Kyra has wanted to go skydiving since she was ten years old. Well, now that she’s eighteen, she can officially do it. We headed across town to the local airport for the big event.
This being our first time, we had to do a tandem jump, which means we’re strapped to the front of an expert jumper. Kyra’s buddy for the day was a guy named Cody. According to her and Laralee, Cody was very cute. Here he is, getting Kyra into her gear:
My tandem partner was Shawn, who was a nice guy.
Ready to jump!
Laralee kept asking both of us if we were nervous. Nope. It really didn’t seem scary or anything. In fact, it’s something I’ve wanted to do for a while, so Kyra’s 18th birthday just gave me a good excuse to finally take the plunge, so to speak.
And away we go! We squeezed a dozen people into a little twin turboprop.
When we hit a little over 12,000 feet, they opened the door on the plane and we made the jump. It was actually really easy– you sort of roll forward out the doorway, and then after a few seconds you spread your arms to level out. We were in free-fall for almost a minute. I asked my partner how long it takes to hit terminal velocity, and he said around ten seconds. At this altitude, terminal velocity is around 120 miles per hour. It was amazing to spin slowly and take in the surrounding landscape, plummeting down at that speed. Although the wind was howling in my ears, it was strangely calm up there.
Shawn pulled the chute, which was a pretty hard jolt, and we floated easily to the drop zone. We missed the “target” in the center by about two feet. Nice!
Kyra came down after me. Apparently Cody gave her the lines and let her steer for part of the trip down. I wondered aloud why I didn’t get to do that, and Laralee quipped that I’m not a cute 18-year-old girl. True, that.
Mission accomplished!
Oh, and Kyra reminded me that we had to take an obligatory selfie at the end of the journey.
Alex emailed Kyra from Peru and told her to punch me because I didn’t wait for him to go skydiving. I suspect he’ll want to do it in a couple of years when he’s back. And Zack is already planning it for his 18th birthday as well. I’m looking forward to it! (The big question is whether Laralee will take the jump… stay tuned.)