I Went Skydiving
Oh hey guys. I’m alive. And a lot has changed, and yet life
feels pretty calm and steady, with a few exceptions.
Brief recap:
I started as a personal trainer at my gym in Murray back in
June. Right now it’s just eating up my evenings and my sanity. So I don’t know
how much longer I can do it.
On July 1 I started my position at Alpine. About a week or
two ago, I fully took over my predecessor’s role. She still is around and helps
me with a lot of stuff, but I’ve really tried to step in confidently and make
this desk my own.
With the double paychecks in July and August, I decided to
have a little fun. I bought myself a Living Social deal to go skydiving in
Moab. I bought myself a ukulele. I bought my mom a laptop. I’ve eaten at lots
of good restaurants. And of course I saved plenty (you know me).
So this past weekend, I went skydiving with my uncle Bry
down in Moab. Yes, he is really my uncle. He is 9 months older than me.
We booked a stay at Motel 6 in Green River, about 30 minutes
from our skydiving location. I did that via Priceline. Wow, guys. Never again.
Never. Again.
I booked a double bed non-smoking room. They didn’t even
confirm the type of room when they charged me for it, so that was super
professional. We got to the room, which had a handicapped parking stall in
front of it, and that made me a little leery. We got inside, and lo and behold,
there was ONE bed, a wood floor, and it smelled like an ash tray.
I tried my best to keep my cool as I went back to the desk
to tell them there was a mistake. But they threw up their hands and blamed it
on the booking site, claiming those sites just do whatever they want. Um, no,
pretty sure you just gave up the rooms to other people that day. They had no
vacancy, and neither did any other motel in the area. I asked if I could get
any money back, and he said he’d be happy to do that. He then proceeded to give
me a full refund, which apparently meant that I was giving up the room. Again,
um, no. That’s not what I said. I said I didn’t want to pay $141 for a room
that is half the size of what I booked. He told me they’re all the same price,
which is just bonkers. They had no roll away beds or cots. And he said he’d
look for extra blankets and pillows for us. They never arrived. Cool, thanks.
Guys, this motel was absolutely lovely. The light switch for
the bathroom was on the outside of
the bathroom (?!). The door barely cleared the entertainment stand when opened.
The entertainment stand had some of the finish/lining peeled off. There were
poorly repaired holes on the wall near the toilet where a railing had once
been. The sink in the bathroom was a corner one, for those who need wheelchair
access. I don’t need wheelchair access, however, so the lack of counter space
was an obstacle for me. No shampoo or conditioner was provided, only two small
bars of soap—good thing I brought my own!
In the shower (no bath, it was a wheelchair friendly shower),
there was no soap dish on which to set the bar of soap. Sooooo I had to put it
on the rolling chair, which I assume many naked butts have sat on, so that was
pretty disconcerting. The water pressure in the shower was pitiful, probably
because it was a handheld shower head. Since the entire bathroom was
handicapped accessible and tiled, it was super echoey, which meant that anyone
outside the bathroom could hear any mildly loud emissions occurring within
(sorry, Bry). One of my favorite things about the room is that since it was in
the corner of the building, we could hear everyone’s luggage banging down the
stairs early in the morning—very pleasant. And the finisher is that my clothes
smelled like smoke when I arrived home on Saturday night.
We had dinner at a place nearby called Tamarisk. I had chicken fingers. I felt super grown up.
Since I was curled up super tight all night, my back hurt
the next morning. In spite of that, I ran 5 miles in that Podunk little town. On
my run I saw lots of camp chairs on the sidewalk and realized that there was
probably going to be a parade because “Melon Days” was going on there in Green
River. I got back and got ready and waited an hour for my uncle to get ready. An
hour! I don’t understand why dudes take so long. Especially him! He has 1/4 the
hair on his head that I do, and didn’t have to do his makeup or dry his hair.
We finally left and went to get him some coffee and almost didn’t make it out
before the parade was supposed to start. Then we headed to Arches.
