Skydiving is something everyone should experience. It is nerve racking to say the least, but what a great rush. Over the summer me, my girlfriend Stacy, her brother Tom, my friend Dave, his buddy Chris took a trip to the Allegan municipal airport to jump out of an airplane. It was Dave's idea who two weeks prior had called me asking if I would be interested. "Hell ya!" I said without a second thought. Everybody else in the group had the same fearless attitude. Reservations were made with the skydiving company, and the date was set. On the day of the jump we arrived at the airport early,
and got to witness four people jump before us. Their ecstatic faces upon landing was a good sign that this would be something unforgettable. After filling out the ten page waver which said DEATH about a hundred times, we sat in a circle on the ground and one of the jumping instructors came up to us and gave very short instructions on how to have a proper jump. It went something along the lines of, "We will be doing tandem jumps, five people will cram into this tiny airplane made in the mid 50's, we will ascend to 10,000 feet, one tap on your shoulder means get in position for the instru
ctor to attach himself to your back (he has the parachute), we will open the door and climb out onto a shoebox size step, you must hold onto the wing of the aircraft, two taps on the shoulder means for you let go of the wing and cross your arms, at this time we will fall backwards and do multiple backflips, three taps on your shoulder means extend your arms to steady the free fall, you will be free falling for about 50 seconds before I pull the parachute cord, then we will drift down to earth for the next five minutes, during the landing make sure you lift your legs so you don't trip and fall on your face. An
y questions, no, OK lets do this." It was seriously less than a five minute talk. I thought we would be doing a small class or something. We got fitted for the harness that would attach us to the instructor. Stacy and I climbed into the plane with our instructors and the pilot, it was a tight squeeze. We took off in the small plane and started the 15 minute climb to nearly 2 miles above the ground. The loud buzzing of the small airplane made me nervous, and I could not believe this thing was carrying us into the sky. Looking out of the window was amazing, such a different perspective of the world. When your sta
nding on the ground trees, houses and rivers look big, from 2 miles up they look insignificant and you can get the impression of how small we really are. When we reached the 10,000 foot mark I get a single tap on the shoulder. I'm to jump first and Stacy second. I turned around and the instructor attached himself to my harness, then opened the door. Stepping out of a moving plane, onto a shoebox size step, two miles up in the air was difficult to do. I manage to get out on the step and I'm holding onto the wing. I get two tap
s on the shoulder. I let go and we are free falling backwards doing about three backflips. All I see is a swirl of earth and sky. I get the three taps and I extend my arms to level out, now I'm able see the ground clearly. Free falling is hard to describe, but if you ride trails you know that feeling in your gut when you hit a jump and reach your peak height, then gravity takes over and you float to the landing? Well that's what skydiving feels like, only that floating feeling last for a minute straight. The cord gets pulled and the parachute opens. Slowly drifting down was awesome, we did some spins and the g-force almost made me sick. When it was time to land I got my legs out of the way and we softly slid on the grass. The ground felt strange as I watched Stacy make her landing. This is something I must do again.
The ski-bike has some fresh neon colors, a laid back orange seat, new skis, Ti stem, and is now ready to bomb some hills. The skis will eventually end up orange too. It's to bad it's been raining and not snowing. More snow is on the way though. The local ski resorts (two within 10 minutes from my house) wouldn't let me bring it on their hills last year. I plan on calling and trying to talk with someone again this year, to try and get it in. I'm sure I can make something happen. Maybe a late night session or something. If not Kalamazoo has lots of hills and gravel pits. I can kind of see their point though, the ski-bike weighs nearly 45lbs probably. And if I were to lose it, it could take someone out. And I'm not really sure about tethering it to myself, it might drag me down the hill.
