Skydiving

My nerves had been building up from the moment the plane left the ground. Now I am standing 2nd in line to jump from this cursed plane into the open air. The two men in front of me simply disappear before my eyes. My thoughts are running wild. It would have been better for me to have gone first so I wouldn't have to watch them jump off. I can't see them at all out the door. How am I to know that they are still alive. What if something happened?

My guide indicates that it is our turn. He gestures me to slide my feet out so that they are standing on a small slender ledge, located just below the door. I grab onto the wing strut support for dear life! My mind imagines that the scratches on the side of the plane are left there from the fingernails of those who had gone before me, desperately clawing their way back to safety.

The horrid jump master signals that it is time to jump. I raise my right foot up as we were trained, so that it is flapping in the wind. 2000 feet below me I can see the ground. How stupid was I for wanting to do this. The wind thunders around my head and the jump master yells, "JUMP! LET GO!" After what seems like years, I finally summon up the courage to take that final step.


It was not as I expected at all. There wasn't much of a falling sensation. The earth was just becoming larger and larger. The wind was whipping through my ears. At the right moment, I reached back and opened my parachute. I look up and greatly relieved, see it billowing out above me. My velocity slows down and now the parachute allows me to slowly drift towards the earth. It is the greatest thing in the world just floating through the air. Buildings and landscape begins to become clearer and now the feeling that I'm falling finally sinks in. I hit the ground on target and roll in the five points previously taught. Checking myself to make sure nothing is hurt, I prepare to do it again!

(Never having been skydiving myself, I interviewed my Dad for the information above.) I would give skydiving a rank of 10 and I can't wait to get out there and try it myself someday!

Jet skiing

It's like I'm driving a motorcycle except on the water. The lake is so smooth that the jet ski simply glides across the surface. My sister's hands that are wrapped around me tighten as we bounce over the waves. Building up speed, we cry out in glee as the wind whips at our face. I feel so alive and free.

If you like to go out on the lake a lot, then jet skiing is your activity. Jet skis are fairly easy to operate. I was driving one by myself at 12 years old with no problem. Jet skis also come in very handy when you don't want to pack a speed boat all up with equipment, and instead just a few people want to go out on the lake and have some fun.

Some fun things to do when riding jet skis is to follow behind a speed boat that makes huge waves and ride their wake behind them. Some of the waves will be so high that the jet ski will come out of the water 2-5 feet. Also, it's fun to drive around in circles for awhile, building up the waves. Once they are high enough, ride through the middle of them were the crests are the highest. If it is tall enough, sometimes the front of the jet ski will become completely submerged underwater, spraying you with a mist of water. Jet skiing is a real exciting adventure and is fun for everyone.

I give jet skiing a rank of 7.

Spelunking

The skinny toothpicks ahead of me easily squeeze through the slabs of pure rock. I'm a little weary but my friends tell me that it'll be alright. Putting my faith (and life) in them, I scoot through the slight opening, sucking in my stomach. I reach the halfway mark, happy to be almost through, when all of a sudden I stop moving forward. Frantically, I try to push myself further into the hole, thinking I can still make it through. This only adds to my problem causing me to become further wedged into the rocks. I try to turn around, but my body will not budge in that direction either. Nothing will work. I try to exhale out all my breath imagine I am thinner, but to no avail. The stone is pushing against my stomach, and I struggle to take in my next breath.

Panicking, I call for my friends to help, all the while my heart is racing in my chest. Even with one person shoving me from behind while the other is pulling, I don't move an inch. My mind already begins to imagine a skeleton hanging in the place that I know stand. This will be my tomb. After what seems like hours, when in reality, it has only been a few minutes, I calm down and try to think logically. I realize that my panic has only worsened the situation. Finding my composure, we all give it one more try and finally I slide out of the crevasse. My clothes rip in multiple places from the rescue but it was a price well paid. I am out safe and sound!

