What a thrill!

What a thrill! Woohoo! We had so much fun today at the Paraclete SkyVenture. It really was quite a thrill! We had planned to do this in September for my best friend Ashley's birthday. They had to reschedule us because they were doing work on the tunnel. I really had no idea of what to expect. Tommy was uncertain he was going to do it because he has a huge fear of heights.

Ashley and I upon arrival :)

We were early so we got to go up and watch a group of guys from France; they are the "champions" with their tricks and movements. Some of their stuff was crazy to see but they made it look so easy!

Here's a shot of the main part of the wind tunnel; it goes up 60 feet from this point

While we were watching Tommy was a bit nervous not knowing if he was going to be able to do it. You actually go into the tunnel right through the door (towards the right side of the picture). You stand there and basically fall right into the air, it's not like you're dropping 60 feet and then stopping. Ashley and I finally pressured (ha ha) him into doing it. We then had to go for our instructional class so we'd know the hand signals and what to do with our bodies :)

Demonstrating proper technique

Then we were equipped and ready to go!

With the flight time we had today it was equivalent to skydiving from 13,000 feet and we did it twice. I actually didn't do bad. The instructor said we all did really well for our first time. He had to spin Tommy and Ashley to get them in the "spinning mode" but for some reason I just had this au natural spin. When we were finished, Tommy said, I want to do it again---he loved it! Actually, we all did. We have a video of it too, we weren't allowed to bring the cameras into the holding chamber for obvious reasons, and if we can get it uploaded, I'll post it for you to see.