Powerchuting in Arizona – Thermals Not Necessary

My heart is in my throat as Pilot Randy, hands me a helmet, headphones with a mic, and straps me into the passenger seat behind him. We are in a 3-wheeled 2-passenger go-cart that has an engine, a propeller, and a parachute. It’s called a Powerchute (http://www.powerchutes.com) which conjures images of what my stomach may do with last night’s dinner. It’s not a plane and it’s not a hang glider, and Randy assures me that it’s considered one of the safest aircrafts in the world.

That doesn’t give my any reassurance. My friends think I’ve lost my mind, and my sister begged me not to do it. At this point, I’m in the hands of Randy Long, owner of Arizona Powerchutes (www.arizonapowerchutes.com) who has a perfect record with over 2000 hours of flight time. He’s got to know up from down!

Even though the weather in Scottsdale will reach 72 degrees today, at six am, it’s somewhere in the 40’s and I’m freezing. Dressed in Randy’s extra black down jumpsuit, hood with a neck warmer, and fleece gloves, I should be toasty warm, but my blood feels like ice and my teeth are chattering. Any second we will be airborne. I ought to jump out right now, or it will be too late. Is it really adventure I seek, or do I have a death wish? And how long ago did I write my will?

“We will ascend at 600 feet a minute,” says Randy through the headphones. Our seatbelts are connected in a one-man harness, so there’s no bailing now, not without dragging 200 pounds of Randy with me. “Ready?”

“Yup,” My voice is two octaves higher than usual.

“When we take off, depending on the wind, there’ll be a slight bump, so don’t worry. And then, we’ll be airborne.”

I turn and look at our umbilical cord, a forty-foot long parachute lying in the desert sand, 550-square feet of fabric. I have the strange sensation that we’ll be dangling like the tail of a kite.

When someone told me Powerchuting was flying in the sky, I remembered a recurring dream I used to have as a kid – I’d be riding my bicycle, and suddenly I’d be pedaling straight up in the air, flying over the rooftops. It was always thrilling. So I had to try it.

Now I’m not so sure. Randy guns the engine and our little contraption rolls down the patch of desert he’s chosen as our runway. I look back and see the parachute billow and arc above us. Suddenly we’re airborne. Just like that. I never felt a bump, and it must have taken all of 3 seconds, no more than the snap of a finger. Randy pulls on the throttle and the plane goes higher. The sun peeps over the mountains. We fly over a Saguaro tree. “Do you know your cactuses?” he asks.

“Not too many.” He points out Prickly Pear and Cholla, teddy bear and barrel cactus. He shows me creosote bushes and Palo Verde trees. We fly higher – not the 10,000 feet the Powerchute can fly, but 2,000 feet up, way above Camelback Mountain, a rock formation that looks like a camel. He points out the canal and Lake Pleasant. Pinnacle Peak, a hill I’ve climbed, looks no bigger than a pointy thimble. The Deer Valley Airport observation tower is no higher than a parking meter.

“Okay,” Randy says, “Your turn to fly. Push your foot down on this pedal, pull on the left cord and we’ll turn left.” We turn 360 degrees. “Good, now push the throttle all the way back.” As I do, the plane makes much less noise and I panic. We’re going to stall. We’re going to die. I take my hand off the throttle.

“Keep going, all the way back,” he says.

“Are you sure?” This is insane, but I do it anyway – he’s the pilot. We don’t stall. We’re idling and floating, almost like a hot air balloon.

“Okay turn right.”

I’m flying! I’m Superwoman in a black down jumpsuit instead of a cape, and I can make us go left, right, up, and down. This is what the Wright brothers must have felt when they glided over Kitty Hawk. We speed along at 28 miles per hour.

Randy takes over the controls as we descend to right above a dry creek bed, like a mini-canyon and about as wide as a two-lane road. Oh my God! We’re in the wash! Now I feel like Luke Skywalker, except instead of fighting the Galactic Empire, we’re searching for wildlife. “Look! Coyote!” Ahead of us, the beige-colored animal races through the bushes. We see a cow whose calf is scared out of her wits and doesn’t know how to escape us, a huge noisy bird of prey. The poor calf runs around in circles. “There used to be a javalina family in a cave up ahead,” Randy says. “I haven’t seen them recently – I think I scared them away.” We fly alongside the cave and I peer in – no Javalinas.

