I'm back. How was Rantoul? It was windy, cloudy, and cold. Not exactly what I want in a skydiving vacation. What the hell is up with the weather? Guess I shouldn't complain too much; my house wasn't destroyed by a hurricane.

I ended up jumping only 4 times at the World Freefall Convention. Because of the clouds, it was more like the World Hop n' Pop Convention. A hop and pop simply means you open your parachute a few seconds after leaving the aircraft. With only 3000 foot ceilings, that's about the only thing you could do. Borrrring. It's more fun to sit on the ground and watch wave after wave of canopies open and speculate on who is going to have a cutaway while drinking yourself silly. That is until you cheer when you see a cutaway then realize it's your husband. Silly man.

I did do a hop and pop out of a Sikorsky helicopter. Heh. That was nifty. A bunch of us also did a jump out of a hot air balloon. Thursday morning was fair, few clouds, and no wind so we got to be the third load on a balloon jump. The big problem with balloons is you can't really control your direction; just up and down. So load 1 took off from the airport; loads 2 and 3 chased the balloons in vans. Once the balloon pilot lands you have to run out and climb into the basket.

Our load chased for quite a while until he found a suitable landing area: a high school football field. And there were kids practicing there. I wonder what they thought when a balloon loomed over their school, touched down in the middle of the field, when all of a sudded 7 gaily dressed people in helmets scrambled out of a van to leap into the balloon's basket just as it took off again? I bet it helped break up all the monotony of those drills.

Then our group jumped out at 4600 feet and landed in a golf course. Those tee flags make great wind direction indicators! I landed in the driving range and I'm greatful no one used me for target practice.

We hitch-hiked back to the airport and by the time we arrived it clouded over again.

But hey, it was sunny and beautiful on Friday! At least it was when we left that morning.