If I Must Turn 30...

I turned 30 on Friday. And then I went skydiving in Moab on Saturday. Eric came with, and yes, he also jumped.

I have always wanted to go skydiving, so I was incredibly excited to begin with.

The flight up was in a teensy plane. The five jumpers (two pairs of tandems and one singleton) were pretty crammed in there.

The scariest part, by far, was getting out of the plane. There was a little ledge to put our feet on. We were right beneath the wing. Once I had my feet positioned, I closed my eyes and waited for my tandem instructor to do everything else.

There was some cloud cover when we arrived at the airport, and we almost had to do a lower jump. The clouds cleared just before our flight so we could reach altitude (10,000 feet). And we got to dive through the clouds. Although, to be truthful, I was too terrified to really enjoy it.

But how terrifying could it be if I was smiling in every picture?

Eventually, blessed be, my tandem instructor opened the parachute. I loved the ride down once the parachute was open.

Immediately after the jump I was confident I'd never to do it again. Now that I'm a few days past it, I'm pretty sure I would, as long as somebody else paid for it.

(As scary as jumping out of the plane was, the drive through the canyon to get to Moab and to get home was almost as bad.)