Hello, everybody,
I’m back in California from my initial fact-finding trip to New Zealand, and I want to thank the many kind people I’ve met along the way. Everybody was absolutely fabulous and helped me have a wonderful time.
I have much to discuss & share about my personal experiences, as well as more general observations. Unfortunately, I had a slight “accident” on the first day of 2006, and I’m in exceedingly growing pains. But anyway, one of the highlights of the trip was when I drove thru Cromwell in the south island, and decided on a whim, that the time has come for me to finally “jump from a perfectly good plane”. I used “Big Daddy Skydiving Adventures” for my virgin 12,000 feet jump, and they were great (Thanks Richard & Byron!). The dive was everything that I dreamt about all the years I wanted to do it, and it was an experience that I’ll always remember. However, as usual, I didn’t pay much attention to the specific instructions given, and ended up landing on my butt instead of my feet.
The pain increased gradually and by the time I flew back to the states, I couldn’t sit straight any more. Yesterday I went to the local hospital here, was x-rayed and was told that yes, I did break/fracture my tailbone (coccyx) and that unfortunately there’s “nothing they can do about it”. So I was given some painkillers and I’ll have to bear it for some weeks, or months, until the bones heal themselves.
I’m going to take it easy for a while, but I’ll edit all my notes into some neat packages in the next few weeks. So please stick around, write some comments and take care. Meanwhile, here’re the rest of the photos I took, mostly from the south island.
Great story... I'd say I'm jealous (because I really would love to try skydiving), but the ability to sit down comfortably is pretty nice!
I hope you heal quickly!
Posted by: Dustin | January 08, 2006 at 07:00 PM
This is why I have a rule about not jumping out of perfectly fine airplanes :)
Glad to hear everything else went well!
Posted by: Chris | January 10, 2006 at 04:59 PM
At least it was a short flight home. :P
Posted by: Todd Carpenter | January 27, 2006 at 07:46 PM