Skydiving: Take 1

A few months ago I somehow got into my head that I wanted to go skydiving ... I mentioned it to a few friends and we all decided to do it. Initially it was supposed to be our 'reward' for finishing the triathlon, but we couldn't do it until this weekend.

We got up this morning and were out the door a little after 6am, to make the drive down to West Point, VA. We arrived around 9am, checked in, signed our lives away on a million waiver forms, and paid an arm and a leg to jump out of an airplane with a random man strapped to us. We sat through a little orientation instructional lecture (which consisted of us sitting in camping/plastic chairs in a circle inside of the non-air conditioned airport hangar). And then we waited. And waited. And waited. Apparently waiting is my lot in life these days.

The skys were cloudy. We knew that wind and rain would stop us from skydiving, but no one told us (even when we called a couple days ago) that if it was cloudy we couldn't go. We kept waiting. When they told us the plane was on its way and we would dive around 1pm, we went to Subway for some lunch, and then came back and waited some more. Luckily (or unluckily, however you choose to view it!) we were surrounded by about 20-25 of the most random people I have ever met in my life. These skydivers are a class of their own, and they are like family to each other - they go and spend every weekend together hanging around the little airport hangar diving during the day and drinking at night. I don't even want to try to repeat some of the stories because they would just not make much sense and it truly was one of those "you had to be there to believe it" experiences.

The airplane arrived. That's about when I started to get nervous and that lovely pit in my stomach. Ben, Jenny, and I were on the first plane, so we waited as our instructors got jumpsuits for us, strapped us into our harnesses, and gave us some tips, as the videographers are madly taking pictures and video interviews of us. Then we learned that the pilot was actually not going to take us. Apparently there were some strong winds, and visibility was only about 4,000 feet (we were going to jump at 13,500 ft). So ... the crazy skydivers hopped into the plane for a "drop and pop" jump - they all jumped out and pretty much opened their parachutes right away since there was no time for free falling at that level. It was fun to watch them jump, but at the same time, kind of rubbed it in more that we were not going to get to do it!

So after all of that, around 3pm, we decided that we needed to get going since it wasn't going to happen. We'd already been there for over 6 hrs and it started raining ... so we got our money back and had to take a raincheck. Too bad the first time I think we can all go again is in August!! I was really looking forward to skydiving! Although with the luck I've been having lately, maybe its not such a bad thing...