Monday
Monday continues my Snow Mountain Ranch adventure! We had to be up and at the SUMMER TUBING HILL by 9am for the opening ceremony. This summer tubing hill is the coolest thing. It's the first tubing hill of its kind in Colorado and only the 3rd in the United States. It's "totally tubular" and "all the winter fun in the summer sun!" Basically, its this special material that is misted over so you can slide down it in a tube.
Before the ceremony I played polly pockets with the little girls from yesterday. Not in my intern job description exactly, but it was so much fun hanging out with the kids. Afterward I was able to go the the tubing hill like 8 times with Hank and Reagan, two of most precious kids.
We went to lunch and then to the archery range and the reservoir to take pictures of the kids doing other activities. A lot of the mom bloggers wanted to talk to me about my major and thoughts about social media and writing, which was really neat.
Overall, definitely one of my favorite work days and visits to Snow Mountain Ranch.
That night was our Volleyball awards and campfire, which was super fun! Only a small handful of all the teams came, but I think it made it that much more fun.The Sandmonsters all won awards for the best team spirit, Ryan won best scorekeeper, Erica, Jenna, and I got top 5 female players award and Matt got top 5 male players.
It's so sad that our Sandmonster journey ends here. We played pick up volleyball games after the campfire and joked about our kids coming out and playing 20 years from now. My monday nights were made complete because of this team and I'm so thankful for the opportunity to play with them and become good friends with them. We played until way past dark, then turned the golf cart lights on to see better. Finally we called it a night when we were too tired and giddy to play anymore. Best last Monday.
Tuesday
Work was normal on Tuesday. Just answering emails, writing a little bit, playing around with Twitter.
Tuesday night the dining hall was over run by this Rocky Mountain High youth group conference (3,000+ extra people at camp) so we decided to just go to the Rock for dinner and hung out there for several hours. We went into town after that and walked around and got free taffy from the best taffy places. It was a nice chill day (and I guess I didn't take any pictures ha)
Wednesday
Wednesday all kinds of weird things happened. Neither Andrew nor Laura were in the office so Brady and I spent a good deal of time talking about movies and watching movie trailers. I mean uh....working hard. Yeah.
As we were leaving for lunch I asked my friend who works upstairs a question but she didn't answer me. She had given blood that morning and I was going later that afternoon and wanted to know how it went. I asked again and she didn't answer and then we all realized she was about to pass out from giving blood. We had to pull her out of her chair to the floor and call 222, our emergency responder number here. Finally some responders came and we were able to go to lunch, but it was still scary because I've never seen someone pass out like that before.
I went after lunch to give blood, a little worried now because it was my first time. Everything went smoothly until they were trying to find a vein in my left arm. They were worried it was too small but went for it anyways, and it worked at first. The blood was flowing too slowing though, so they had to keep readjusting the needle and moving the tubes which was a little uncomfortable. Finally after like 10 minutes they said they couldn't get enough for a full unit, but they would still send it for research purposes to a lab.After that I hung out in the blood donating auditorium for awhile because I didn't want to go back to fast and feint or something.
That night was my friend Niek's birthday so we went out to Mama Rosa's, this nice Italian restaurant, with 13 other people. It was so much fun! The waiter was super cool, too. He heard we wanted to go out for ice cream in town afterwards and then said, "You guys have already spent so much money here already, you can all have desert on the house!" IT WAS FABULOUS.
We drove back and my friend Jenna's car was making funny sounds so we got out at the YMCA and realized her back left tire was completely blown out. We were so lucky we all made it back safe and her car used front wheel drive.Chandler and Austin luckily knew how to change tires and helped put her spare on. We went to the Rustic afterward and played BS and Capitolism until 11pm. Niek wanted to go to the Rock after that but the taxi was taking forever so we decided to just call it a night.
Thursday
Thursday I took off work because I had an extra day of work already from Sunday. I was supposed to hike Bluebird Lake with Jenna and Abby, but Jenna wanted to figure her car things out and we were worried it was going to rain (it had rained all day yesterday)
We went to breakfast instead and I showered and cleaned my room (it needed it lol) After that we went to lunch and then to the Craft shop. We all started silk paintings, which I'd never done before but loved! I picked a Mountain Wildflower pattern to hang in my apartment at school. We drew on our resists (a glue substance that separates your silk dye) then had to wait for it to dry. We went back to Hague and hung out for an hour, and then went back to start putting color on until the craft shop closed at 5:45.
Afterward was dinner, and then we drove up Trail Ridge to watch the sunset. It was so beautiful.
Friday
Friday work was one of those crazy days where Andrew and Laura are popping in and out of the office and cracking jokes all day, which was great. I worked on this Tubing Hill opening article and another article about a golf tournament the YMCA just did.
After work I went to the craft shop to work on my silk painting some more, and then I went to dinner with Jenna, Erica and a few friends. We decided to just chill out and watch a movie in Hague (we watched step up: revolution and I have no shame) and then went out to Hayley's for icecream. Why such a chill Friday night, you may ask? We had to get up early for our big exciting adventure the next day!!! Get ready!!!
