I realize that skydiving, paracuting, and flying are inherently dangerous activities which may result in my serious injury or even death... BRING IT!

So I can officially cross "skydiving" off my bucket list. That's right, I totally jumped out of a plane flying at 12,500 feet, freefell at 130 MPH and parachuted down to the ground. It was seriously the most amazing thing I've ever done in my life. I'm already ready to do it again. After a looooonnnnngggggg drive up to Ogden (we were stuck in traffic for about an hour, I was ready to murder), we arrived at Ogden Skydiving Center. I was way nervous, but definitely more excited than nervous. We met the check-in lady and she handed us each contracts, where we literally signed our lives away. Since it was my first jump, I rode tandem with an instructor named Sugi. He was pretty cool, and when I asked him how many times he's jumped, he said he'd ballpark it at about 2,000! We got on the plane and rode for about 20 minutes, while the instructors tried to freak us out. As we were taking off, Sugi said, "I'd say we have better than a 50% chance of making it through this alive." I told him I'd take it! They were saying stuff like, "Hmm... what does this do?" or "I'm not sure, I've never done that before." There was a giant florescent Orange sign on the back of my harness that my instructor was kind enough to read to me. It said something to the effect of "even if your parachute is manufactured correctly and everything is executed exactly as it should be, you might still die." I know he was trying to make me nervous, but I really just thought it was way funny. Definitely the most awkward part of the evening was when Sugi said, "Alright, are you ready to get cozy?" He pulled me back so I was right up next to him and literally strapped me to him. He explained that as we jumped out of the plane, I needed to arch my back, put my arms out so they were shaped like a W, and kick my feet back so they were touching his butt. I told him he'd have to buy me dinner first. :) So we got up to 12,500 feet and the little light by the side of the door turned from red to green about as quickly as I went from pretty chill to FREAKING OUT as far as nerves are concerned. I kinda waddled up to the edge of the plane, and crouched down as I was hit with a rush of cold air. I forgot it was supposed to be cold up that high. We jumped (okay, I'll admit it. He pushed me) and immediately did a backflip out of the plane. I can't even attempt to describe to you the rush I felt at that point. It was seriously SO insane! I literally felt like I was flying. It was absolutely amazing! We fell for about a minute before Sugi pulled the 'chute. It was a pretty chill, relaxing ride down from there. We did a few corkscrews and stuff like that, but mostly it was just a slow descent back to the ground. We landed on a little grass strip right next to the runway and I had to just kinda sit there for a second and regain my senses.

I've kind of made skydiving a metaphor in my life. Yeah, it's dangerous and has the potential to kill me, but if I backed out just because of the risks, I would've missed out on the best ride of my life! So let that be a lesson. Take risks, and enjoy the ride!

Until the next big adventure, Peace out!