A jackrabbit races across the sand beneath us. We ascend high again and in the distance, I can see two hot air balloons being inflated, then rising up into the sky. We’re really high up now, and first a small plane flies beneath us, then a helicopter. We’re headed back towards Randy’s van and trailer. And just like that –no longer than a finger snap – again without so much as a jerk or a bump, we’re back on the ground. Randy hands me a “First Flight Certificate” and a Pilot’s Log Book page on which he has recorded one half-hour of flight time and one landing.

“All you need is eleven and a half more hours and you’ll be a certified sport pilot,” he says.

Me? A pilot in only 11.5 more hours? Now that’s a scary thought – even though I’m still high on the adventure. I know my ride was a snap because if Randy’s expertise. Still, it’s tempting, except for explaining to my friends and sister how going up in the air in a go-cart attached to a parachute is the most fun thing they’ll ever do, even though I really don’t know how to explain the experience. It’s a cross between being shot out of a cannon and riding on a magic carpet – or maybe it is just like my dream –riding a bicycle in the sky -- but this is much better because you don’t have to peddle.

Zorbing Globe Riding In New Zealand

I was in New Zealand, on my way to go ZORBING globe riding, an adventure in which you crawl inside an 11-foot high inflatable ball and go tumbling down a steep hill with such an adrenaline rush, they call it the 'astronaut-in-training' ride. I hadn’t eaten breakfast because everyone had warned me there might be dire repercussions, the ride was so intense.

It was a three-hour drive to Roturua from The Farm at Cape Kidnappers in Hawkes Bay, where I was staying, but I’d heard so much about this scary, fun adventure, that I decided it was worth the three-hour trip to get there. Besides, every time I do something that terrifies me, I feel empowered. Driving was scary enough – here I was in a foreign country on the wrong side of the road with directions that made no sense. I’d already been lost three times, and had stopped at that many gas stations to ask for better directions. Now I was lost again. I pulled up in front of a liquor store, so frustrated, I was almost hyperventilating. “Would you like a drink?” asked the store owner. It was ten o’clock in the morning, but I was almost ready to say yes.

Miraculously, it turned out I was only a half-mile from ZORB Rotorua.

“Did you bring an extra change of clothes?” asked the person at the desk.

“Why?”

“Because you’re going to get soaked.”

It was about 55 degrees outside. I didn’t want to drive back cold and dripping. “No one said anything about getting wet,” I said.

“Well, you see, it’s too windy to do Zorbit, so you’re going to do Zydro. You’ll like it much better because it’s our wildest ride. We put water inside the globe and send you zig-zagging down the hill. You can buy a t-shirt and shorts, and our changing rooms have a hair dryer.”

Wildest ride? I wondered if he could hear my heart pounding. I could.

You can still back out, I told myself as I read the agreement I had to sign: “Zorb® globe riding can involve risk of injury. If you decide not to take the ride, please just tell any Zorb® crew member and they will, even if you are at the launch pad, arrange for you to return to reception and get a refund.”

But what would I tell my friends? That I’d chickened out? I purchased a pair of shorts and a T-shirt and waited with five others for the van to drive us up the hill to the launch pad. No one spoke. From the top, the hill looked as steep as Everest. As I was first off the van, the attendant chose me to go first. He dumped about a foot of water into the huge white inflatable sphere and said, “Climb in.” I dove through the chute feeling like Alice and Wonderland going down the rabbit hole, landing in a pool of warm water. The attendant gave the ball a little push.

As the globe began to roll down the hill, I was splashed around in the water. My body twisted and turned sideways, then I sloshed forward, then backward, but never upside down. This wasn’t scary after all. It was fun. It was thrilling, even better than fast downhill skiing. I began to laugh. This must be what it’s like inside the womb if your mother is galloping on horseback, I thought. The started to spin faster, like an out of control toboggan. I stopped laughing and began to scream. It felt like a combination of flying down a steep water slide and being on a loopty-loop roller coaster. The ball was rolling so fast I was sure I’d inadvertently bounced right off the zig zag track. I tried to peer outside, but it was like looking in vain through a windshield during a torrential downpour.

