My skydiving assignment: Jump out of a perfectly good airplane to prove JUNK headbands stay in place and look super cool under extreme conditions, while checking off a major bucket list experience in my life. Looking at the photos and JUNK Labs video still gives me butterflies. It’s quite the combination of adrenaline and what the heck was I thinking?!

 

When I arrived at the jump site with the JUNK crew, I could hear our videographer, Luke, feeling out the instructors, “So how’s it looking? Are we able to go up?” The reply wasn’t reassuring, “Ehhhh, cloud coverage: borderline. Wind: borderline. But don’t worry, the pilot (Wolf) knows what he’s doing.” Oh yeah, it was like that.

 

 

Playing sardines in a tiny airplane— how they managed to stuff five of us in there I’ll never know. For the journey up to 11,000 feet I channeled my cool, calm and collected side. The only problem? Every time we hit a bump (waaaay too often for my liking) all that calm cool collected crap went out the window and I was like, “WE ARE GONNA DIE!”

 

 

On the way up the instructors cracked jokes in an attempt to lighten the mood, but seriously I was thinking, “I’m not two years old and I realize in a matter of minutes I’ll be free falling to the earth at the speed of a Formula 1 race car.” No really, they were awesome and I was stoked to jump with such pros!

 

 

Holy crap— why are we all smiling like this is fun?! Once that door opened it was go time. No chance to overthink things, just do it! After we flung out of the airplane it truly became an incredible experience. The free fall was actually super fun— my favorite part.

 

 

Sticking my tongue out seemed like a great idea at the time until the most epic case of cotton mouth followed. #sandpaper (Totally a Miley Cyrus moment.) High levels of adrenaline put me in a euphoric state and I was on cloud 9, literally! I remember telling myself to take it all in while I was free falling which meant filling the senses and letting them go into overdrive. I was hootin’ and hollerin’ all the way!

 

 

After I successfully pulled the parachute draw cord, the pace slowed down exponentially. My instructor asked if I wanted to do some turns by pulling on the lines above. The first few spins were fun cutting left and right but then he went for one without telling me and things changed quickly. Not going to lie, the last set of twirls made me want to blow chunks all over the pretty little earth below. #nauseous

It’s safe to say that I enjoyed the free fall much more than the parachute twirly whirlies. 

 

I’m happy to report we landed safely and my JUNK Constantine Flex Tie stayed in perfect place. The headband held on tight against all the wind, G forces and turbulence as we shuttled towards planet earth. The best part? I didn’t even think about the headband or worry it would fall off. I just savored every moment of this amazing experience. I love adventure and pushing the limits of my comfort zone. If you haven’t added skydiving to your bucket list, you should!

 

Stay tuned for our next Junk Labs Extreme Test: tree swinging through the giant ponderosa pines of California. Nothing like hanging over 200 feet up in the forest canopy on a sketchy rope swing!

 

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