As I'm leaving Milwaukee, my head is filled with thoughts - What is Michele really like? Will I like California? Am I nuts for flying to a state to stay with someone I've never met? I'm a little nervous but excited! After all, Michele and I have talked (albeit twice)...we've PM'd each other...I've seen her posts...and she's a skydiver so all will be well.
I will be changing planes in St. Louis...well...maybe....if we ever get on the ground. The area has a storm and the plane is circling for an hour. I knew that I had time in between planes so I wasn't worried that I'd miss my connection. We're finally on the ground, and as I wait to change planes in St. Louis, I decide on a whim to check voice mail, and to my surprise and delight, I have one from Gawain. He was being a sweetheart and wishing me a safe journey and an early welcome to California. Now, it's time to board the last flight to LA. I've got a window seat and have my head glued to the window so that I can look outside. Unfortunately, the area is cloud covered so I can't see much. There's a kid sitting in the seat next to me that keeps looking over at my copy of Parachutist. You could see the question in his eyes - a girl? reading Parachutist? a girl skydiver? LOL We hit some bumpy weather and do a quick little zero G. I enjoy it and the kid grabs the arm rests and looks petrified. I smile and calm him - "It's ok. It's only a zero G. Relax...have fun...enjoy." And, then I'm back to the window as I've finished Parachutist. Finally, I see city lights and get to enjoy the beauty of city lights amidst nothing but blackness. I know that I'll be going over the mountains and am bummed that I will not be able to see them since it is night.
All of the sudden, city lights are below me, and I wonder "What city is this?" 10 minutes later, the pilot comes on and announces "We'll be landing in LA in 15 minutes." Wow! That's LA. How huge! You can imagine how wide eyed I am. I knew LA was big, but this big? What happens if I can't find Michele or she can't find me? How large is this airport? And, then I relax. I've told Michele what I'm wearing (purple snap on shirt) and she'll be there.
After disembarking, I call Gawain so that he knows I've made it to LA safely and thank him for the message. He forgot he'd left me a voice mail. We talk for a few, and he welcomes me to CA officially. Now, I'm waiting for my luggage and Michele. As I'm trying to keep an eye on my luggage and look for Michele, I see this woman with really long hair walk up to an officer. I'm wondering if that is Michele. I know she's got long hair. I turn around to watch for my luggage and feel myself being watched. Sure enough, this lady is looking at me with a quizzical look on her face. "Cora?" she mouths. "Michele?" I mouth. After we receive confirmation, we scream and hug each other as though we are long lost friends...and we are friends. We yap and talk and yap and talk and my luggage shows up. We go outside and I realize how large the airport is. Michele and I go to her car, and she asks if I'm hungry. We decide to go to a Big Boy restaurant - the original where some movie segments have been filmed. We have a good dinner, a great talk, and a waiter that never woke up. When we get to her house, I get introduced to 2 of her 3 cats. The 3rd wasn't too sure about strangers. We talk and talk and talk, and then Michele realizes that it's 1:30am her time but 3:30am my time so we go to bed.
Thursday Michele has a class that she has to attend in the afternoon and drops me off in Old Pasadena. She's so worried that I'll be ok, and as I reassure her, she drives off. I wander the streets and see many delights - Crate & Barrel, Starbucks, Barnes & Noble.... - and some really interesting people. At 4:30pm, Michele drives up and picks me up at Crate & Barrel and we go home so that she can change as we're going to Universal City Walk for dinner.
We walk around Universal City Walk and look at various stores and decide on Wolfgang Pucks for dinner. Nummy! Sitting outside, drinking coffee drinks with whip cream and cherries (did I tell you that Michele got my cherry? ), and have the most wonderful garlicky pasta ever. When we're done with dinner, we start the walk back and decide to get a pearl from The Pearl Factory. Michele goes first and picks her oyster out and ends up with a beautiful goldish greenish pearl. She then picks out my oyster, and I end up with a beautiful white pearl. She's a good sales person and manages to get 5 other pearls sold for them. Everyone's grinning and having fun, yelling Aaaalooooha! and having the bell rung. Michele decides on a beautiful gold ring as the setting for her pearl, and I decide on a cute little gold dolphin. Well, it's late and time for bed.
