Personal Essay

It was a million degrees outside, the hot Colorado sun beating down on me as I sat there idling. The wind was howling as the clouds started to move in at an excruciatingly slow pace. As the mechanical hum began the cable started to give way. My heart started to race faster than ever before and then it all stopped. There was a shout from the back. The camera was out. The cable began to rewind and my heart settled a bit. The young lady with one lazy eye came over and grabbed the camera and informed me it would be just another minute. Torture. The best way to describe the feeling at that moment is torture just waiting for the moment to come, for the second time. A few moments later the lazy eyed women came back with the new camera. The hum began again along with my racing heart. The cable slowly began to give way once more and the seat leaned forward. It didn’t stop until I could see into the perilous canyon beneath without having to move my head at all. The water below roared and rushed its way through the never ending ravine water splashing up nipping at the stone walls. I couldn’t catch my breath but the 8,000 foot elevation had nothing to do with it. I kept envisioning the cable snapping the moment it detached from the small structure that hung above the ravine. I can see myself falling endlessly into the roaring river never to be seen again. But, that has never happened before. That also does not mean I can’t be the first. The wind stopped howling. The trees stopped shaking. The river stopped roaring. The cable had detached from the platform. Time slowed as I began to fall face first into the canyon. I struggled to keep my eyes open as I continued to plummet. The water was getting so close I could reach out and touch it. All the sudden the cable caught hurling me towards the far canyon wall at lightning speed. I blinked and when my eyes opened all I could see was white striated rock staring back at me. The cable worked however and I began to slow as the white rock got closer and closer. Gravity kicked in and did it’s thing swinging me back in the other direction facing the other stone wall. I skimmed the water once more and started my assent to the other side but by this point my inertia had slowed me to a fun calm speed. I started to enjoy my peaceful swing through the canyon and finally got to take in the beauty of it. I looked to my left and the bottom of the canyon provided an amazing view through the entire ravine and at the end was the setting sun. It was something out of a movie. I will never forget getting dropped off the side of a mountain and hurled at over 110 miles per hour towards the opposite wall in that mix between a bungy jump and a roller coaster. It may have been the scariest moment of my life but it also showed me that there truly is a rainbow behind every storm.