Niagra Falls

I had a fantastic four day trip this week which included a 32 hour layover in Toronto. I have always wanted to drive to Niagra Falls, but have never had a long enough layover that wasn't in the middle of the winter. This time I was determined to make the trip with or without my crew. Unfortunately I had a very lame crew who were fuddy dudds and didn't have any desire to make the quick trip. I had thought about going on one of the casino trips to the falls for a cheap ride and prevent a rental car. I missed one bus by minutes and the next one wasn't for an hour, so I had time to check out the price of a rental car. Lucky for me I was able to get a great price on a rental from Avis (right across the street). I called my fellow flight attendants and Ted decided to go along for the venture. Now I need to tell you about my co-worker Ted. He is 76 years old and still working full time as a flight attendant. He was very nice and pleasant to be around, reminded me of my grandfather. On the hour drive to the Falls, he told me story after story after story. I politely listend waiting for him to get to the point of the story and sometimes it never happened. Well we finally made the trip to the falls, and it was amazing! It was a beautiful day the sun was shinning, and I barely needed a jacket. A beautiful rainbow loomed above and I really wanted to search for the pot of gold at the end. At one point there was even two rainbows above the falls. We got pretty wet standing above the falls, but I was able to get a couple great photo's.

skydiving

My friend Erin decided last year on her birthday that she wanted to go skydiving before she turned 30. So this week was her 30th birthday we drove to Eloy on Monday only to find out that it was too windy to jump. We were all really bummed, but rescheduled for Sunday. So Sunday we again made the trek to Eloy, and this time we were successful. Erin and I requested the cutest instructors and camera men and Linnette asked for the craziest ones. My instructor or guy holding my life in his hand was Adam. And I have no clue as to the name of my camera guy cause I was too nervous when he told me and couldn't quite understand him with his accent. We signed our life away and watched a video on Monday so Sunday we were able to just roam around before it was time to get strapped up and ready to go. This was a bit scary as every couple minutes, more jumpers where coming out of the sky...the anticipation growing in the pit of my stomach. OMG am I really doing this? Or is this just a crazy dream? I felt like I was having an out of body experience. Adam introduced himself and started getting me set up for the jump. He gave me some instructions and said not to worry cause he would tell me it all over again before we jumped. Then we were all geared up and ready to go jump out of a perfectly good airplane. We climbed into a trailer and then transported to the runway. Adam and I were first on the plane and thus also the last ones to jump out of the packed plane. I watched as we gained altitude and didn't really get nervous until it was time to start scooting to the edge of the plane. Erin was the first to jump, then Linnette and finally my turn. I didn't really have a chance to even breathe before we were at the edge and out the plane. Then we were falling faster and faster, I was so excited that I screamed and screamed and screamed. One of our friends said he could hear me screaming all the way on the ground. We jumped out at 13,000 ft and he could hear me screaming from the ground. I'm glad that the camera man didn't record sound on my video because all it would be is me screaming and yelling OMG! Almost every picture my mouth is wide open cause I'm screaming. Surprisingly I wasn't screaming because I was scared but out of excitement. It felt like forever before he pulled the shoot, but I think it was only a minute or so. It was so exhilarating and time seemed to go in slow motion. Once Adam pulled the parachute, it was so quiet and peaceful. Adam asked if I wanted to have some fun and so we did tricks all the way down. Landing was pretty easy and left me wanting to jump back in the plane and do it all over again. Shortly after landing, our photo's and video were ready. The whole experience was over so quickly and left me wanting more. I'd love to jump again, but I'm not ready to go solo anytime soon(if ever). Here are some of the pictures from my jump.