Monday, August 31, 2009

Geronimo!

This past March, the Heathens and I purchased a gift certificate for the Asst. Zookeeper to go skydiving. Then, at Father's Day, we purchased another certificate that would send a video-guy to jump with him and record it. The Asst. Zookeeper has been impatiently waiting for the day to arrive.

And it finally did just this past Saturday. He had to be at the jump site at 3 pm. We drove the two-and-a-half hours to Grove City and arrived to find a small hanger that was packed with people!
The Heathens and I left him there for his prep work and headed to the closest McDonald's. Not feeding the Heathens is NEVER an option. While we were eating, the Asst. Zookeeper called me. Wires had gotten crossed at the jump site. The only way he could jump on Saturday was to jump tandem. He had wanted to do an instructor-assisted jump and that was what I had purchased. However, when they scheduled him, they scheduled him for a tandem. He had two choices. 1. Wait, and jump another day and do the instructor-assisted jump. Or, 2. Jump tandem today.
Like he was going home without leaping from an airplane!

So they suited him up and got him ready to jump! They matched him up with an instructor named Don and put him in a group with two other tandem sets. And sent them out to load onto the plane.

I don't know what I expected the plane to be. I knew it wouldn't be very big. However, I wasn't expecting it to be covered in polka dots and smiley faces either! The six people jumping could barely all fit inside!
It took 10 or 15 minutes for the plane to gain enough altitude for them to jump. And then they were out of the plane and it became very obvious which parachute was the Asst. Zookeeper. Two of the parachutes were just gently floating down and moving slowly from side to side across the sky. The third chute was spinning in really tight circles, first in one direction and then in another. Hmmmm...... Which one was the Asst. Zookeeper?
When he landed, he had the biggest smile on his face and it was like listening to a little kid on Christmas morning trying to tell you about everything they got. Such a shame he didn't like it and isn't already scheduled to go again on Labor Day weekend!

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