Spelunking is the fancy term for saying exploring caves. Not having a lot of experience in this field, I went to my dad for information. The scenario above actually happened to him on one of his caving trips. He was terrified at the time, but that didn't stop him from continuing on to more and more caves.

Caves are all different. In some of the more dangerous, yet exciting ones, you must crawl on your hands and knees through a quarter mile of pitch-black nothingness. Sometimes, you are forced to wade through a small stream of ice-cold water in order to reach the other side. And the whole time while you are overcoming these hazards, your mind spins off imagining deaths that could succumb you. What if there was an earthquake or the river flooded while you are inside? Will you be able to find your way back out?

Inspite of the dangers though, there are so many beautiful aspects to be seen. Like for instance, the amazing structure the stalagmites form on the ground or a nest of sleeping bats waiting for the evening. Spelunking allows you to feel closer to nature and all its components and is a great activity to try out.

I give spelunking a rank of 9.

Drop Zone

The gentle ascending motion of the ride would almost be relaxing if not for the fact that it was all a facade. They were trying to deceive me, so that I would be unprepared for what was to come. I dangled my feet in the open air, loving the feeling of freedom. The upward movement stopped and the view around us was spectacular. It would have been even more beautiful if a host of butterflies had not decided at that very moment to invade my stomach. Then, I happened to glance down at the ground. As if a raw carcass of meat was thrown into den of starving lions, the host of butterflies in my stomach transformed into an angry hoard of bees out for revenge.

Why oh why had I thought this ride was fun? What had made me get on it a second time, knowing what was about to happen? Any moment now I would be free-falling down to the earth. 3...2...1...NOW! The bees reach a peak. Ok that wasn't it. Now! Nope. Ok just a few more seconds and then it will be over with. What was taking them so long to drop us? I could handle it if we got up here and right away they let us fall, but this waiting and the fear that was accumulating in my stomach made it only that much worse. Well, since they don't seem to be in any of a hurry, I'll just enjoy myself and forget about the horrid, upcoming descent. Off to my right I recognize the bright red gleam of the Firehawk. I can hear the distant sound of people screaming. I quickly search the park for the White River Rapids, a ride that I had planned to visit next. Was it near the Beast or was that...AAAAAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHA!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm flying up out of my seat and all the air rushes out of my chest. My parents smiling faces grow larger and larger and just about when I don't think I can take anymore of this, the ride slows down and I am able to touch the sweet, blessed ground again.

"That was a rush!!! Let's do it again," I tell my friends and we step back in line, longing for more torture.


Drop Zone is an amusement ride also located at Kings Island in Ohio. As you can probably guess and as seen passengers are strapped in the seats and the device slowly rises up. It then waits for an excruciating 20 seconds at the top until you are plunged 26 stories down, going a speed of 61 mph. This ride is so much fun, yet it scares me to death every time.

I would give this ride a rank of 8.

Ghost Hunting in Mulberry, IN

Halloween is coming just around the corner and I though it fitting that I share a ghost hunting experience with you. So this time last year, my friends and I decided we wanted to go to some haunted places to get us into the Halloween Spirit. We looked online and found this place on Hamilton Road in Mulberry, IN. There were a multitude of places along that road that were deemed 'haunted'. (For more haunted places in Indiana click here.)

The first of these was the three one-lane bridges on Hamilton Road. Once you came to third bridge, you should stop in the middle and flash your lights three times and then go. It is said that a short man can be seen chasing after the car. The first time we tried this out, my roommate all of a sudden screamed and burrowed into my shoulder crying. She swears up and down that she could see the ghost running behind us. This is her description of him: he was a short man in overall's, a straw hat on his head and a bandanna around his neck. His shirt was blue while the overalls were tan. None of the rest of us saw anything, even though we repeated it about 10 more times.

Next, we were supposed to stop in the middle of these old-looking train tracks, put baby powder on the back bumper of the car, turn off all the lights and wait. You were supposed to be able to see and hear a train coming and then you got out and would see baby fingerprints on your bumper. This was a total fluke! We tried it a few more times but nothing happened at all.

