DAY seventeen

Bill got up early to see Gil off at around 5:30am. He had to get a early start before the heat of the day, because it’s no joke in this excessive heat on the motorcycle. We then headed off to the Buckeye Municipal airport for some extreme fun……SKYDIVING!!! Whatever possessed me to suggest this to Bill back in April I’ll never know?!!! If I hadn’t told so many people that we were doing it I might’ve backed out! Having said that you only turn 50 once so go big or go home! We filled out all the waivers saying we won’t sue anyone if we get hideously injured or die…one of the girls said “just sign it, you’ll be fine!!” as my heart rate went up a little higher 🙂 It took a while for all of the people in our time slot to get signed in which made the waiting slightly torturous! However, this gave us plenty of opportunity to see the two guys fastidiously folding up and re-packing the parachutes so that was good. One of the guys was a real surfer dude, kind of like the guys in the movie Point Break, but when an Abba song came on and he started singing along that calmed me right down!! Ha ha!! It finally came time to get harnessed up…that’s when it started to get real….they make sure that it’s REALLY tight so when you’re walking it actually feels like your wearing a diaper…good times! They gave us instructions to keep our arms crossed over our chests and to lean back when we jumped out of the plane. Off we went to the plane, I was the last one in, which meant I was sitting by the opening of the plane and would be the first one out…aieee! We made a very steep ascent and then my tandem guy Mike, flung open the door and kept leaning out to check where we were, this just about sent me over the edge as each time he did it I had to lean with him whether I wanted to or not!! You can see me holding onto Bill as I was feeling a bit wobbly and needed my security Billy! We got to 10,000ft and then it was go time and as you can tell from the video my face just about says it all! Jumping out and free falling for about 45 seconds was completely and utterly terrifying, exhilarating, dry mouth inducing, face wobbling mania! The whoompf when the parachute came out and yanked us up took longer than I thought and then the floating bit was completely awesome. To get to the landing spot he had to do some spinning turns which was actually a bit painful in the leg part of the harness and quite dizzy making! The landing was very smooth, I held my legs up and waited for him to touch down and then put my feet down and boy was I happy to be on the ground! What a once in a life time, bucket list check off kind of thing to do. As we drove away I kept saying to Bill “I can’t believe we just did that!”. We drove to Sedona which was just over 3 hours away and the landscape changed again, once we were out of the Phoenix area the cacti disappeared and we were back to the desert and sage brush and then suddenly in the land of red rock. Sedona is unbelievably beautiful and the view driving down main street is incredible. We’re staying in an Air BnB for the next few days, 5 minutes from downtown in lovely air conditioned bliss! We saw 1 more Rivian today which brings the total to 9. Til tomorrow!

Bill Here.. What a blast Last night and Today was. One, we weren’t driving for 8 – 10 hours. The last two days were a lot of driving and I was ready for a break. It was great to see my brother from San Diego here, the stars aligned and last night we were able to make it happen. I don’t think there was a moment where we weren’t talking and catching up on his adventures and mine. After saying goodbye this morning Vicky and I headed over to the airport for our sky diving adventure. Lot’s of initial this and sign that saying you or your family won’t sue them if you die. While we were filling out our paperwork we watched them packing the chutes. I wasn’t nervous, I think Vick was nervous enough for both of us and I didn’t want to add to that. Lot’s of waiting around in the hot hanger was probably the worse part of it. Once we were in the plane it was excitement turned up to eleven. You can watch the video, It shows Vick’s jump first and then mine. The jumping out of the plane, the parachute deploying and gliding down was cake! The turns were the most exciting and surprising to me, I didn’t expect the g-force in the turns! You really bank in and drop fast! Gonna be hard to top this one. 🙂

Stats for the nerds

Buckeye, AZ to Sedona, AZ
167.8 mi
3 hr 21 min
1.99 mi/kWh
Total Energy 84 kWh

Total for the trip so far:
3,659.2 mi
67 hr 24 min
2.04 mi/kWh
Total Energy 1,799.5 kWh