And then, suddenly, the ball slowed. Whew. I wasn’t off the track after all. An attendant spun the ball so that the chute faced down. The water poured out like a deluge. “Come on out,” he said. I slid out, soaking wet, my heart pounding, but this time out of joy, not fear. The attendant gave me a thumbs up, and with a huge grin on his face, said, “Congratulations!”

Later that day, I waited for my spa treatment in the lounge of the Spa at Cape Kidnappers. I sat looking out at cows and sheep polka-dotting the velvety rolling green hills. Not too far away, a newborn lamb buried itself into her mothers’ udder. My therapist Manula introduced herself and led me into the treatment room. I lay down on the table and inhaled the intoxicating aroma of lavender oil. She dug into the knots in my shoulders. “You’re so tight!” she said. “What have you been doing?”

“Driving. And getting lost. But I think those knots are from Zorbing.”

“You went Zorbing?” She seemed to look at me in awe. “That thing with the huge ball where you roll inside down a hill?”

“Yup,” I laughed. “I earned those knots. Just call me ZORBONAUT.”

PADDLEBOARDING AT LAKE AUSTIN SPA, TEXAS

Many people come to the Lake Austin Spa (http://www.lakeaustin.com/luxury-spa-resort.php) in Texas’ legendary Hill Country to mellow out. Not me – I came to try a new sport called stand-up paddleboarding, similar to surfing because the board is like a surfboard – just a little longer and wider; and like a surfboard, you ride standing up, balancing on your legs. The only difference is that whereas in surfboarding, you want the waves to carry you in, with paddleboarding, you can do it on a calm lake or river because the paddle is your propulsion. The sport is said to have originated in Polynesia and then moved to Hawaii, just like surfing. And while the sport is still in its infancy, it’s growing, especially in California and Florida. The best way to get started is to take a lesson (http://www.rei.com/expertadvice/articles/paddleboarding.html)

“Just think of your body as headlights,” said my Lake Austin Spa paddelboard instructor, Sandy. “You have to stay forward, because if you turn sideways you’ll fall right into the water.” This was not a good day to be capsizing – the lake was around 60 degrees. It was raining and the outside temperature was 50 something. Not only were the winds were gusting to around 35mph, but there were little whitecaps on the water, and it was drizzling. Sandy looked out at the lake. “Maybe we better cancel,” she suggested. But this was my last day at Lake Austin Spa, my only chance to try it.

I thought of the photos I’d seen in magazines of Jennifer Aniston, Matthew McConaughey and Pierce Brosnan paddleboarding and grinning from ear to ear. No way was I canceling. Besides, worse case scenario, I’d have a great core workout. You have to bend your knees the entire time, so it’s like doing one continuous squat; and because you switch the paddle from side to side on each stroke, it’s a killer upper body workout.

We started on the dock. I went from being on my hands and knees to a slight jump up. She showed me how to paddle on land. Then Sandy put my board in the water and held on as I first, crawled on to it, then stood on the water. It was easier than being on a Bosu ball. I bent down, picked up my paddle, stood again without falling and began to stroke, switching from hand to hand. Soon I was flying down the lake, it was that simple – of course, the wind was with me. When Sandy suggested we turn around, which you did by paddling only to one side, as in canoeing, we were against the wind. My paddleboard bobbled up and down in the rough water and I bent my knees more to stay afloat. “Get on your knees,” Sandy said. “You’ll be able to pull harder with your arms.” Good thing I got down because the wind and waves both picked up. It was like fighting through a hurricane. I’d paddle one stroke forward and the wind would blow us three strokes back. Could I make it back?

Patrick, in charge of water sports at Lake Austin suddenly appeared in a motor boat. “You okay? You want a tow?” he called.

“A tow?” I laughed. “Hey! We’re strong women! We’ll make it.” I kept on paddlng, my arms aching, my body shivering. And finally we reached the shore. I pulled my board out of the water and looked at the rough water. I’d done it! I could have bailed but I’d made myself do it.

“Good job,” said Sandy.

“In my next life I’m coming back as a gondolier,” I chuckled.