Lastly, there was this old, fallen apart cemetery alongside the road. This, I have to say, is the creepiest place I have ever been. The tombstones were all falling apart and cracked. Woods surrounded the place and there wasn't another around house for at least a mile. Half of our group started to walk towards the back, where it was supposed to be haunted, but they couldn't make it. The place was just too chilling.

This adventure gets a rank of 6. It will cause your heart to race and shivers down your spine. Sometime this Halloween, get out there and investigate a haunted place near you. It's a lot of fun with friends, but just make sure you have some brave people in the group to hold on to!

Kneeboarding!

You're lying on the kneeboard with your elbow's in position, snuggly fit into the knee grooves of the board. The speed boat starts up and they take off. The slack in the string you are holding abruptly tightens and your arms strain to hold on. The first few moments are the worst. Struggling to keep the board from being washed away by the turbulent water, you shimmy up the device, sliding your knees into the spots your elbows had previously been. Now, if you feel steady enough, you can straighten your back and get into a kneeling position as shown in the picture and you are ready to ride out the waves.

Once you are up on your knees, it is best if you can get out the wake. (The wake, for those of you who don't know, is the turbulence left caused by something moving through the water. In this case, I am referring to the wake of the boat, or the white water and waves that come out from behind a speed boat while it's going.) The water should be crystal clear and it feels as if you are gliding over surface. Every now and then you will be forced to ride over some waves. The trick to staying on is that when you hit one, unlock your legs and get lower to the board. Move with the board, don't try and just wait for the wave to go by. Also, you can bring your arms and the rope closer to your body steadying yourself. Once it's over, straighten back up and prepare for the next onslaught.

If you're really daring, a few years ago I discovered that I could do a 360 behind the boat. Holding the rope as far over as you can with one hand, you then swing the board back and forth, creating momentum. Once you are ready, give the board a good push in one direction using your lower-body, and quickly reach behind your back grabbing rope out of your other hand. At this point you should be facing backwards in the water. If you are quick enough, once you grab onto the rope with your free hand, your body should pull the rest of you and the board back, so that you are again facing the proper way.

Kneeboarding is a fun water activity to do on a lake with a bunch of friends. It is similar to water skiing except that you are on your knees instead of your feet. In many regards it's a lot easier than skiing. For one thing you only have the one board to keep track of contrary to balancing out two skiis. One thing I will say though is that it is a lot more enjoyable to perform this on smooth water, away from other motorists, than it would be on choppy water. Being so close to the water on a kneeboard, you are able to feel every little wave and ripple on the water unlike with tubing or skiing. Still though, the feeling of surfing on the water is amazing. Everyone should get out there and try it!

I would give kneeboarding a rank of 7.

Swimming in Gullies

"SHHHH don't let it slam shut. If you wake them, we are in so much trouble!" my brother whispered to me as we snuck out of the house.
Once we reached our destination and met up with the others, we stripped down to our underwear and waded into the green water.

During the rainy season in Taiwan, the normally dry, rocky ditches or gullies, as they are called there, fill up with chest-high water. My mom and a group her friends when they were younger, (young enough that it did not matter that they were were all in their underwear) decided that it would be fun to go out and play around in these gullies. Her parents believed that she was simply playing in the rain with some friends, but little did they know that she was stripping down to her barest, frolicking along, chest-deep in the stagnant water.

The group was sworn to secrecy, never allowed to tell a soul. Arriving at the gullies, they would play tag and just splash around in the water, having the time of their lives. My mom told me how in order to get back up out of the gullies, you would have to pull yourself up by the bamboo growing on the hill. The bamboo was very sturdy and the roots were strong enough that from all the children pulling on them, they never came unearthed. This made it more exciting and the kids would swing themselves from one stalk to another zigzagging their way to the top.

