Part 2:
We made the trek up to see the Roanoke Star, and the lookout over the city.
I think you can just make out the host hotel in this pic from the overlook:
We did the poker run in there somewhere (First one of those I'd ever done) but evidently left the camera in the saddle bags the whole time. The route was amazing, loved it!
Back at the hotel.... Man, they'll let anyone in here!
And suddenly, it was Thursday night, the week was almost over, time for the final evening's festivities:
Confirmed... They really will let anyone come here, no matter how untrustworthy they are!
Awards were awarded:
Speeches were made:
Goodies were raffled off:
Surprisingly good food (I thought at least) was eaten:
But alas, we had miles to go the next day, so we called it an early night and packed up and prepared, said our first 15 or 20 rounds of goodbyes, got up good and early Friday morning, had a quick breakfast, and said our final goodbyes to Inzane VXIII:
But as I teased in an earlier post, the adventure wasn't quite over with, at least not for Kali.
There is but a single skydiving center in the USA that will allow someone under 18 to skydive, and there are some paperwork hoops we had to go through to make it happen (Mommy had to mail me Kali's birth cert and a notarized affidavit from her promising not to sue and that she gave her okay). That skydiving center is sorta kinda halfway from Roanoke to Dallas just outside Memphis Tennessee.
So off we went Saturday morning.
Not only did we have to jump through some hoops for this to happen, the drop zone did too. They had to drop out of the official US Parachuting Association (Which is ironic, since the guy who owns and runs the drop zone is the national director OF the USPA), and there is only one instructor that will take minors, he's an Australian guy who had to give up his US Skydiving license, he jumps under Australian rules. The US parachute companies wouldn't allow them to use their rigs for this, so they imported a tandem setup fro France to make it happen.
But it happened.
Twice.
Initially Flamingobabe had toyed with the idea of riding out there with us and jumping as well. While I look forward to her making her first jump, this probably isn't the right dropzone for her. I don't know the story, but there's a stuffed flamingo hanging form a noose in the building.
Kali getting initial ground training from her instructor:
And there goes my baby into the airplane with only a one way ticket. That'll put a lump in a parent's throat!
Let's do this!
Playing a quick game of Rock Paper Scissors with the cameraman:
And all too quickly it was time to deploy the parachute:
And back on Terra Firma:
The first coherent words out of her mouth were "CAN I GO AGAIN?!?!?!" so yeah.... She went back up and did it again.
For anyone still following along, if you'd like to see the video of Kali's jump, that can be had here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IN_BPf3j_YM&t=1sAnd if I somehow didn't post enough pics, ALL of my pics are on my website (Including the hi-res versions of any you might want a copy of)
http://www.serk.net/2018-pics/The Inzane ones are in the images_27 through images_55 folders.
Apologies for not getting more pics of the rides or that sort of thing, for me the joy of Inzane is the people. The roads were awesome, but the opportunity to get face time with a few hundred of my closest friends is the real draw for me.
I'd been dreading making this post, knowing that once I put the pics up, the trip is well and fully over, but alas, it appears to be time.
Thanks for everything to everyone, and I really REALLY hope I can swing it to make it again next year!
