18K No Way, Spaced out
Our appointment to skydive was at 10 am. We got there a little early, neither Charlie or I are fans of being late. We were surprised there was a good collection of people jumping with us. We thought a Monday morning would be pretty empty.
The check in process was orchestrated by a woman that looked to be a 2 pack a day smoker. Her youthful energy didn’t seem to fit the leathery, extremely wrinkled face that came with it.
She presented us with a TWELVE PAGE waiver. No less than four times did we have to sign, initial and date that we basically had no rights whatsoever. It made the Tough Mudder death waiver look tame. Hell I may have agreed to donate my liver in all that legalese. It was just over the top. Well regardless, all of us worked diligently on signing our lives away.
After paying for the jump we all moved out to the main hangar. Charlie and I were talking to a couple people there. The one group had a guy that jumped three times before as well as his 55 year old father in law whom never jumped before. They found our Tough Mudder stories entertaining.
We also discovered one of the guys that worked at the facility did the Tough Mudder on Sunday afternoon. It sounded like he got a watered down version of the course as I expected. He said the Arctic Enema was just water when he did it and the shock delivered at the end wasn’t too bad. Obviously the batteries start to weaken after delivering a 100,000 shocks or so.
So we then get to “orientation” . Charlie and I thought this was going to be a long drawn out thing where you sit in a classroom and they give you a skydiving 101 course. Nope it was nothing like that. Instead your instructor/guy you will be strapped to gives you no more than a 5 minute outline of how the jump goes. In a nutshell he said that even if we forget everything he tells us he will be making corrections and reminding us as the jump is in progress. Ok, I think.
My instructors name was Nick. He was significantly smaller than me, I wondered if that would present any possible problems when jumping.
I also got to meet Burtis, a tall South African guy who was going to be my personal film crew. Burtis seemed like a cool guy. He shot some brief pre-jump interview footage.
So we were the second set of jumpers. Charlie and I got to watch the first set go ahead of us and slowly reappear above us several minutes later all with various looks on their face ranging from thrilling to fatigued.
Charlie and I were freaking out when we saw how fast some of the solo photographers descended towards the ground. They looked on the verge of crashing before managing to quickly flatten out less than 50 feet above the ground.
So now it was our turn to climb above the plane. I was towards the back of the plane which equated to being the first person out, lucky me. My seat also happened to be right in front of the opening we jumped out of so I had a pretty freaky vantage point the entire way up to 18,000 feet. Despite this, I think I did a pretty good job of remaining calm, not thinking about the idea I was going to be hurdling out of a plane in a few minutes.
In case you were wondering, 18,000 feet is really, really high. We were something like 10,000 feet ABOVE the clouds. You saw nothing but white out the window, the same vantage point you have when sitting comfortably in a 747.
If there wasn’t enough to be freaked out about, the plane itself almost felt like it was prop hanging. The angle at the back as we ascended felt really severe. It didn’t do much to make me feel warm and fuzzy about what was to come.
So the engines throttle back and the jump light turns from red to green. Burtis was the first out so he can film my exit. He gets out and hangs on the back of the door.
I am pushed forward and am forced to kneel in a position that my right knee was not willing to go into. Luckily I had other things on my mind that blocked the pain, like looking down.
So I lean forward as Nick instructs me without hesitation, I knew an Arctic Enema approach was the only way to go when it comes to the jump moment. In a split second I am out in the open falling rapidly away from the plane.
When you first leave the plane you are instructed to keep your hands grasped on your harness. Then when Nick tapped me that meant I could bring them out to more of a spread eagle position. When we first exited the plane we were rotating a bit which was disorienting, that settled down pretty quickly.
Now what set in was a sensation I never experienced before. The air at 18,000 feet is cold and thin. It felt like I was having a hard time breathing. We were instructed to try to smile as we dove, they said if you don’t the wind pressure will make you look like a freak on the video. Well the wind pressure might have made me look like a freak but it also freaked me out a bit.
