Four point Eight way!

I generally don’t get to jump on the weekends I spend with my sons, but this weekend worked a little differently.  This week my little sister Allie (yes, your friends might call you “Lexy”, but you’ll always be little Allie to me) came to spend the week with me.  So on Sunday night after taking Austin home, Allie, Cole, and I headed out to the dropzone – it’s nice to have good sitter come to visit!

When I first arrived, I was told the winds had been bad all day, very turbulent and gusty.  I’d been hoping to get at least one jump in, as it had already been four days without a jump and I knew it would be five more until I would be able to again.  Dale’s group was there and had appearantly been working towards a goal that day. They had timed out their jumps perfectly to align the numbers.. the next jump would be Brian’s 1200th, Margrets 1200th, and Mike R’s 1800th skydive!  Not that I knew it then!

Once they’d gotten packed back up for another load, Dale asked if I would be joining them for the next load – nonchalantly as ever.  We went through the dirt dive and while we were getting geared up, Ian was nice enough to let me know the jump I was getting myself into.  Talk about putting the pressure on!  But the jump went great, we had a four point eight way – a fitting jump for those numbers!

My apologies for the bad video etiquitte, once again I forgot to turn off the camera once I was under canopy.   Especially since that was one of my worst off target landings all season!  I’m still wondering what kind of pattern Pete was in there, but rather than turn into my crosswind at 600 feet right in front of him, I let him go by then turned 135 degrees onto final at 300 feet, which put me promptly out in the bean field! Better a long walk than a quick fall!