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Wanna jump off a cliff right now!
Mar. 10th, 2010 10:36 pmWe - ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
xtalforge, rythos42, and I - had a meeting with our paragliding teacher today (Dion from iparaglide). We don't have our first class until May 1st, so today was just an intro to the sport with some whiteboard sketches of thermals and videos of expert paragliders.
It's not a cheap sport. If we continue past the intro classes to the full novice pilot's course, there's a pretty big investment in equipment in addition to the class fees. It's a couple of years worth of vacations, or a basement reno, or a new car... but you can fly.
I have said that I have dreamt of flying since I was a little kid, but that's not quite right. I usually dream of the moment of lift-off: the breathless moment when you win the struggle against gravity; air-bound in a rush of wind and adrenaline. I'd like to find out what happens after that.
The closest I've ever felt to that dream moment while waking has been zip lining, but that's over too fast. If you catch a good thermal, you can soar on a paraglider for hours. Our teacher has done a ten hour cross-country flight as part of a competition - a good person to learn from, and an interesting goal to aspire to.
Vancouver's spring has been pretty ahead of schedule so far this year, so if the weather stays good, we may be able to take our first class earlier than May 1st. It doesn't seem likely tonight, with the smell of snow in the air, but maybe we will be lucky.
I can't wait to fly!
xtalforge, rythos42, and I - had a meeting with our paragliding teacher today (Dion from iparaglide). We don't have our first class until May 1st, so today was just an intro to the sport with some whiteboard sketches of thermals and videos of expert paragliders.It's not a cheap sport. If we continue past the intro classes to the full novice pilot's course, there's a pretty big investment in equipment in addition to the class fees. It's a couple of years worth of vacations, or a basement reno, or a new car... but you can fly.
I have said that I have dreamt of flying since I was a little kid, but that's not quite right. I usually dream of the moment of lift-off: the breathless moment when you win the struggle against gravity; air-bound in a rush of wind and adrenaline. I'd like to find out what happens after that.
The closest I've ever felt to that dream moment while waking has been zip lining, but that's over too fast. If you catch a good thermal, you can soar on a paraglider for hours. Our teacher has done a ten hour cross-country flight as part of a competition - a good person to learn from, and an interesting goal to aspire to.
Vancouver's spring has been pretty ahead of schedule so far this year, so if the weather stays good, we may be able to take our first class earlier than May 1st. It doesn't seem likely tonight, with the smell of snow in the air, but maybe we will be lucky.
I can't wait to fly!
