If you obey all the rules...

"If you obey all the rules, you'll miss all the fun." Katherine Hepburn

Sunday morning I awoke to the sound of a distant rumble. At first I thought
it was a freight train, but when it went on for too long I started to think
it sounded more like someone was dragging a large garbage can down the
gravel road that runs through the trailer park. After a few more minutes I
stuck my head out of my tent to the sight of a solid wall of slate gray clouds just to the
north, the sound was definitely thunder, and it was getting louder. Deciding
that if I didn't get out of my tent real soon, I could be trapped in it for
hours, I decided to hit the showers. When I came out the winds were picking
up, the rain was just starting, and  I caught a lift back to the tent from
a blond with a fancy german sportscar. Suddenly the storm didn't seem so
bad, and the day seemed to be off to a pretty good start after all. Thinking
that Gerry would probably be asleep for a while yet, I took the truck and
headed for the hangar as the storm started to really hit. The rain was
hitting the truck like it was coming out of a fire hose, and the wind was
making it rock to and fro as I rolled through the trailer park.

I set myself up in a booth in the restaurant to surf the net and wait for them to open. After I had been there for about half an hour with the storm still going strong, Gerry walked up to the booth  and fixed me with a baleful glance as a pool of water spread out slowly from his feet. Oh. It seemed he was up when I left, and just missed getting my attention so he could get a lift with me. He finally got managed to get a ride to the hangar from Diane, but was soaked through.

It's now past noon, and they're trying to scare up enough people to do a hop n' pop load, but the landing areas are still soaked so I'm giving it a pass for now.

2:00 O'clock. We finally got up in the air around 1, doing a couple of disorganized loads with one of the organizers. His jumps have been pretty successful in past years but all the jumps we've done with him so far have turned into mystery dives. That's what you call it when you're tracking away saying to yourself "What the F*** was that?"

On one jump I was nose to nose with Mike Crow fro the entire dive. He had a GoPro camera mounted on the sude of his helmet so I slid off to that side, put my visor right up against the wide angle lens, and crossed my eyes as hard as I could. I can't figure out how the hell he could have missed what I was doing, but he did, because he when we went to debrief the dive he plugged the camera into the big screen TV, and all he had to show was 60 seconds of my crossed eyeballs filling the entire screen. He wasn't impressed, but judging by the laughter everybody else seemed to like it.

Gerry, Kelly, Joanne and I went up to do some 4-way so that we could actually have a chance to touch something, and we had a blast, cranking out points like crazy on a fast burner dive. Now that's the kind of skydiving I like. When Gerry, Joanne, Diane and I went to do a jump out of the Skyvan and we started to plan our exit, Diane piped up with "Bitch Toss me out the door, then come catch me!" When it was our turn to exit, she lay down on the floor, Gerry and I picked her up by her leg straps and shoulder yokes, started swinging her back and forth, then it was "Ready, Set, Go!" and we flung her headfirst out the door.    There was a group of girls leaving after us and as we dove out to chase Diane they were all shouting 'Me next! Me next!" Even with all the separation caused by our exit we still caught up in time to turn about 20 points.

We were on an Otter load that tucked in a little below and to the side of the Skyvan on jump run. Normally when you're formation flying you're leaving with everybody on the other plane so it was really neat to watch all the bodies pouring out of that tailgate and drop away. There wasn't a stable exit on the entire load.

I made a run to the liquor store to get some wine to go with the steak dinner we're planning at the swamp, and was reminded again why I could never move to the US. My liver just wouldn't be bale to take the abuse. Giant bottles of Grey Goose are almost half the price they are back home, and a 24 of beer costs 12 bucks. I only went in for a bottle of wine, but came out with all the booze I could carry. Beer, Wine, Bailey's, Vodka...... I just couldn't control myself.

Tuesday Morning
The flying HellFish Toga Party was last night, and people I don't remember having met keep coming up and telling me how much fun I had last night. I'll have to take their word for it, I don't remember much except arriving and starting in on the free Margarita's. But they're probably right, I woke up with a Flying HellFish tattoo on my chest. I don't remember getting it, but I'm sure that when I check my camera later there will be some evidence. Gerry fashioned a toga out of material he'd bought at Walmart. He was helped by a lady that he figured was at least 90 years old, and when he mentioned to her he was going to be turning it into a toga, she said "Oh, a skydiver! Let me think, how do you do that again?" Diane had brought a length of gauzy, see through material with a lacy fringe in virginal white, and when she hacked a bunch of it off, I gave up trying to fashion my flowered bed sheet into a toga and scooped up the part she had discarded. I think I actually looked pretty good in lace, especially with my straw cowboy hat to top it off.

The first 3 days have been typical Summerfest, bitchin' hot, humidity close to 90%, plenty of fun, pointless skydives, scantily clad women, and dirt cheap, ice cold beer. I've seen all the stupidity and nonsense so many times that it all seems normal now. A crop dusting school is operating from the airport so we get woken up every morning by the sound of a small airplane repeatedly buzzing the nearby runway and pulling up to turn right over us and miss the trees. But as soon as the sun is up the tent is too hot to stay in anyway. Every time there's any wind, Diane's tent has collapsed, usually with her in it. One morning she looked like she was a corpse in a crime scene, outlined beneath the wet nylon.

A DC3 painted in World War II military colors showed up late Sunday, took up 1 load, and landed with them 10 minutes later when one engine quit. The jumpers wanted out, but the loadmaster kept them on board, saying "We still have one engine left!" Sure, and it's just as old as the one that quit, built in the 40's. It's over at a hangar with a bunch of mechanics crawling all over it now, and will be leaving for the Oshkosh airshow as soon as it's fixed. That's fine with me, but Gerry had really been looking forward to jumping it.

The attendance seems to be off this year, but my friends are here, Larry and Joanne's World Famous Drive Thru Beer Window will be open in the parking lot as soon as they're done jumping today, and I intend to make a bee line for it as soon as I finish running the obstacle course in the Hit N' Chug this evening. All is good in my world.