Skydiving in San Marcos

After finishing up my junior year at UT, Caiqian and I decided to finally go skydiving. Caiqian did some research and found Skydive San Marcos. So Dad, Nick, Caiqian, and I decided to go there on Mother's day while my mom was working.

Skydive San Marcos Entrance

The first thing I noticed was that the weather was really nice. We ended up waiting for a couple of hours before we could go, but the waiting area outside was beautiful.

Waiting for our turn

Eventually they called us, and it was time to put on our jumpsuits.

Waiting to get suited up

I got to wear a stylish green-yellow combo and Caiqian wore a hot-pink piece.

Bodysuits

The plane we ended up jumping out of was the smallest plane I've ever been in, but the instructors told me that it was one of the larger commercial skydiving planes used for skydiving.

Our Ride

The plane held only twenty people total. Instead of airplane seats, there were only two long black benches that everyone straddled. Since Caiqian and I were last on the planes, we were the first to leave at 10,000 ft.

We can look out the open window from our front seats.

Our plane went two miles in the air before they opened the sliding glass window on the side of the plane.

Going Up

I was the first to go. My tandem partner was Victor, who has parachuted for 19 years. I slowly crouched and waddled up next to the door, ready to jump.

3, 2, 1...

And then I took the plunge!

Floppy Face Time!

The skydiving part was breathtaking. I've never had wind blow so hard across my face. And seeing the earth below was beautiful.

Oh look, it's the earth.

Eventually we pulled open the parachute, which admittedly hurt.

Crotch Pain

I was surprised that modern parachutes are no longer semi-spherical. The shape below is now the modern-day parachute design because it can steer left and right, as well as slow down.

Landing

At last, I returned to the surface. I took a picture of my tandem partner, Victor, and me.

Victor and me

Below is a video of my jump made by my videographer, Yoshi.

After I jumped, it was Caiqian's turn to go.

Caiqian's looking out of the window

Caiqian said her favorite/most exciting part of the skydiving was jumping out of the plane.

She's jumping!

I'm really proud of her for joining me. I'd never thought I'd find a girl who could be so adventure-seeking.

Bye-bye plane.

Caiqian's tandem partner, Aaron, was quite a character.

Skydiving Time

I'm a bit jealous because Caiqian managed to touch a little bit of cloud on her fall. You can see the cloud beneath her in the picture below.

Aim for the cloud.

Eventually she and Aaron landed.

Caiqian and Aaron

And with our adventure complete, we triumphantly walked back, now as skydivers.

Caiqian, Me, and our Entourage

On a side note, I think the skydiving made our hair look fabulous.

Alive and Victorious

Here is Caiqian's skydiving video . In it, you can see my jump, but from her perspective.

Post-Skydiving Stuff at Cropper Headquarters

The first big surprise was that my parents bought me an 8x4 sheet of 32 one-dollar bills that I've had on my bucket list for years!

8x4 Sheet of One Dollar Bills

The other surprise was that my mom bought me a pomelo, one of the original citrus fruits, as shown in the citrus fruit diagram below.

Here's a picture of a pomelo compared to an orange to give a sense of how much bigger pomelos are.

Look how much bigger the Pomelo is than an orange.

One downside to pomelos is that there is a lot of pith. Here's a picture of the pith and rind of a pomelo after I ate all the flesh. It tasted like a sweeter, more diluted grapefruit.

Remnants of an Eaten Pomelo

That's all I have for now. Expect another update after Dad and I drive up to Dow Chemical HQ in Midland, Michigan. 

Road Trip 2012

For Spring Break this year, I decided it would be fun to go on a road trip with some of my best friends.

Top left: Me, Top Right: Matthew Drews, Bottom Left: Mikey Phan, Bottom Left: Sam Zieve 

Our trip took lots of coordination, so I put Matthew in charge of directions (with Mikey's help), Mikey be in charge of entertainment (with my help), and Sam being in charge of snacks (with his mom's help,  mmmm... brownies).

On the road again...

Pretty soon after getting out of Austin, we found our way onto Interstate 10 which had an impressive 80 mph speed limit. Zoom!

Awwww yeah...

A lot of our road trip was driving around. In the car, most of the time we talked. Sometimes we listened to 80s music or Disney songs (e.g. I'll make a man out of you). Once we listened to Pulp Fiction and part of Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Other times we just looked outside at the scenic Texas and New Mexico landscape.

The scenery was pretty

Our first stop was at Balmorhea pool, supposedly "The World's Largest Outdoor Spring-Fed Swimming Pool." Unfortunately it was super duper cold outside, around the 40s. The pool temperature was around 70, so I jumped in pretty quickly. Mikey and Sam stayed near the shallow end, which was fortunate because Mikey nearly lost his prayer beads. Sam left the pool early to smoke from his Sherlock-Holmes-esque pipe.

Balmorhea

Unfortunately, the place was swarming with scuba diver trainees who thought practicing under the high dive would be a good idea, preventing us from diving off of it. Matthew and I made the best of a bad situation by swimming through the yellow underwater scuba diver rings. Take that!

Scuba Divers

The next day the four of us made it to White Sands national park.

Strike a pose

The name of the place was no lie, the sands were undoubtedly white, and we quickly were getting sun burnt from both from sunlight from the sky as well as light that was reflected off of the sand.

White sands

We got a lot of exercise climbing up dunes over and over again.

Time to climb some dunes

I enjoyed taking a nice piece of gypsum found it the sand dunes. Nothing like a free souvenir!

Momento from White Sands

By far the most exciting part of white sands was going up and down the dunes.

Waxing the Sleds

We had lots of fun tiring ourselves out on the dunes.

After several hours of dune-sledding, rolling, and the like, we pretty much were exhausted and ended up laying in the nice, cold sand.

The sands are so cold...

Before we left we even made sand castles.

Sand City

After white sands we drove through Lincoln National Forest while it was still light out.

Mikey Loves Driving

Matthew said it was the most consecutive amounts of snow he's seen in his entire life. It just goes to show that he's a true Austinite.

Lincoln National Forest

Snow!

Every night of the road trip we all played games. The first night we manged to play three games of Settlers of Catan. The second night we played two rounds of Aquire. On the last night we manged to finish a single game of Mega-Monopoly. I didn't win a single game all three nights, perhaps next time!

Late Night Monopoly

Our last stop was Carlsbad Caverns.

Carlsbad  Tourist Center

It's difficult to convey the hugeness and deepness of Carsbad caverns. Let's take a football stadium as a good measure of size. A football stadium is pretty huge, yes? Well Carlsbad has three monstrously huge decents that are like walking down vertical, football stadium sized holes.

   

Here's the latter half of the initial cavern entrance.

Carlsbad Entrance

    After you make it past the three huge drops, you find some really interesting stalagtites and stalagmites, like the Breast of Venus.

Matthew and the Breast of Venus

There's all kinds of curious stone formations in the huge, mile-long room in the depths of carlsbad caverns.

Huge Column

I'm still fascinated by the fact that all of these fantastic formations happened over thousands of years in total darkness. It's only since the 1920s that these formations ever saw light at all. I wonder how many structures could not grow anymore due to the inevitable human oils we deposited that prevented them from growing.

So Close...

Anyways, that was our last stop, and we had fun 750 feet below ground level.

Smiling 750 feet undergorund

Afterwards we made our way back to surface using the Carlsbad elevator. On the elevator line we sung  "Zipadeedoodah Zipadeeday", which made an elderly man smile and comment, "I haven't heard that song in a long time." It was a wonderful day.