I wasn't planning on doing anything for Labor Day. My plan was to stay home, catch up on some sleep, listen to some music, and play some video games.
At 7:30 a.m. that morning I got a call from my friend Judith telling me to be ready; that she'd be picking me up in twenty, and taking us to the Dells. That's the Wisconsin Dells! Fun I thought. The Dells is this huge amusement like city with lots of water parks, restaurants, and activities to try. I hadn't visited Wisconsin Dells in several years (since I was in Junior High) so I was actually really excited to see what my friend had planned for us.
Judith is known for her amazing surprises. One year, during our Junior Year in high school, she surprised all of her closest friends with a trip to Mexico. Yes, her parents are super rich, but they are also extremely generous when it comes to their only daughter and her friends. The trip was a blast and ever since then, she's always surprising us with bigger and better gifts.
I wasn't exactly pleased with this surprise. "We're jumping out of an airplane!" she announced to our group. All I could think to do was give a quick '*** no,' response and turn to leave. I have an intense fear of heights. I had to switch from working a house painting job with my brother-in-law to working construction because I couldn't deal with being on ladders. My head would start to spin, I'd get sick to my stomach, and I'd literally start to get panic attacks on site. It was awful.
The worst part is my friend knew this about me! I thought at first this was just a practical joke or something, but after we were escorted to the ski dive "school", I knew it was for real. I royally freaked out. She told me not to be such a drama queen, but I couldn't help it. It took one of the divers an hour to calm me down enough so he could start the class!
Whenever they have 'first timer's' doing jumps, a Tandem skydive is advised. It requires the least amount of training (usually less than an hour....or 2 in my case), and maintain the highest degree of safety. Our instructor was with us through the entire skydive and parachute ride back down to the ground, safe and sound. The jump itself includes 60 seconds of freefall from 10,000 to 14,000 feet above Wisconsin, followed by a canopy ride that lasted around 7 to 9 minutes. I also was given the option to assist in steering the parachute....I opted out of that.
Okay, so I did the skydive after a lot of pushing and prodding by everyone. It was definitely not something I wanted to do. It wasn't until after I landed on the ground safely,that I realized it wasn't such a horrible experience. I'm not saying that I'd do it again, because I'm not...definitely not. I suppose I'm implying that it wasn't quite as bad as I thought it would be.
Once we got all our gear off and headed back inside to the Dropzone, we took pictures, and waited for our individual skydiving pictures to be processed. You can't bring your own camera on a sky dive (at least not at this place) so my friend had to buy a more expensive package that included a video and still shots of us. They turned out pretty good.
Here's one of me in mid-air:
A picture of me with Judith(post-jump):
And lastly, a picture of the plane I jumped out of:
I won't forget Labor Day 2012!