I went bungee cord jumping out of a hot air balloon last weekend with Greg. The name of the company I jumped with was Bonzai Bungee and we met up with them in the early morning with a group of people in a field off of Mira Mesa Boulevard.
Bonzai Bungee had a large hot air balloon that they kept tied down by three pickup trucks. It was an interesting system. One jumper at a time would have his bungee harness attached and then climb into the basket. The balloon would rise until the three ropes were taut at 300 feet. The jumper would then climb out of the basket onto the little wooden ledge and jump after the crowd had counted down from 10.
It was fun to watch. After the jumper would stop bouncing at the end of the bungee, the balloon would slowly float to the ground. All of us spectators would grab ahold of the thick bungee cord to keep it off the ground and untangled while the next person was hooked up. I wasn't nervous at all on the ground while waiting for my turn to jump. Even when it was my turn to get hooked up and climb into the basket I felt fine.
The fear finally found and hit me hard as I stepped out onto the little ledge and looked down at the hard dirt 300 feet below me. There was no net or air bag below to break my fall if something went wrong and my mind wanted to rebel. It actually took two countdowns before I summoned the courage to leap, but once I did the feeling of falling was amazing. As I sprung up from the bottom of the bungee's stretch, I did fun flip in the air that I had seen several other jumpers perform before me.
After my first jump, I had the opportunity to do another jump so I took it. The second jump was a little more painful because the bungee cord caught me as I flipped and gave me a nasty jerk between the legs. Ouch! Greg rode up with me in the basket both times even though he didn't jump. At the end of the day I got a nice T-Shirt and a video of my two jumps.
p.s. A reporter from Channel 7 News was also there to jump and do a story on the bungee company. He said it should be on TV sometime next week.
