What A Rush!

I did it. I went skydiving, tandem of course for the first time. It was awesome. The folks at Adventure Center Diving here in Hollister were great. There is a bit of standing around and waiting but the ride is well worth the wait. My instructor Mako was wonderful. He has over 1000 jumps under his belt. He made me feel very comfortable and confident. The scariest part for me was the ride to 15,000 feet in a little plane with fourteen other people. I'm a claustrophobic you see. The climb seemed like it took quite a while and I was pretty much white knuckling it all the way. Once that door was open I felt great again. I worried about being scared when I was waiting to jump out of the door but I can tell you there is really no time to think about it. You are at the door and then you're out flying around in the big blue sky. Even Mako said we could not have picked a better day to jump. It was beautiful. Brian my video photographer did a wonder job. My only regret is that I didn't look up during the free fall. They say it is only a minute but it sure seemed longer than that. I was afraid to move my head much for fear of losing my goggles or bonking Mako with my head but I now know that neither thing would have happened. I'm going to go back and do it again as soon as I can afford to. I'll request the same team and this time I'll see more of the world by looking up.

Too Excited!

Between the buzz of my first San Benito County Leadership class yesterday and the fact that I will be jumping out of a plane sometime in the next six to eight hours I have been awake for quite some time. After tossing and turning for what felt like hours I figured I should just get up and do what writers do, write. My good friends Dave Blair and Gregg Bonturi have agreed to join me in my skydiving venture. Rumor has it Kathy Blair may join us too. We will be doing a tandem jump with the Adventure Center Skydiving Company in Hollister. If what they say is true we will be jumping from 15,000 feet. No wonder I can't sleep. I've been saying for years that I wanted to do this before I turned fifty. With the big 50 quickly approaching, December 9th to be exact, I'm getting it done with not much time to spare. My jump was donated as a raffle prize at one of our many fundraisers and all my tickets went into the jump jar. I am going to have to kick in another forty bucks because they say my certificate was for a 10,000 foot jump and now they are going to 15,000 feet. Some friends and past jumpers told me that we need oxygen at that height so I'll have to ask if I heard them wrong. I'll be back with an post jump update. Bon Voyage, or what ever they say when throwing yourself out of a perfectly good plane.