Knees in the breeze

Today I headed up to Skydive Snohomish with Smart Guy to make a couple of skydives. Here is a picture of three of the five of my best jump buddies, who went up in the Caravan to play in the sky: Linny, Cindy, and Christine. It was early in the day and it was still a bit brisk, as you can see by the down vest Christine is wearing.

We went up around noon and had a stellar 5-way jump (meaning there were five of us making pretty patterns together in the sky). Smart Guy was a "lurker" meaning that he jumped out with us but just watched us play. We had so much fun that we came down and packed up our gear so we could do it again.

Here you can see the female's gear pile. On the right is Linny's blue and silver rig, in the middle my black, purple and blue-trimmed rig, and on the left, Christine's pretty pink rig trimmed in turquoise. Each one of these "rigs" contains two parachutes: our main and our reserve.

Then we went up to make a second skydive, where we played again in the air, gazing out at Puget Sound and the snow-covered mountains on our way to altitude, before we jumped out to play again in the air, a full minute of freefall before separating and opening our parachutes to glide back down to earth. It was such a lovely day, and now I am home safe and sound. The life I live today, here in the Pacific Northwest, is so magnificent that I am constantly filled with gratitude.
:-)