Saturday, July 16, 2011

Para-whating?

I don't about you but when I think about parasailing I think about one thing...Jurassic Park III.

What? You don't? Oh, come on, you remember the opening scene right?  People innocently enjoying a day of parasailing while hoping to catch a dinosaur on their sweet camcorder when suddenly the boat runs into a mysterious thick fog and is obscured from view (are you with me now) and once the fog rolls back out again the innocent parasailers are shocked to see that the boat is now empty and they wind up stranded on an island overrun with scary dinosaurs and it's up to Dr. Alan Grant to come in and rescue them.

It's pretty much the main reason why I've never gone parasailing before since dinosaurs are super scary. 

But despite all that I decided to give parasailing a whirl while I was at the beach since I was fairly certain that there would be no mysterious fog (or retired billionaires trying to genetically recreate dinosaurs from the blood they found inside a mosquito trapped in fossilized sap) in Gulf Shores, Alabama which is how I found myself strapped into a harness attached to a parachute on the back of a boat in the Gulf of Mexico...and it ruled.

Of course me being me I spent most of the ride using only the power of my mind to keep the rope connecting us to the boat secure (only one knot? really?), and also making contigency plans in case my mind power failed and the rope snapped in which case I tried to remember everything I could from movies about people jumping into large bodies of water from great heights (mainly to keep my feet together to prevent breaking them, and my arms crossed in front of my chest to prevent breaking...them).  And I was very proud of my quick thinking survival skills until my sister pointed out that I was attached to a PARACHUTE and that if the rope I was keeping secure through mind power were to fail I would just, you know, float...

But at least there were no dinosaurs.