I don’t think I’ve ever been to Arches National Park. I wish
we had more time to spend there, but we had only about 1.5 hours. We took some
pictures of the balancing rock, and headed to Delicate Arch. I didn’t expect
the hike to be so intense. I was dripping sweat! Dripping! We took some
pictures for honestly about five minutes, and had to turn back around to head
to skydive. Still, it was beautiful, and I’d love to go back and really spend
some time.
As for skydiving… It wasn’t what I thought it would be. I
kind of expected like 30-60 minutes of formal training and working with my
tandem partner in terms of what to do and what to expect, and maybe a small
plane with seats. But no. We got there, they handed us clipboards of waivers to
sign, didn’t explain any of it, and put on this ghetto old video explaining the
risks we were assuming by jumping.
We arrived and had to call to be let in. We waited for several minutes before a girl with dreadlocks came out to get us. We went into her office, bought our pictures, videos, and
USB in advance, and redeemed our vouchers. She didn’t give us any explanations
or training either. She told us we would have about a half hour before we got
into the air. Nope. It was over an hour.
There were porch swings and lawn chairs strewn about, and a
big cooling fan blowing. The atmosphere was almost too casual. The language of
the workers was less than appropriate. And there was tension between the owner
and one of the jump masters. The owner called us over to put on our harnesses.
He was super abrasive (but funny) and told us that people had complained that
they hadn’t received enough training, and that they couldn’t breathe up there.
So he was “trying to provide more training.” Are you ready for it?: In order to
breathe, put your head back, breathe through your nose, or scream, and when
they tap your shoulder twice, spread your arms out. That was our training. He
asked if I wanted a jump suit; they required goggles and gloves, no helmet or
suit. I passed on the onesie.
When our jump masters came over to meet us, my partner
introduced himself to Bry, thinking he was jumping with him. He shook his hand
and seemed enthusiastic. He realized a couple of minutes later that he was
jumping with me. But he didn’t shake my hand. Instead, he tightened my harness,
and thought it would be funny to lift me up in the air by my harness.
Hilarious. I hope you felt big and powerful and manly, jerk.
He took video of us in front of the plane, but I couldn’t
hear what he asked (for my name), so I look like a goofy idiot in the beginning
of the video. He didn’t prepare me at all for what he’d say or ask, and didn’t
tell me when he would take video. Some preparation would’ve been nice.
The plane was super tiny and cramped and old. There was electrical
tape around the windows, which made me nervous. Bry and his partner Kirill had
to get in first, because I was going to jump first. The entire way up was
pretty miserable for me. I had to sit in a constant Pilates C position. I
couldn’t lean back or put my hands down. I couldn’t lean forward because of the
harness. It was terrible. My partner took video again in the plane about
halfway up, but again I only caught about half of what he said (you can see
that in the video as I lean back to ask what he had said).
He “trained” me a little more on the plane. He told me that
when the door opened, I needed to put both of my feet on the step. He said, “In
the air, push your hips out, and bring your feet back to your butt like a
scorpion,” and “when I tap your shoulder, spread your arms out.”
And that was it.
That was my training.
So you’ll pardon my frustration and anger when my partner
spent the rest of the time repeating himself and yelling at me because I didn’t
understand what he was wanting me to do, or didn’t do it the way he wanted it
done.
But wait, back to the plane. The ride up didn’t make me
anxious or nervous. Since they were all so cavalier about it, and hadn’t built
up any excitement or trained me at all, I had pretty much lost my enthusiasm. I
felt very detached from the situation (contrary to what I express in the
video). Once he opened the door of the plane, shiz got real. I let out a little
scream almost due to protocol, in an attempt to get hyped about what was about
to happen—putting on an act of sorts. It just felt surreal. I didn’t feel
scared or resistant to jumping out at all. My heart wasn’t beating fast. I
really didn’t feel much of anything.
Since the wind was coming up so fast, it was kind of hard to
process what was happening. I didn’t look around much or enjoy the view (it
just looked like brown desert). I was focused on pushing my hips down and feet
back like he said. I was also trying to keep my mouth closed so I could
breathe, per the owner’s instructions. My partner had the video going, so I smiled and
hoped I didn’t look horrible. It happened really fast, almost too fast for me
to process it or enjoy it.
