Alaska Cruise: Day Four (cont'd)

Once we arrived in Juneau, Joel and I departed by for our next Alaskan adventure. . .ziplining through tree canopies, around 150 ft. in the air! It was a blast!  Joining us were a young couple and an older retired couple, so we made an unusual group. The zipline course, one mile in length, consisted of nine lines and two swinging sky bridges.  The system was different that what we've done before, so we had to learn how to guide with our left hand and brake with our right hand as we approached the platforms. 

All was going very well until the last line.  Our guide warned us that the line, about 700 feet in length, had a large sag, so it was important to ball up like a cannonball in order to make it to the platform.  First of all, I was doing just fine making it to the platforms with my feet dangling, thank you very much.  Secondly, do you know how difficult it is for this fifty-something female to become a "cannonball" while hanging in the air?  I have trouble doing that on a firm foundation!  On that line, I was the last one to zip after everyone else had successfully made it across.  I jumped off the platform, completely focused on trying to draw my knees up to my chest.  The next thing I knew, my speed was slowing down, and I started to dread the inevitable. Yep. .  .about twenty feet from the platform, I died on the line.  The guide instructed me to turn backwards and pull myself hand over hand on the cable until he could reach me and pull me up to the platform.  And what was my loving husband doing?  Videotaping my dilemma, of course!  When I reached the platform, slightly embarrassed, the guide tried to make me feel better by saying that it's a matter of aerodynamics.

I'm thinking about having a t-shirt made that says, "It's not that I'm overweight, I'm just not aerodynamic!" 

In the interest of continued cruise felicity, the video was deleted. :)

The preferred dangling legs method

Happy to have made it across one of the sky bridges

One of the sky bridges