We awaken to a beautiful Friday morning, and we're glad as we are going to spend the day playing on the ocean. Michele and I get ready and take off for the harbor. After having gone to the wrong harbor and a few mis-turns due to lack of directions from the company that we're going to, we end up at Rainbow Harbor with Gawain talking us through the directions to the parking area. We park, hugs are exchanged, and walk over to the whale watching tour boat. As we purchase our tickets, Michele and I are teasing Gawain mercilessly and enjoying the blushes we were able to coax out of him. We board the boat and go out onto the ocean. Michele is looking at the rough seas and is worried that I'll be ok as this was my pre-second trip onto the ocean. After she sees that I've found my sea legs, she relaxes and points things out to me. I'm totally fascinated by the scenery and like a little kid can not get enough. We eventually get to see a mama whale and her baby. I'm snapping pictures as quick as possible, but am so fascinated by the whales, that it will be interesting to see what, if anything, is seen when the pictures are developed. After following the mama and her baby for awhile, we turn to go back. All of the sudden, 3 dolphins breach and start playing. The captain is great and turns the boat around so that we can watch the dolphins. I can't stop grinning....look at how beautiful and playful they are. I want to jump into the ocean and swim with them.
As we return to the harbor, I'm happy and content. This is what life is about - beauty and good friends - sharing life's little treasures and enjoying. But, the evening is not over yet. We walk along the boardwalk and drag poor Gawain through many stores. He, however, seemed fascinated with a store that had some scents called "Butt Naked." Michele and I chose to pass on smelling Butt Naked but Gawain had to try it. We end up meeting up with VectorBoy for dinner and have a wonderful seafood dinner. I've chosen the grilled salmon, and Gawain and I split a wonderful keylime pie. It's late so we say our byes and multiple hugs go around (God, I love the fact that skydivers are a huggable bunch!) and head for home. We get all settled in to bed, I'm partially asleep, Michele is just about out and we hear "bang...bang...bang, bang, bang.." 7 times. I'm like "What the? No way!" And then Michele is on the phone with the police "I just heard a noise and it might be gunfire, but I'm not sure." Now, she's worried - here she is trying to convince me to move to California, and there might have been gunfire just outside her place. 3 minutes later Burbank police are outside her place - 7 squads worth and 1 helicopter. I'm liking the response time the police have. We're still not sure if it was a bee-bee gun, or a pellet gun or even a stapler gun, but oh, well. We're needing sleep as we have to get up to go to Elsinore the next morning.
Saturday morning comes way to early! But, thankfully, Michele is as much a coffeeholic as myself and makes extra strong coffee with a planned side trip to get more film for me and Starbucks for our drive to Elsinore. Although the drive to Elsinore was 1 1/2 hours, it seemed so much less as Michele and I were talking. She's a wonderful tour guide and enjoyed watching my reaction to the scenery that she drives through anytime she goes to the DZ. The foothills are so green and rolling and beautiful! I can't believe how gorgeous it is! As we're driving, this crazy nut (Gawain) goes flying by us with a little wave. We're taking our time and know he'll be there long before we get there. As we arrive at Elsinore, Michele is pointing out the office so I can go fill out the waivers. Before she wanders to get her gear rented, we see "Dimples" (IslandCool) and hugs and introductions go round and off Michele wanders to get her gear rented. IslandCool and I fill out waivers, get our jump tickets, BS with Gawain for a few, grab some stuff from Michele's car and walk with Gawain down to the packing area to put our gear down.
Michele comes around and introduces me to Shark whom I promptly give a hug to. She then proceeds to introduce me to Grasshopper and many, many others. A cute redhead comes up and Michele hugs him. It's Viking, and I now understand why Sunshine says he's got the best hugs. As he gives me a hug, he picks me up. LOL I'm a foot shorter than him so it's much easier for him to hug me by holding me. Michele and I agreed...he's our little brother. He's a snuggler, an old-fashioned gentleman, and a sweetheart, and I enjoy his company completely.
Hugs go around with the many others that I'm introduced to, and then we walk out to the student landing area and check it out. My nerves relax as I realize I have a HUGE area to land in. Michele and I decide to do a girl's tourist jump to begin the day out and get my comfort level with the DZ up to par. We go up in the plane, and she's trying to calm me down as I can't see the "X." We're the last out since we're pulling high and have some time in the door to so that I can find the X. I see it, nod to Michele, and she climbs out. I'm holding on to her chest strap, she gives the count, and we're out. But...ummm...this doesn't look right. I'm seeing the horizon not the ground. Ok...I can't arch any more, what in the world? Nah! It can't be..., but it is. Michele's fall rate and mine are so different that I'm doing a head down on her shoulders to try and keep up. So, we release each other and never get back together as she drops like a rock. I'm 1000 ft. above her, glance at my alti and see that I'm at 5,500 so she's at 4,500 (our planed deployment altitude). If I hadn't seen it, I would not have known she threw her pud out she moved so quickly and then "froze" in place. Here she is, falling completely steady and stable, and not "helping" the canopy out at all and then viola! Canopy and time for me to deploy. We dance in the air and land. Laughing and giggling, we head back to the packing area, and I get ready to jump with Viking as he's got a time constraint.
