Jumping Out of a Perfectly Good Airplane

Yes, that's right. That is what I did. And I wasn't even scared.
On Sunday morning, Gideon and I headed to Orange County, Virginia for him to redeem his birthday present from the whole family--a gift certificate to sky dive (with video and still pictures to boot!). We could discuss what kind of present that is, but that would be a different blog post all together. :)
The plan was for Gideon to jump and me to be there to offer moral support (as if he would need it). About a week ago, though, I started having little tantrums about skydiving too, kind of along the lines of, "I wanna go too!!!!" My brother, Brad, asked why I wasn't jumping with Gideon. Too expensive, I said. He told me that it was totally worth whatever I had to pay to do it. (This is despite the fact that he almost didn't survive his first jump... hmmm, makes me wonder.) So when we showed up at Skydive Orange, Gideon was only getting started signing his life away when I handed over my credit card and said, "Can you get me on that plane with my husband?" For $265.00, they could.
After giving up all rights to sue if things didn't go well, we had a quick training session, and then sat around pondering our decision and waiting our turn to jump. After about 2 hours (it was a busy day for skydiving), Gideon and I suited up in purple jump suits and hopped aboard a perfectly good little airplane, along with our tandem jump partners, Chuck and Mario and about 8 other jumpers.
It took about 10 minutes to climb to 13,000 feet. That's pretty high, and without a cloud in the sky, you can really appreciate that fact. On the way up, my jump partner, Chuck, chatted with me about teaching, D.C., breathing, and finally jumping. Gideon leaned over and gave me a kiss--boy, he looked cute in his goggles and jump helmet. Before I knew it, I was shuffling towards the gaping hole in the side of the plane, with Chuck attached to my back, and a parachute attached to his back. I don't think I even paused before letting myself fall out of the plane. It was one of those "don't think, just do it" moments.
What a feeling... free falling for a whole minute at a speed of about 120 miles per hour. My mouth was wide open the whole time (picture a big, silly, flapping smiley face), and it was bone dry in about two seconds. It was darn cold up there, too! But, man, what an experience. I even got to use my arms to steer us around. I'm a bird...I'm a plane...
At about 5,000 feet Chuck pulled the rip cord, which essentially is like slamming the breaks when you are speeding along at 120 mph. It felt like I was being yanked back up to the plane (by my underwear). But in a moment, we were floating along and enjoying the view. A few seconds later we saw Gideon and Mario floating not too far from us. We waved and followed them for a bit.
After about 6-7 minutes of floating, we landed like graceful birds right out in front of the Skydive Orange hanger, and I just started laughing like a euphoric drunk. It's all I could do. Maybe that much oxygen all at once can do that to a person.
Brad was right; it was worth every penny. And I'll do it again in a heartbeat.
By the way, you can see the pictures in a larger format by clicking on them. Also, the cool jumping pictures are only of Gideon since the picture/video package was part of his birthday present (the photographer stayed right with him). The ones with me aren't so exciting, but you can probably imagine my face as I free fell.