Why gamble with your money when you can gamble with your life?

That's what the t-shirts at Skydive Las Vegas said. Yep. I said SKYDIVE! I think Mike and Caleb were a little surprised (but excited) when Audria and I said that we wanted to jump too. We got up early and were to the airport in Boulder City by 8:00 am. On the way there I thought (and said) several times, "Are we really about to JUMP out of a plane?!?"

When we arrived we filled out a bunch of forms which basically signed away all of our rights and acknowledged the risk. Caleb said that by the end of the form he expected to see a line that said, "You WILL die!" lol. The forms stated that the chance of dying while skydiving is 1 in 75,000. You have better odds of winning at a slot machine in Vegas (Wikipedia says most slots pay back 82-98% of money wagered) . We played the penny slots a few times and didn't win anything...so we figured our odds were pretty good of surviving a skydive.

After signing our life away, we watched a video about tandem skydiving and then practiced flying and landing techniques. Then it was to the hanger to get suited up and meet our instructors.

(Caleb ordered pictures and I ordered a video, but we haven't gotten those in the mail yet. I'll use a few "stock" photos below until we get them.)

We signed up for the highest skydive in Vegas...3 miles high. We boarded the plane and buckled up. I was sitting in front of the roll up door and was able to watch us fly higher and higher. I can't tell you how many times I thought, "What am I doing?!? We're soooo far from the ground!!!" When we reached cruising/jumping altitude, our instructors had us sit on their laps and they hooked their harness onto ours. I was 3rd in line to jump out of the plane (behind 2 people from a different group). When it was my turn we scooted towards the door and Russ, my instructor, told me to swing my legs outside the door. He said, "Ready...go!" and then we were flipping thru the air away from the airplane!

Once we were free falling, all my fear was gone. It was awesome! We were falling so fast that I felt like I was getting water up my nose...only it was wind! We fell for a full minute (1.5 miles) before Russ pulled the cord to open the parachute. Suddenly we were peacefully gliding towards the ground. I noticed the golf course below, Lake Mead, the airport, the stip, and a gorgeous view of the desert.


I tried to look up to see our parachute and every time I looked anywhere but down Russ said, "Keep your head looking down!" The easy gliding only lasted a few seconds before Russ had us spinning in tight circles (I later learned this accelerates your speed towards the ground). This made my stomach a little queasy. As we came in for a landing, we leaned back and set down on the ground softly. AWESOME experience!

It wasn't until later that I found out why I couldn't look up, why Russ sped up our descent, and why he didn't offer to let me steer the parachute (like Mike, Caleb, & Audria got to do).

As Caleb was gliding he heard his instructor say, "Oh no! Who is that? Arg. It's Russ. What's he doing?" Caleb knew I was with Russ and said, "Um. That's my sister! Are they gonna be ok?" Instructor, "Um. Yeah. His suspension line is broken...but he should be able to land it." Russ never let on that anything was wrong...not even after we landed! I'm guessing that's why he didn't want me looking up...he didn't want me to notice something was wrong (although I wouldn't know what to look for anyways!)

Audria and I gave skydiving two thumbs up! I'd definitely do it again. It was a blast!!!