Looking at Viking and seeing the size difference, I'm cracking up inside thinking that it will be interesting to see how this jump goes, but it's all good - even if we just hang on, it works. We decide we're going to launch with me outside the plane, get stable, do 360's and keep docking in between. Well, we do our first 360 and never get back together so we work on fall rate. Man! For a tall guy, he can float with the best of 'em and when he arches (or let me say bends his body in half), he sinks like a rock. LOL
Then Gawain and I do a wonderful 7 point 2 way - circle, sidebody on me, sidebody on Gawain, circle, sidebody on me, sidebody on Gawain, circle - and then we're at 5,000 ft. Now, we could have turned 1 maybe 2 more points, but I want to hang out for a few and just enjoy the scenery and then it's time to turn and track. I deploy and "What the F---?!?! Where in the world am I?" Ouch! A hard deployment but I'm ok. I remember what state I'm in and go on with playing and landing.
I decide that my last jump will be the HAHO impromptu mini-DZ.com jump. Before we get the jump together, more DZ.commer's come over - Ruffles, RickyResQ, Chaz1234, CaptnStratton. We're manifested, and it's the load just prior to the "sunset" load. We take pictures, and it goes from 6 DZ.commers to 8 people. Wooo hooo!! This is gonna be fun!!! As we get into the plane, we're talking with people, Michele's being sassy, and just having a blast. We have already decided on a 4 second separation, 10 second delay jump. Michele is out first and does a perfect launch from the plane. Her responsibility on this dive (besides pulling) is to watch for all the canopies to be open and head us towards the mountains and ocean. Out I go and beautiful canopy. I see Michele and follow her and watch as the plane dives in front of us with the sun starting to set and the sun's rays glistening on the plane. In the distance, I see the mountains, ocean and Catalina Island rising from the ocean surrounded by mist and want to fly forever towards the island. As we turn north, below me I see Lake Elsinore and turn east and see poppy covered foothills with snow-capped mountains in the distance. There are many beautiful canopies and friends playing in the sky with us. It was one of those moments when you realize with absolute clarity why you were put on this earth and that the love of friends and the wonders of nature are truly the most perfect things in life. As the canopies are playing, a couple of them drop out of site (they are jumping napkins - LOL). Michele is playing off a little distance away by herself and doing some pretty fast turns under her canopy and playing. I'm with Gawain and Shark and playing in the air. They are close, and I'm wishing that I was experienced at CRW as it would have been the perfect time to do a CRW jump. It's now time to head towards the DZ and land. It's dusk and Michele has set up our landing pattern. As I follow Michele into the landing area, I realize too late that it's a downwinder. Well, I have had a perfect day, and I was not going to spoil it by attempting something that close to the ground so I took the downwinder. PLF'd, stood up and hollered "It was a fucking awesome day!" Walk back to Michele, hugs are given, and we get a lift from Chaz1234 back to the DZ.
Drop our rigs off by Grasshoper for his tender care, and decide to sneak up on CaptnStratton, Chaz1234, and Gawain and give them a hug and peck on the cheek. We are successful as none of them were expecting it and we startled them enough to get them to yell. It's late, we're hungry, tired, and sore little girls and decide that as much as we'd have loved to hang at the DZ, we needed to head towards home. We stop at a restaurant and eat. IslandCool had joined us. Coffee in our system, hugs and goodbyes, given, and Michele and I head home.
Sunday morning finds us sore, tired and bruised. Michele has an "S" bruise on her thigh which we have no clue how it got there. I've got some beautiful bruises from the Otter and my downwinder. We decide that it will be an easy day - foo foo champagne brunch at a restaurant in the foothills overlooking Burbank, quick stop for kitty stuff at the "market," and then rest, relaxation, and pain killers at Michele's in preparation for the 3:00am wakeup call to get me to the airport.
Monday morning, we get an unexpected wakeup call, a kitty got ill . So, we're up at 2:45am, lots of coffee later, 2 very tired and sore skydivers get to LA airport. Hugs are given, promises to keep in touch are given, and I'm off to check in and end my LA adventure.
Many thanks to Michele for picking me up at and taking me to the airport, driving around, and the use of her couch to crash on. Many thanks to Gawain for coming and playing with us Friday and Saturday. Thanks to VectorBoy for taking time out of his day to meet me at dinner since he was stuck working on Saturday and couldn't play at the DZ. Many thanks for the wonderful hugs from Viking, Shark, Grasshopper, and everyone else. I had an excellent time. Life is short! Break the rules! Forgive quickly! Kiss slowly! Love truly, Laugh uncontrollably. And never regret anything that made you smile.