The force of a 120 mph wind on your body is something I have never experienced before. Maintaining a smile was not easy. Having my mouth open felt like you had a leaf blower jammed down your throat. It was really an uncomfortable sensation. In some of the shots from the jump I look like Fireman Bill from In Living Color as the wind blew my lips wide open.
It was funny when I see the pictures and video of the dive, I look like I am being melted by the wind while Nick is just calmly hanging out above with his hair hardly getting messed up. I guess that is because I was basically a big windshield for him. Our size difference almost make it look like he was riding a pterodacytl.
So finally the parachute was deployed around 5000 feet, a moment I was looking forward to. The free fall portion of the jump was honestly pretty freaky. The pull when the chute was deployed was strong but not as bad as the G’s you get on some high thrill amusement rides.
So now I had a birds eye view of the ground way below me with nothing between us. That view, while scary, was something I could deal with. Nick gave me the opportunity to pull the steering lines on the parachute which sent us into a corkscrew pattern.
I felt the stress on my harness increase greatly as we spun around, it made me feel a little out of control. The spin had the unwanted side effect of starting up a nauseous feeling that didn’t leave me until an hour or two after the jump.
As we approached the ground my job was to keep my legs up until Nick said so. When I dropped them on command he was hoping we would stay upright but instead I wound up on my ass. The ground felt good to sit on.
Charlie touched down shortly after me with big smiles on his face where as I had a look of a guy that just slammed a six pack. From watching back Charlie’s video and seeing his pictures he obviously had less problems than I did up there.
Charlie and I both opted for the less expensive of the two video packages which included all the footage shot by your videographer. However even though we didn’t pay for it, our instructor was shooting footage the entire time with their wrist based camera as well.
After you land they try to pitch the additional footage to you since it is basically jump to ground coverage of your experience. I was fine with the 3rd person footage, it did a fine job of capturing my struggles, I didn’t need more of it.
When I talked to the 55 year old after his jump, which was from a little lower 15,000 feet, he said he had an experience similar to mine, he was very anxious to get out of the free fall portion of the jump. He was not having fun.
After getting our dvd’s that included the finished videos and a number of still pics we were on our way. Charlie and I fist bumped to celebrate knocking off a big checklist item. For me, skydiving wasn’t about picking up a new hobby or scoring a huge adrenalin rush. It was about facing a potentially deadly and fearful situation and stepping forward anyway. It’s symbolism is what I will carry with me moving forward.
Would I do it again? Yes. Do I need to? No, not at all.
So after eating lunch and reminiscing about our experiences with the skydive, we headed over to Kennedy Space Center. Our plan was to start Monday afternoon and finish up Tuesday since the pass is good for two days, or it used to be when we went 5 or 6 years ago.
So we park and walk up to the ticket counter. I tell the lady I wanted a ticket but just wanted to verify I could still use the ticket Tuesday as well. She says nope. She confirmed they used to do that but it changed a couple years back. If I bought a ticket now it would only be good for that day.
Well it was already one o’clock and KSC closes at 5, it would be ridiculous to spend 50 today and another 50 tomorrow so after conferring with Charlie we agreed to just show up first thing when it opened at 9 AM on Tuesday. I was annoyed walking back to the SSR thinking about the policy change.
I then got more annoyed when I realized I just spent 10 dollars to park! As we headed out I pulled off to the side of the road and walked over to the parking lot attendant that I had just driven past 10 minutes earlier. I explained to her that we didn’t know they no longer honored the pass for two days and we were going to have to come back tomorrow. I asked if it would be possible if I could get my parking fee back.
She said she couldn’t do that but she did say all I had to do was flash my receipt at them the next morning and they would let me in. She said my truck would be easy to remember. 🙂 Cool.
On the way back we swung into the Astronaut Hall of Fame, curious how much it cost. When I saw $27 per person I winced but then as I looked closer I saw if you bought the $50 KSC pass it included free access to the hall of fame.
I asked the woman at the counter if I bought the KSC pass now, could I go to the Hall of Fame today and then KSC on Tuesday? Yep, no problem. So that was what we did.
