So, I was well on my way to a responsible day of adulthood this morning.  Then my friend Monica posts a note about looking for some friends to jump at Skydive Danielson in CT after work.  This was one of those really nice mornings where I woke up to a bright sunrise and my first thoughts were about skydiving.  (Ok, there are cloudy days that I wake up thinking about skydiving… and rainy days… and kinda in between partly sunny days too.)  Anyway, I had a pretty good day of jumping at CPI on Saturday, and thought, that I should focus on grown up stuff today…  She posted again a little later in the morning…  My fingers took over the keyboard and obligated me to go jump.  Bad fingers.

I justified that this would give me a time limit to get those grownup things like the lawn, banking, truck stuff and what not done.  Then I’d have play time for me!  As a reward, you know… for being me, right?  Whatever, I don’t need to justify.  Besides, I haven’t jumped with Monica in forever, and I’ve been wanting to get to Skydive Danielson all season since I’ve never jumped there.

The wind was up most of the day.  Even before I entertained the idea of jumping I used that as a confirmation that I should stay home.  4 o’clock came and winds were gusty.  Notes and text messages were going back and fourth.  From 10 mph average winds to 15, then 20.  Maybe it will quiet down after sunset…  It’s an hour’s drive for me, so I wasn’t so sure I wanted to go and not jump. We hemmed, we hawed, and finally decided to at least go look at the weather first hand.

About 10 minutes after leaving my house the world got dark and windy.  When I say dark, I mean you need your headlights dark, and when I say ‘windy’, I mean I was watching tree damage happening right in front of me.  I text Monica “I’m driving through a pitch black microburst thunderstorm… still being optimistic.”  A note on Facebook from Laura about a gigantic storm hitting the DZ outa nowhere.  Still we drive.

I look at the radar.  It’s a sharply defined line of storms moving fast across southern Mass and central Connecticut.  I check weather stations at various locations.  20, 30, 35 mph winds.  But behind the storms, maybe things don’t look so bad.  Tom the pilot puts up a picture of nasty looking clouds, with a little bit of sky just beyond them.  “Found a hole” he says.  “Eye of the storm” someone else replies.

When I arrive at the DZ the hole is growing into a clearing.  We have introductions, waivers, story telling and contemplation, and clearing!  It turns into a perfectly calm after the storm evening.  We pile into Betty Boop, the trusty Cessna 182 and take off just before sunset.  We couldn’t have asked for a more picturesque ride to altitude.  There were valleys filled with bright white steam fog sharply contrasting against the lush green summer foliage.  Layers of clouds broke and reflected the orange sunset in one direction and huge rainbow in the other direction.  I’m pretty sure there was a flying unicorn too.  It was that good.

The jump was fun and silly.  I got out and enjoyed the wind in my face, then thought: “wait a minute, I have a full face helmet”  Duh, once I put my face mask down I did the count and we left the plane like a barrel of monkeys.  Monica took a piggy back ride down the hill while Laura laughed as she video’d the foolishness.  Sorted out we made three, then Tony came bombing in from above to make 4.  We broke to two’ s and turned the pieces but ran out of altitude before putting them back together.

Under canopy the world was perfect, beautiful and still… no really… still.  Like, I wasn’t moving.  There was a little left over wind.  No worries, the spot was good and it was the perfect night to hang in brakes and enjoy the view.  My father used to describe certain days as “soft”.  This was definitely one of those days.  The combination of the humidity and temperature made the air as soft and comfy as a freshly made bed.

My girlfriend asked me what my 200th jump meant.  I told her that it wasn’t that big of a deal. I just get to do some other cool stuff here and there afterwards, but it’s just another jump.  Then again, I might have been trying just a little to manage my expectations.  I think I got pretty lucky to have the near perfect sunset jump with some cool people for my 200th.  As always, experience is what you get when you were expecting something else.  Amen