Into the Great Wide Open..

Or should I say, Free Falling?  I had a difficult time choosing between the two songs...  As I mentioned before, I was my usual self and lost my mind.  My sister, Gina, recently had her birthday.  She decided it best to go skydiving to celebrate her birth.  Kind of ironic don't you think?  Celebrating one's birth with risky behavior, jumping out of a plane 15,000 feet above Earth?  Well, me, being the adrenaline junky that I am, was totally in.  I had always wanted to go skydiving and was first invited at 18 years old.  Unfortunately, I didn't act upon the opportunity as I didn't have the time or the money.  It's kind of funny saying that now because it's not like I had the money this time either...

A leap of faith.  I decided to do it.  Why not?  Who knew when another chance like this would arise?  Plus, come on, it's my sister Gina... Who is afraid of heights.  That's right.  What better way to overcome a phobia than to stare it right in its face and scream your head off?  I had to support her...

So we woke up at 5:30 in the morning to head down to San Diego and start the morning off surfing.  Now, as many of you know, Hollie is one of the biggest pansies when it comes to temperature.  Anything below 73 degrees and you bet I'll have chicken skin.  I decided it was in my best interest to stay out of the 50 degree water and lay out... On the wet sand.  Not the wisest choice, but I did end up making it in the water, thanks to my 5mm wetsuit!  Man, that thing was nice and toasty!  Too bad I didn't have booties because I twisted my ankle wrestling my sister and didn't realize it till we were packing up to go.  Yes, I know.  Two women in their 30s wrestling at the shoreline.  Hey, brothers do it, why can't sisters?

Anyhoo, we drove further down south and headed towards the Mexico border.  Oh man, we were so excited we suddenly ALL had full bladders!  So, we signed our lives away and anxiously waited for our group of 10 to be called for our little "class."  Wow, no wonder they have you sign 47 pages (that's a little exaggerated for those of you who have forgotten who's writing this)!  It's about 5 minutes long and not very detailed.  Survival of the fittest I suppose...  Luckily, that includes your's truly!

After we were finally called, we met our instructors who were taking us tandem.  Now, I know it was in the 80s or 90s but I requested a jumpsuit.  My instructor, Scarey (and no, that's not a joke), was dumbfounded and asked me why in the world I wanted one as he was standing there sweating.  Um, hello?  You HAVE to look the part right??  Plus, I knew it would be cold up there...  I wasn't taking any chances.  So I donned the sweet light blue and yellow polyester jumper and got buckled into my harness.  Man, that thing was so buckled I felt like a cowgirl after riding a horse!  I felt all bow legged and everything.  And that's when the video recording began!

It was our turn to board the itty bitty plane.  Now remember there were 10 of us doing tandem, which meant there were 20 of us on this baby plane!  Quite a crowd!  As soon as we were all buckled in and situated (kind of funny to be buckled up in a plane you're going to be jumping out of, but safety first I suppose!) we took off for the sky!  Up, up and away we went!  This is when I felt a little nervous.  Now, it wasn't the height of the plane, or the fact that I kept watching the ground get farther away, it was when Scarey told me to sit on his lap.  I usually tend to wait till I know someone a little better before doing this.  I did it anyway, knowing it was strictly professional.  He buckled my harness to his and gave me some instructions.  Soon it was our turn.  I stood up and went to the edge of the plane's door.  Now a lot of people would tell others not to look down.  This was not the case for me.  I looked.  But what happened next isn't what normal people would experience -- well, that most have told me...  I suddenly had this blanket of peace fall over me.  It just wrapped around me and I was so comfortable, there was nothing to it.

Then we jumped.  Now before we headed off to the plane, I let him know we could do any crazy thing he wanted!  Flips were a must and we pulled it off!  It was the most thrilling thing I've EVER done!  We were falling so fast as I continued singing Tom Petty's "Free Falling" in my head.  One thing I remember when I was watching my friend's video was the way her cheeks flapped at the rushing wind.  I wanted to be sure to have this in my video too!  So I opened wide and let my cheeks relax.  I couldn't stop laughing it was such a funny feeling!  Then he pulled the chord and our chute opened up.  I'm sure most of you are concerned with my back, which, btw, I never mentioned the whole back surgery thing to them, but I was totally fine!  I think Scarey took most of the force because I really don't recall too much pull -- until I realized my boobs were being squished...  I think he knew because he ended up loosening that strap for me.  He asked me if I liked roller coasters and I was in!  Suddenly we were spinning super fast!  Then he stopped and we spun the other way!  SO much fun!!!  That's when he told me about how we were going to land.  This is when I decided to tell him my little secret:  how accident prone I was...  He was a little nervous now but we pulled of a perfect landing!  

Amaaaazing!  I would do it again in a heartbeat!  Who's in???