Thinking back on it now, my mom cannot believe how she could have ever swam in that disgusting putrid water. There was a high possibility that they could have gotten typhoid! Yet still, she greatly enjoyed it when she was young, whether it was just the thrill of deceiving her parents or playing around in the water with some friends.

She would give this activity a rank of 5. So the next time you come across some stagnant water-filled gully, why don't you just strip on down and give it a try!

Sling Shot

3...2...1...GO!!! The two boys on either side of me immediately run in opposite directions. The blanket around my waist becomes taunt and I am launched face-first towards my opponent. We collide with a shattering CRACK and I fall to the ground wincing in pain. Walking home with a broken collar bone, I fail to see how we could have been so naive.

When my dad was younger, he and a group of his buddies came up with what they believed to be an AMAZING idea, a game they liked to call "Slingshot". They paired up with three people on each team. Two guys held the ends of a blanket, while the unlucky person stood a few steps behind them, in the middle of the loose collapsed up blanket. The other team stood in this exact stance opposite the first. When the signal was given, the people holding the edges of the blankets would run as fast as they could in opposite directions, sending the two people in the middle soaring at each other. They would then fight it out, so that the last man left standing would be the winner. This is how it was supposed to happen anyway.

The first couple of tries went OK and nobody got injured. After that though, it started to turn ugly. One unlucky guy got his nose broken by the force of the slingshot while my dad, going against someone substantially shorter than himself, received a broken collar bone from the effect of his opponents head striking his collar. The rest of the boys also walked out with various other injuries. Needless to say, they never gave their little game of 'Slingshot' a second chance.

If they had stopped after the first few times then my dad would give their game a rank of 8 but after all the injuries they ensued and the many weeks it took to recuperate, he would have to give it an overall rank of 4 Got any interesting activities you've come up with? Let me know.

Fountain Running

“Are you ready?” my friend asks, excitement written on her face.

“Wait, wait, wait,” I say, aware of the others watching me. For a moment I pause, thinking if I really want to plunge. I feel as if I’m about to back out, after all the wind isn’t favorable. My friend, noticing the uncertainty on my face makes the decision for me. She grabs my arm and starts running into the fountain spouting water. I resist her pull all the way, until she has won and I am drenched in ice cold water.

Oh the art of fountain running and all its joys. What is fountain running you ask? It is the mastered skill of running into a fountain. There are two types of fountain runs. There’s the fountain run that you plan ahead of time and dress for the occasion. Then there’s the second run. The one where you happen to be strolling by a beautiful fountain, and in the heat of the moment, you drop everything. You disregard the fact that you’re no wearing proper attire, and you make a beeline for the water. The second, I find to be most exhilarating, although both leave you with a faint buzz.

My friend and I discovered fountain running on our freshman year. One day, on our way back from class, we noticed the unbearable heat just as we happened to come across a fountain. WE looked at each other, dropped our baggage and the rest is history. Ever since, we have made it a tradition to go every Thursday. We put a halt to our tradition when the water is too cold and resume when the weather warms up. After our runs, we like to lie out on the stone benches. The warmth emanating from them and the sun are enough to slowly bake us and dry our clothes.

These two activities put together merit a full 7 on my ratings chart. Let me know if you guys have found other ways to enhance the fountain running sport.

White Water Rafting

So it seems as if almost everything exciting I do is always with my cousins and family. This was again on one of our family reunions. One of the days, we decided to go white water rafting on the Ocoee River in Tennessee. I was really excited for this because the Ocoee is the river they ran the Olympic white river rafting course on in 1996. We would be rafting on the waters just below the part they used for the Olympics and even though there weren't any class 5 rapids, there were a lot of class three's and four's.

Our family had enough people for two rafts, so of course all of the younger generation quickly grabs a raft together leaving the elders on their own. My group consisted of my two sisters, one older and one younger, and then two of my guys cousin, who are super competitive. Right off my cousins told our guide that we wanted to go over the roughest and most dangerous waters. Good to his word, not 30 seconds into the ride our boat hit some rapids everyone except for me and the guide was thrown out of the raft. I still pride myself over the fact that I was able to hold on while my macho cousins flew into the water.

