A few weeks ago, my birthday was coming up and I was facing the question of what to do or get to celebrate it. I can never decide what I want of course, so it was somewhat frustrating. Well, I was chatting with some people at work and, I don't know how it came up, but the subject turned to vertical wind tunnels - the kind that people use to simulate sky diving. When my boss mentioned that there was one just over the border in New Hampshire, that sealed it. That was what I wanted to do.
To add icing to the cake so to speak, I got a few "thank you" bucks for my work on the POC that I wrote about earlier so I had some cash to spend on this adventure. Now, to fully appreciate the story, you have to understand that each year on Mother's Day or Deb's birthday, the family is subjected to some sort of "Deb" activity. These have ranged from trips to Plymouth, Sturbridge, art museums, butterfly habitats, and other sorts of "cultural" enlightenment experiences. Deb makes us go on these days because it's the only day that we can't really say "No, I don't think the Massachusetts Quilt Museum would be that fun to go to."
So, I figured I would declare a "Dad's birthday excursion" day but not tell them what we would be doing. This provided over a week's worth of them trying to guess where we would be going and just exactly how bored they would be by the end of said day. On the day of, we set out for the unknown. They were still trying to guess where we were going but couldn't figure it out of course, since I wasn't saying anything. They thought for sure it was the Duck Tours - car/boats that are used for tours of Boston - but when we passed the turnpike entrance, that theory fell apart.
They were really confused when we got off the highway in Nashua, NH because there really isn't anything there. We were driving down the road and, since Skyventure is behind a Best Buy, and we turned onto that road, they were incredulous that I had taken them to an electronics store in another state. Then they got a look at the building behind it, with the big bold INDOOR SKYDIVING on it. The sound of their jaws hitting the floor was quickly followed by "I'm not doing that!", "No way!" As we got out of the car though, I could tell the kids were kind of intrigued.
Inside, the kids agreed to give it a try but Deb decided that she would spectate and hold her finger over the 911 buttons on the phone for the duration of the flight. We paid our money and went upstairs to await our training, equipment, and flight. Meanwhile, we watched others in the tunnel trying to fly. Frankly, it looked pretty difficult. The person is pulled into the vertical air flow by an instructor who helps balance you as you lay out flat in the wind stream. At that point the person just tries to keep from bashing into the walls of the tunnel as they slip and slide in the blast of wind.
After a short wait, we got some brief instruction from our guide which basically consisted of "relax and keep your head up". We then got outfitted in knee pads, elbow pads, jumpsuits, ear plugs and helmets and then filed into the "chamber". The tunnel actually has a small seating area inside but out of the wind and there are two doors into the tunnel itself which has Plexiglas walls. There were about 10 people in the chamber with us and we each took turns flying. You pay by the minute and the basic package was two, one minute flights.
It's really hard to describe it but it was fun. There is no sensation of falling, just floating. The first time for each of us was a little shaky but much better than some of the other people we were with. The second time around was even better and we each were able to get some pretty good float time. Deb was shooting video and I've put it together into a little music video below
Afterwards, the kids were thrilled. Carly kept saying "I can't believe we just did that!" and Kyle came up to me and said how cool that was. We are definitely going to have to do that again some time.
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