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Monday, August 24, 2009

I'm Freeeeeeeeeee, Free Fallin'.....

Yesterday, I had a life-changing experience. I was given the opportunity to go skydiving. Words cannot even describe the awesome-ness of it.

This is me listening to the instructor, after suiting up. Notice my green Gumby suit?
Ready to go!!
Josh and I before heading out. He was trying to pretend he wasn't nervous. All my nervousness had left by this time, and I was just plain psyched.
My cheering section on the trailer heading out to meet the plane.
Waiting for the plane to land, so we can board.
My instructor and I heading to the plane!


Ready.....
Set....
GO!!!!!!
That's our plane WAY up there.
Free-falling at close to 120MPH.

Parachute opening up.
And cruising down towards the ground. When you are free-falling, the pressure on your face is incredible. I felt like my goggles were going to fly off my face! Its also really loud, because of the wind. And falling through the clouds was neat- you could feel the moisture, and couldn't see the ground at all. Once the chute was pulled, it became dead-quiet. We could carry on a normal conversation in the air. You could see for miles around, and the people on the ground literally looked like ants.

I got to steer the parachute for a while, pulling down on one side to do turns, and slowing us down or making us go faster. The strength it takes to pull the straps to turn it was really surprising. The tandem chutes are almost twice the size of single chutes.

I had to put my feet out in front of me, so we could land. We landed on our butts, very softly and slowly.
Walking back towards my family. Afterwards, they all told me they were waiting to see if I was smiling or not, to see if I actually enjoyed it.
Can you tell that I LOVED it??
This is my jump instructor, Brett, and I. He has over 9,000 jumps, and has been jumping longer than I have been alive! I would go with him again and again - he was amazing!!

This day was the best day of my entire life. I felt the incredible sensation of free-falling through the air, got to glide through the air and enjoy the views, and then got to tell everybody the story back on the ground.

I am working on uploading the video of the whole thing, filmed by my mom on the ground.

Oh yeah, and my goal now is to get my Class A license.

Let's go skydiving!!

2 comments:

McMahan family said...

Maranda, that is so cool! James would love to do that sometime but I'm way too chicken. I have a friend I used to work with who has several thousand jumps too -- she loved it. Thank you for sharing your big day with us and posting the pics. I look forward to watching the video! Congrats to you for being so brave!

Amy M. said...

Awesome photos. What a wonderful experience for you! So excited to hear more about it. Way to go!