so excited! So, Mark (the pilot), Phil, Sarah, Sam and I piled in and squished as close as possible. Sam said, “That’s the lever that cuts off gas to the aircraft. Don’t mess with it.” Then he proceeded to sit on my foot the entire climb. As we climbed to 10,500 feet, I could see about 60 miles in every direction. It’s really flat over here. Then, I was sitting there, and it really started to hit that I was about to jump out of an airplane, and then I realized that I was hungry.
Phil asked me to spin around without grabbing the pilot or opening the door so we could get hooked together. Once he we done, I just started laughing and laughing. Sarah was laughing; I was laughing. Couldn’t stop, couldn’t help it.
Mark opened the door, which was my sign to stick my feet out of it (with a grown man strapped to my back). When I sat at the door, my helmet filled with air as if it was going to fly off my head! I looked at my feet hanging over, and beyond that was nothing for over 10,000 feet. Weird. Then we leaned forward, leaned back, leaned forward out of the plane. Laughing all the way. I was laughing so hard my goggles were fogging, then my eyes started watering. There was about a 60 second free-fall in the beginning. Just falling. I wasn’t scared, but for a few seconds I thought, “I’m falling, just falling. What in the heck am I supposed to do now?” Still laughing. Still enjoying it. It was such a beautiful day!
Phil opened the chute and my legs swung out in front of me and I made a funny sound. Then it was silent. Phil said, “Do you have contacts?” I was thinking contacts on the ground and wasn’t sure why that mattered at this particular time. “Do you have contacts? Can you hear me? Do you have contacts in your ears?” Then I was worried. What are contacts? Should I have them in my ears? Did I miss something? “Do you have contacts in your eyes?” No. “Then you can take off your goggles if you’d like.”
So fun! Just floating. I could see Sarah a sometimes, spinning and laughing. We did some spinning. I sort of thought my shoes might come off, as I don’t often tie them, and later it felt as if my feet would come off! It was fun seeing everyone on the ground waiting and waving. I came down much faster than Sarah, so I got to see her quite a bit.
Marysa was the last to go. While Sarah and I were waiting to be helped out of our harnesses, we hooked them together, making us joined at the hip! Haha.
I fell asleep soon when we got in the car and woke up when it was time to eat. We came back to town, dropped people off, picked people up and went to Wal-Mart.
So, this morning, the kids knew we were going skydiving and could not wrap their minds around why we would ever jump out of an airplane. Suzan said, “No, I would not jump out. I would hold onto the door and hang.” Some said they would love to try it, some said they were scared for us. When we came back, they jumped all over us. So excited! “Auntie, you are safe!” Then they wanted to hear all about it! They went fishing today, and horseback riding and all sorts of fun things. Gorrett caught one of the two fish and was sad she did not get to keep it to eat for dinner.
Great day today. We couldn’t have asked for better weather. Lots of fun; lots of laughing. Good fellowship.
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dave
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My Hero
JAMI! You are the woMAN! WAY TO GO!! I love the big adventure you are adding to an already big adventure. Keep going and keep growing. Love Dave