After that it became more and more exciting. The whole trip was now a competition to see who could stay in the raft more than the others. Our instructor managed to flip us, on purpose might I add, a total of 2 times and then I personally fell out five times. My cousin on the other hand fell out four so I still have that lorded over my head. The funniest part of it was when our guided instructed us to paddle right in to a rapid called "washing machine". His goal was that once we got into it, the water would spin us around a couple of times and then spit us out. During the course of this procedure, my six-foot cousin fell out of the boat and everyone but the guide reached out and tried to help him back in. Instead of helping, the guide simply shouted at us to "LEAVE HIM". We immediately just grabbed up our paddles and started rowing while my cousin floated down the river. We flipped the raft and were all then floating along behind him. My cousin told us afterwords how he couldn't believe that our guide wouldn't try to help him and how we all just let him go. He felt so unloved, but we got a kick out of it!

All-in-all, everyone had a great time. The trip lasted 3 hours and there was never a dull moment. At one point, our guide let us get out of the raft and ride the rapids on our backs! It was an amazing experience. The course that we took was through Ocoee Adventures and is said to be one of the best because at one point on the trip, they allow you to stop and jump off of this rock into the river. No other group is allowed to do that. Here is a link to the Ocoee Adventure website in case you want to plan your own trip: Ocoee Adventures and here's a map of the river: Ocoee River


I would give white water rafting on the Ocoee River a rank of 10.

Rock Hopping

Ok, so another fun activity we do on our family vacations is rock hopping. If you've never done this before then you are missing out. Basically, the gist of it is, you find a creek with lots of stones in it. Make sure the current isn't that strong or else it could become very dangerous. Then, you try to see if you can jump from one rock to another without falling in the water! It's more fun if you go with a big group of people. Also, it's a great activity for all ages and young kids especially love it. So parents, this could be a way to keep your children occupied for a few hours.

The most fun I've had rock hopping is when I went with 6 or 7 of my cousins, who are all around 15-25 years old. We went in our normal clothes and the whole time it was a competition to see who could stay on the rocks the longest. Of course with half of the group being guys, they were constantly trying to knock us all off the rocks. By the end, it would have turned into a huge water fight and everyone would come out of it soaking wet.



I would give rock hopping a rank of 6 because it can be pretty dangerous with the rocks being slippery and all. Although I will admit this isn't the most risky activity, many of my best memories come from rock hopping with my family.

FireHawk and The Beast

So, if you're looking for excitement and live in the Midwest, Kings Island is a great theme park to check into. Their newest roller coaster, Firehawk, has quickly become my favorite coaster ever!

The ride starts off in a sitting position and once the operators receive the all clear signal, the seats tilt back until you are laying flat, staring up at the sky. Next, it's just up, up and up one of those dreaded steep hills. This part is really relaxing and enjoyable. You are laying down at an incline and are able to take in the view of the rest of the park. Then, the ride flips you over to where the ground is all you can see and from there it's just a multitude of flips, loop-de-loops, and turns until the end of the ride. My favorite part about it is that, to me, it is almost as if I am flying and can pretend to be Superman for those 2 minutes.


My second favorite ride is The Beast. At 7,359 ft, this is the world's longest wooden roller coaster. That might be part of why I love it so much. Just the fact that you get more out of your half-hour wait in line, since it lasts double that of other roller coasters. This roller coaster is a little jerky but well worth it! My favorite part of this ride is the 141 foot fall that leads right into a pitch dark tunnel going around 65 mph.

For Firehawk, I would give it a rank of 9and The Beast a rank of 8. Let me know your opinion.

So, I've been told that Cedar Point also has some amazing rides that top Kings Island's but to my disappointment, I have not been able to test that hypothesis out yet. Hopefully soon I will have the chance to go there and will inform you about my conclusions when I do.