skydive... check!

So, yesterday I had the opportunity to do something that I have always wanted to do... jump out of an airplane! One of my co-workers, Morgan and her husband, Dave skydive all the time and I asked her if her husband would take me tandem and so we finally did... WOW! What an amazing experience... I didn't get a videotape or anything because Morgan also jumped with us and as you can see from the pictures, there wasn't anymore room for the guy to take the video. One fun thing about skydiving is that you get to have two experiences for one... riding in a tiny plane and jumping, of course. (For some reason, I could not get the first pic to slide down under this text...) SO, the above pic) is us getting into the tiny plane, first me, then Dave, then Morgan. Notice how big we are compared to the plane, yeah... very small...

ok, all closed up, ready for takeoff.
The white door was opened once we were at 10,000 feet and then Morgan opened the door and crawled out under the wing on the "step". Then, I had to scoot forward and sit on the edge of the plane in the doorway and put my feet on the step. Then I got really scared and wondered "What the heckles and I doing up here?!?" Morgan said that my face looked really funny right about then as I was looking down at Coulter Airfield. Then Dave spun us around as we jumped and had a free-fall of about 5,000 ft before he pulled the parachute. WOW!!! I pretty much screamed the ENTIRE freefall. Ray followed the plane on the entier 25 minute ascent and was able to see us right when we jumped outwith his binoculars- he said you could hear the plane slow down. He said he kept thinking that we were getting really close and then would look without the binos and we were still small dots. It was exhilerating and amazing! I can definitely see why people spend a lot of time and money doing this.

doing turns
Once the chute was open we glided a bit and then Dave asked how I was doing and then we did some turns, first slow ones, then fast ones. Very fun!

Then we landed and it was over, it seemed like a long time, but it also went REALLY fast! Now, I feel like I have done all of the parachute type of activities that I want to do. Parasailing in Destin, Florida, Paragliding in Interlaken, Switzerland, and finally skydiving in Bryan, Texas!