We spent a good hour or so going through the various exhibits. It was interesting stuff. The most interesting was the interactive learning area where Charlie and I played some of the games before heading out.
Monday night we had another dinner at the attached restaurant. This time Charlie dialed up the fun ordering first a Long Island Iced Tea followed by a drink named Red Death. I stuck to the more predictable Miller Lite.
So we headed back to KSC Tuesday morning early, a little too early. We actually had time to kill. At first I proposed we kill the time by heading past the entrance of KSC and seeing what was further down the road. Well we quickly found out what was there was a guard shack that required some sort of security badge to enter the heart of the complex. I did a less than graceful U-turn across the grassy median and headed the other way.
We wound up just parking in an old lot a few miles up the road where I drank my DD coffee and took a few scenic SSR pictures.
We got to the front gate almost exactly at 9 AM and started exploring. The park was decorated for the holidays so that added a cool twist to things.
The first thing we noticed was the place was pretty empty. Evidently early December is a great time to visit the Space Center.
We walked into the rocket garden first. It’s an impressive array of rockets all mounted in a relatively small area. We got to walk on the actual walkway that Apollo astronauts utilized to cross the support tower to their Saturn rocket. That was kind of cool.
Charlie and I had a loose plan of what order we needed to do things. We wanted to catch the first tour bus at 10 am to get to the Saturn building. I remembered this building from my prior visit, it has a lot of cool presentations/simulations as well as an actual massive Saturn V rocket hanging in the main corridor of the building, it is simply AWESOME. To imagine human beings can build something this massive and powerful is mind blowing.
I remembered from my last visit there was another building we went to (LC 39) that included the area where space station modules were built as well as an up close view of some of the launch pads.
I asked one of the workers how do we get there. She said the building is basically not used anymore since the space station is complete. She said they only open the building on the weekends and all you can do is just see the launch pads from it, bummer.
After eating lunch Charlie and I hopped back on the bus and rode back to the main facility. We got dumped off right by the Space Shuttle simulator ride, something we both were looking forward to. When I was last at KSC they were still constructing the ride.
The ride was cool but fell a bit short of my expectations. The AV experience leading up to the ride was actually more impressive than the 5 or 6 minutes you spent strapped in. Basically you get in, you get tipped to a position where you are flat on your back, shook around a bit and then the cargo bay doors open and you see Earth above you, ride over. Charlie and I both agreed it could have been a little better.
As we walked around I saw they had a building that was housing Santa Claus for the kids. Well evidently business was slow for Santa. He was standing by the door waving at me. I walked inside and saw Santa had no business. The whole set was there, his chair, decorations and “elves” taking pictures but there wasn’t a child to be seen anywhere. It was dead as a doornail.
I talked to one of the female elves about how slow it was. She also gave me some insight about the future construction plans at the space center which include knocking down the big gift shop, relocating it and replacing it with a “misting station” whatever that is. I told her I would try to send kids her way. They looked so bored.
So the majority of the rest of our stay at KSC was spent watching two Imax movies, one about the space station and another about the Hubble telescope. I found both of the films very entertaining. The huge 3D Imax screens really added to the experience. The images of space were breath taking and inspiring. Both Charlie and I enjoyed the films a bunch.
By the time we got out of the last film it was around 4. We did one thorough run through the massive gift shop where I picked up a few items and then were on our way. It was a fun day that reopened my eyes to just how awesome space is and how minute we all are in the scope of the universe. We are specks on specks of specks.
For the long drive home we went the conventional highway route since it would be too dark to see anything anyway. We managed to cover the 277 miles in less than four and a half hours which included a DD Coffee/bathroom stop along the way. We pulled into the driveway shortly before 9PM.
So despite the late hour, my need to attend work the next day and Charlie’s 8AM flight we decided to fire up Call of Duty one last time, playing until quarter till midnight. It was a fun way to close out what was a very memorable trip.
This morning I drug myself out of bed and delivered Charlie to the airport before 7. I encouraged him to visit again soon, hopefully he takes me up on it. Charlie may literally be the nicest person I know.
I now get dumped right into the midst of a super busy 3 days…..