Saturday
My alarm goes off at 5:45am. I turn it off and sleep another 10 minutes until my snooze goes off. That 10 minutes was all I needed - I was up. I was ready. Today was my big day and nothing was going to ruin that.
Today, I would be throwing myself out of a small plane from 17,500 feet and free fall at 130 mph for a whole 60 seconds. I was going SKY DIVING!!!
Jenna and I left at 6:30 to take her car to the shop to Longmont for a new tire before we sky dived. We picked up coffee on the way and made great time, getting to Mile High by 7:30. She dropped me off, then dropped her car off, then we waited for our other group to come and pick Jenna up and join me at the skydiving center.
Because we had been through all of this before, our paperwork was done and we were ready to go. It was great that we went so early because less people were there and it was a beautiful clear sky. They called our names and we rode the bumpy trailer over to the plane hangar.
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| BEFORE |
Our plane rolled down the runway and stopped for us, and there was no turning back now. We slid onto the two parallel benches in the small plane, the 5 of us in front of our tandem instructor so they could attach themselves to our suits and our videographers spread out around us. We took off and were in the air in no time.
I asked Shawn if the door we came in was the same one we jumped out of (if you can call it a door. There wasn't really a door, just a see through barrier that pulled down to block the entrance) and he was like, "Nah we've found people get so freaked out that the entire floor just drops out beneath us. That way you're surprised and can't turn back."
He kept the jokes going the whole way up with Jenna's instructor. I told him I was a little worried about landing and he was like, "Crap, I forgot to watch the video on that." He turned to the other instructor. "Do you know which thing I'm supposed to pull for the parachute?" And the other guy was like "I don't know man, but did you have those awesome special brownies in the fridge this morning? They were so good, I feel so great right now!" Ha ha. I was thankful they did that though because it kept the mood light.
After 10 minutes flying we were finally high enough that we had to get ready. Shawn handed me goggles and clipped his suit to mine the rest of the way. The videographers slid the clear door up and we could feel the wind. This is the moment I thought I would be nervous, but all I felt was soooo much excitement and adrenaline.
My friend Vanessa was up first because of the order we were in. Her videographer stepped outside the plane, hanging backwards for a few moments. I watched Vanessa moved towards the door and then WHOOOOOSH she was just GONE. That was the freakiest part, watching her fly out and spin so fast.
I barely had time to think about that because I was next. Shawn pushed us towards the door and I took a breath and then suddenly I was FALLING SO FAST. He told me when we jumped you were supposed to jump like a backwards banana, feet and head back and your body arched out and I can't even remember if I did that. All I remember is nothing between me and the sky or me and the ground and there was this beautiful sensation of just letting go and feeling free. It was amazing.
My videographer was near me and reached out for my hands (he instructed me on this beforehand) so we could spin around in the air. It was the biggest adrenaline rush I've ever had. I loved it and never wanted it to end. We had the best view of the mountains and cities and open fields. It was beautiful. The freefall minute flew by way too fast and before I knew it Shawn pulled the parachute and we were just floating down. He would turn the parachute into the wind to spin us really fast, then turn the other way and spin us that way, and that was really fun.
He finally (for real) instructed me on landing. We had to lift up our knees to our chest and slide in our butts so we wouldn't hurt our legs. We practiced once, and then enjoyed the rest of the ride down to the hangar. Landing looks so scary when you watch other people do it, but when you're in the air it feels like you aren't going as fast and you have time to process it all. I picked my legs up just fine and we slid in on a sandy area and then I was up whooping and hollering because it was SO FUN.I was the first to land and watched my 4 other friends come down and we just high fived and screamed at each other because WE JUST SKY DIVED AND IT WAS AWESOME. We took pictures and then finally changed out of our suits and received certificates for jumping.
The rest of the day I had to keep reminding myself that I just jumped out of a plane and free fell. We went out for breakfast afterwards and people would ask how our day was and we would tell them we just skydived and they were like, "What? Really!? That's so cool!" What a day.
Jenna and I waited at the autoshop for her car for another hour and a half and then drove back to Estes Park. We were exhausted by that time and I slept for an hour. I think something I had eaten at breakfast wasn't settling well so I didn't feel great the rest of the evening.
After dinner and playing cards, though, my friend Niek wanted to go camping so we dropped by Safeway for food and firewood and then drove out to Allenspark. Our normal spot was taken so we found a new place just inside the woods for a fire and tents and a hammock. I wish I had been feeling better, but it was a still a great night.
Sunday
Sunday we packed up early since one of the guys had to work at 8am. We went back to Hague and I stayed in bed until 2 I'm not even kidding. The nauseousness kept coming and going so I just slept until 2 then I finally got up and showered and went to the craft shop with Erica to finish my silk painting. Abby came in to work on hers too. I finally finished it! I messed up a few spots but was overall super excited about it!
Afterward I went back to bed because I didn't feel like I could eat anything. I met up with Abby again later with Vanessa, Cora, and Jeniffer and we went star gazing at the Sara Smith outdoor chapel. It was so nice out there, and we saw several shooting stars!
Overall it was a great ending to the fantastic week. I can't wait to see my skydiving video! I sent it home though since I'll be home in a week, so I just have to wait a little longer!
ONE WEEK LEFT STARTING NOW.
