Tuesday, August 23, 2011

REU Skydiving!

By Laura Hancock

After all the work and research is done, we definitely know how to have some fun! The last weekend of the program, three fellow REU students--Lindsay Day, Alanna Yazzie, Keke Mitchel, and I decided to do something extremely exciting and go skydiving! We've all wanted to try it, so to me it seemed like the perfect way to end the summer.


About 20 minutes from Harvard Forest, in Orange, Massachusetts, is a top-notch skydiving facility, Jumptown. All of four of us decided to jump tandem, though you could go through a day of training and jump on your own. We exited the plane at 13,500 ft and experienced a minute of freefall and 5 minutes of cruising (once the parachute has been opened). My instructor let me 'steer' and pointed out all sorts of amazing sites while in the air, like the Quabbin Reservoir. I loved it so much I looked into places near where I live to go skydiving, so I can go for my license.

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