Up in the air

Today Smart Guy and I went south to Snohomish to make a few skydives with our friends. Because of my last post which relegates my entire life to "blog fodder," I took my camera aboard the plane to show you what my day was like. I snapped this picture just as we took off in the Cessna Caravan from Harvey Field, showing the green, the blue sky, and the clouds in the distance. the door is on the left, plexiglass with bars, which opens from the bottom and rolls upward.

We were on our way up to altitude, 13,500 feet, to spend a minute or so playing around in freefall, and then opening our parachutes and flying them to the ground. Then we packed up and did it again, and yet once more before the day was over. I snapped this picture of the other passengers, the two girls making their first skydives as tandem passengers with their instructors, a new pilot on the left, and Dave, the pilot who is in teaching mode right now (in the right-hand seat). He also agreed to take a few pictures for me, too.

There's the two pilots in front, the two tandem passengers with their instructors, and a couple of other jumpers (the bald guy and the bearded one) who would follow our four-way out the door. After I took these pictures, I handed my camera up to Dave so he could take some pictures of Puget Sound from altitude. I didn't want the distraction of the camera as I got ready to make my jump.

He snapped this enchanting picture of Christine on the left, my butt in the middle, and Linny on the right. Of course, I didn't know he took this picture, but it was just too good to leave out. That is Smart Guy's black-capped head with what looks like a hand growing out of it. The door is still down but we are close to getting ready to exit the plane. (Click any picture to enlarge.)

Dave took this picture of Puget Sound after we exited, showing our beautiful Paradise that we get to play around in. What did we do in the air? Well, as I've explained before, we make pretty patterns in the sky. Long ago, when we first met, Smart Guy drew these pictures for me, showing some of the fun things we could do in the air. I was enchanted with them, as I hope you will be, too.

We made stars (the upper left drawing), donuts (the upper right), we flew around the planet for a whole minute before it was time to separate and pull out our parachutes. It was just a lovely, blue sky, beautiful day that makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside now, as I sit here writing my post to share with my wonderful friends in the blogosphere. I couldn't have asked for a better day. I hope yours was just as nourishing to your soul as this was for me.
:-)