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I went skydiving with my roommate, Mike yesterday.  I have no pictures, but I will try to explain the fascinating experience as best as I can.

We drive to small town next to Lodi. (Lodi is about 20 minutes past Stockton)  We walk into the sky diving place and it was absoultely crowded (and hot).  I was thinking to myself.  What kind of a place is this? There were people sitting around, guys walking around without their shirts on talking all "hickish" and women playing pool on the half busted pool table drinking Corona’s.  The people working there (and about 75% of its patrons) basically looked like they were straight out of a Friday the 13th horror flick or some other B movie with overly excited teens.  We finally signed up and had to wait very, very, very long time before our turn to jump.

It must have been 90 degrees.  They had the mist machine outside and we were sitting on old unmatching couches trying to stay cool.  (there were numerous old couches in the building that looked like they could have been donated by a local fraternity house looking to upgrade their furniture)

We struck a conversation with these wo guys who were also in line and who also had to wait several hours like us.  They were from Oakdale.  "Oakdale"? I responded not knowing where the heck Oakdale is.  I said I’m from "Oakland".  I found out later that Oakdale is east of Modesto.  But these guys were cool, and they eventually were in our group.  It was their first time jumping, as well.

When our numbers were finally called three hours later, we had to go in and put on this harness, goggles, etc…  We took a 1980’s summer camp style bus to the hanger where we would load onto the airplane (this re-enforced my theory about being in the Friday the 13th flick)

This is where my nerves started to act up and I was thinking to myself "there’s no turning back now". 

We all jump onto this little airplane;  there were probalby 16 of us in there, and boy did we feel like sardines.  At that moment, I felt like I was in a military situation, awaiting to jump out of the plane into enemy territory.  I wanted a machine gun at that moment =)

As beginners, we aren’t allowed to jump by ourselves, so we were harnessed to an experienced instructor.  (yes we were all spooned the entire way down).

We flew up to about 13 K feet and the door flung open!  When it was my turn, I was at the door of the airplaine.  I jumped.  The first 4 seconds felt like I was on the Edge at Great America except we weren’t on a machine.  (ie that wierd stomach feeling).   For the next minute, we free fell in the sky.  What an exhilirating feeling that was!  I fell about 2 miles down before the parachute was activated.   From then, I controlled my way down (if I wanted to turn right, I tugged the right side of the parachute, and vice versa)

4 minutes later, I landed.  It was such an adrenalaine rush from the plane ride up, to jumping and free falling, and to seeing the entire land from the sky while parachuting down!  I was thinking to myself  afterward "the next time I do this, I’ll be jumping and landing in a football stadium to deliver the flag before the national anthem"

That excursion took me and Mike about 6 hours of our day (travel time included).  the entire event took about 30 minutes (plane ride, jump)

The end.

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 16th, 2006 at 6:05 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.