My eyes watered intensely. Like full on tears streamed
across my face. He took off my goggles partway down.
The part that I strongly disliked was the end. He released
the parachute, and intended to have me steer it. So he told me three times to
take the handles. It took me a second to figure out what handles he was talking
about, so repeating it three times only made me feel stupid. I took the handles
from him. He told me to pull down on the left side. It basically made us spiral
around in circles. He then told me to, “Let up.” So I started slowly letting
up. While doing so, he says, “Let up, let UP!” full on yelling at me. Sorry,
guy, you didn’t tell me we’d be doing this, and you didn’t tell me to let up
quickly. I don’t know what the F is going to happen if I let up quickly on a
parachute! It’s not like I do this 15 times a day. He then did the same thing
in wanting me to transfer the handles back to him. He said, “Let go of the
handles, let go of the handles, let GO of the handles.” OH MY GOSH OK SO SORRY
I’M NOT DOING THIS TO YOUR EXPECTATIONS THAT YOU DIDN’T COMMUNICATE IN ADVANCE.
Freaking a-hole.
He (more patiently) explained how we would land. I needed to
lift my knees into 90 degrees, and keep my knees together. Then I needed to
straighten my legs in front of me. I was making moaning sounds from this point
forward due to nausea as we swayed back and forth making our way down. I was so
anxious to land because I was so uncomfortable. The parachute was lifting up on
me, but the earth was pulling down on me, making the harness just dig into my
thighs as I tried my hardest to keep my legs together as my stomach was churning.
I was so, so uncomfortable, and so sick. His yelling and this part of the jump
ruined the whole thing for me.
At the last second, he again yelled at me three times to
stand up. “Stand up, stand up, STAND UP!” Then I guess the parachute landed a
little funny, so he needed me to walk around to the left, but that’s not what
he said. He said, “Move over here.” Oh hey, I don’t know if you know this, but
you’re behind me, and I don’t know where you’re pointing to. Try directions,
douchebag. Left and right are very useful. Thankfully, the only roughness of
the landing was on my ankle, which I feel twinge time and again, but it’s fine.
I ran two miles on it this morning.
He took more video at the end and asked, “So what’d you
think!?” As I was utterly nauseated from the parachute portion, and as he had
made me feel like a complete idiot at the end, I wanted to say, “I want to
puke, and you were a jerk, that’s what I think.” So I fumbled around for a word
I hadn’t used in the video yet, which was “insane.” And really, it wasn’t
insane. I didn’t feel excited at all, and didn’t have that awesome adrenaline
rush everyone talks about. Then he made out like he was so nice and fun, and
thanked me for coming to Canyonlands, made me high five and fist bump him even
though he had been treating me like shiz for the past 30 minutes.
As soon as he turned off the video, my face reflected my
true feelings. I frowned for the next 30 minutes as I made my way back to the
hangar and literally tried not to vomit.
In all, not the experience I had hoped for. I feel bad
because so many people were asking how it went and were looking forward to
hearing me say how amazing it was. But it wasn’t. It was uncomfortable and
stressful. I don’t do well being yelled at. Here's the video if you want to watch it.
I tried not to talk about how much I disliked it because Bry
really enjoyed it. He’s much more laid back than I am, and either he listens
better, or his partner was just nicer and more patient. Anyway, I didn’t want
to complain to him too much. I felt sick, and he could see that.
I spent all day yesterday (Sunday) stressed because I hadn’t
done laundry, cleaned, or grocery shopped as I normally do on Saturdays. I also
stressed as I debated about looking at my pictures and videos, afraid they
would reflect the thoughts and feelings I had inside. I finally got the courage
to look at them at around 9 PM last night. I am super pleased with how it all
looks on video—it looks like I had a
fantastic time. I wish I felt the same way about it inside.
Since I know you’re wondering: No, I don’t think I’d do it
again. If I did, it’d definitely have to be somewhere close by, and cheap,
since now I know what to expect, and it’s not that awesome. I’d way rather go
on roller coasters, to be honest. Those don’t hurt my thighs, nauseate me, or
yell at me.
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