BLUF: If you are thinking about skydiving, do it. And this is the place to do it.
So, here's my story.
I have always wanted to go skydiving. It's been a bucket list item for God knows how long. So, on my 44th birthday, my father-in-law got me a gift certificate for a tandem jump at Skydive Greene County. To be honest, I procrastinated for almost a year. Thankfully, it was good for 18 months. So, come March of 2019, I start trying to schedule a jump. Wouldn't you know it? Ohio weather has it out for the weekends in the spring. So after about 2 months of fighting with the weather (and calming my nerves), I managed to get scheduled for Memorial Day. Yes. THAT Memorial Day. The one where 14 tornadoes hit Ohio. However, since it was scheduled for noon, the sky just had some lazy puffies floating around. It was perfect.
So I go in, visit the bathroom a couple of times, meet my cameraman (Rodney) and my instructor (Gary, who has over 9,000 jumps), get geared up, wish I could visit the bathroom one more time, and wait for the first bunch of people to land. I get on the plane last (which means I am at the head of the tube of toothpaste...no pressure or anything), and we take off.
It takes about 10 minutes or so to get to altitude (10,000 ft above ground). Meanwhile, Gary is clipping me to his harness and tightening straps. We get to altitude and the cameraman opens the door. Gary and I scoot to the end of the bench and crab walk to the door. It was then that I realized how high we were and also that even if I wanted to back out, Gary wasn't. I was jumping. So I hold onto the harness and out we go!
Now, I look up once in a while to see Rodney who's snapping pics and filming. We go through a cloud, and all I could concentrate on was breathing. You can't hear anything because of the wind. And then Gary pulls the cord. After a quick deceleration, it suddenly gets REALLY peaceful. I mean **REALLY** peaceful. We do some turns and look around. It was wonderful.
And then we land. Right next to the X.
I honestly can say I can't describe what I was feeling once I left the plane. I didn't have time to process it, other than we were falling REALLY REALLY fast. It was probably about 120mph, which is really fast for someone who has never driven over 90. Free fall felt like it took forever, but it was only about 30 seconds or so. And canopy time was probably about 3-4 minutes.
Would I do it again? Absolutely. I want to be able to enjoy it. Am I glad I went to the bathroom a couple of times before? Oh yeah.
If you made it this far, then you might as well schedule with Skydive Greene County. You won't regret it. read more