Last Saturday, Luis, Lola, Gabriel and myself went to the appropriately named town of San Marcos, TX in order to jump off a plane at 11,000 feet of altitude.
Four brave souls.
Unfortunately, my car decided to break on our way there, so we had to give up and turn around… for the moment.
Undeterred by the seemingly clear sign from above, we went again on Sunday. It was a little bit warmer than Saturday and very sunny. The people at Skydive San Marcos were awesome and we were up in the sky within the hour. Lloyd is the guy I was literally strapped on for my life. He very coolly explained and got me through the whole process.
These zippers can be dangerous.
I felt unexpectedly calm through the whole process: dressing up with the jumper suit, getting on the plane, taking off, seeing the altimeter climb, looking out the window, standing on the ledge of the plane with the door open and even jumping out.
I look a lot more scared than I remember feeling. I blame the wind.
Once you’re in free fall, it’s hard to describe the feeling. The super cold wind hitting your face at 120 mph, the ground everywhere you look, etc. Then you (or more precisely, Lloyd) deploy the parachute and you smoothly slow down and just enjoy yourself.
A little extra encouragement from our little friend
Looking cool after the jump, in spite of the stupid hat
Anyway, I’ll let you see for yourself. There’s over a hundred photos in The MKX® Photo Central, and I posted a cool (and expensive but totally worth it) video online, in very high quality MPEG4 or in sadly pixelated quality through YouTube.
Update Jan 22 2008: Gabriel posted his video on YouTube as well.
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