Minimoon: Part I

The Pilot and I still haven't taken a real honeymoon. Other pilot wives will completely understand but getting a full week off for the wedding was a miracle. Getting more time off for a honeymoon was a long shot and I didn't have much vacation time left for the year anyways so we agreed to wait until 2012 to take a big trip.

We were extremely busy right after the wedding and didn't get to spend much time together. We wanted to take a short getaway though and when we realized we had 48 hours together last month, we quickly booked our "minimoon."

We headed to the Hocking Hills region of Ohio and cashed in on a wedding gift, a trip to the Hocking Hills Canopy Tours for a ride on the Super Zip and a canopy tour. We arrived early for our scheduled canopy tour and asked if there was enough time to do the Super Zip first. They offered to rush us through so we'd make it back in time for our tour.

Not exactly knowing what that meant, we said we'd go for it. Turns out it meant rushing us out to the Super Zip platform, putting on harnesses and running up the stairs of a 75 foot tall tower, passing by others waiting in line. We both felt really guilty but the employees at the top tower were yelling down for us. I'd like to point out that I was really sick with a head cold (and later found out I had an ear infection and perforated ear drum) and I do have asthma so running up all those steps was a bit of a chore. I was definitely huffing and puffing when we got to the top but there was no delay. They led us right to the edge of the platform and the next thing I knew, I was laying on my stomach, hanging from a wire, 75 feet off the ground. Now, I'm not afraid of heights but it was a little un-nerving! The Pilot is not a fan of heights (yeah, it doesn't make sense to me either, given his career choice) and I could only imagine what was going through his head. The Super Zip is actually two lines, side by side so they let us go at the same time. It was pretty insane to look over at The Pilot as we flew down the quarter mile long line. Once we got to the end, my knees were shaking and my eyes were watering. It was great! They had a Gator waiting to transport us back to the start of the tours so we rushed out of our harnesses and headed back so we didn't get a chance to take any pictures from the Super Zip so I borrowed a few from their web site for illustration purposes.
While we wish we could have slowed down to really enjoy the experience, we agreed that by rushing through, neither of us had time to be scared until it was too late! :)

That's me in the pink, looking at The Pilot, wondering what he's taking a picture of....
oh, it's us in the Gator's rear view mirror. :)

Next up was our canopy tour. Our group had another family and another couple and two tour guides. They drove us all out to a cliff and pushed us off....really, there was a zip line set up so that it followed the natural landscape of the area and we headed off the hillside and zip lined to another platform. Then it was a series of zip lines of varying lengths, heights and speeds, as well as some rope bridges. It was about a 3 hour tour and we had an absolute blast!

The first zip line from the hill side

Minimoon!

One of the rope/wood bridgesThe Pilot zipping

Some video highlights of the tour:



I mentioned that I'm not afraid of heights and I'm not but.....I am afraid of stepping off from a height. For some reason, the zip line didn't induce this fear because when you step off the zip platforms, you are hanging from the line above you. An example of what makes my stomach jump into my throat? Trying to slide down a fireman's pole. I've never been able to do it, even as a kid. I tried bungee jumping in college and it was damn scary but fun once I got past making that first step. So anyways, I was fine all day until it came time to end the tour. You have to get down out of the trees and it never occurred to me how that would happen. Well, you belay down. Meaning I'd have to step off the platform and be guided straight down to the ground on a rope. For some reason, this freaked me out. My stomach was flip flopping. It's just the first step that freaks me out...and The Pilot was nice enough to record my first step: