Skydive Lost Prarie

Saturday we went to the 42nd Annual Skydive Lost Prarie Boogie. 'Twas Mom, Grandma and Grandpa, Luke and Heather, and us'ns. It's an event my mom's family has traditionally gone to, and I have great childhood memories of it. It's a pretty simple affair. We watch people stretch out and fold up their chutes, walk to the practice tents and decide how they'll execute their jumps, and load into a plane. They take off on a tiny runway just in front of us, and while they're flying around for 20 minutes, we eat snacks. When we hear the plane high high above us, we search for it, and when it is found, explain its location to each other by the cloud landmarks. You can barely see it spit out a couple dozen black dots, which join hands to form stars and circles and then break apart. The dots become miniature people as they get closer and their forms are suddenly surprised by a colorful rectangle following them. They float to earth at various speeds and land, one after the other, all around. This happens on the half hour or so all day long for 10 days.

One of my most vivid memories from years back is of being mooned by a whole plane load of people as they taxied the runway for take off. It's a rather wild bunch.


This time we went on the very first day of the Boogie, so it was a lot quieter. Things should really be picking up about now, ending on Canada Day. It's a big draw for Canadians; they always start the festival exactly 10 days ahead of Canada Day. We only got mooned once, by a guy riding by in a Jeep, and flashed by two ladies riding in a convertible. When one lady saw Zoralee, she felt embarassed and quick pulled up her top. We got a kick out of that, because of all the people at the Boogie to appreciate a good set of titties for the most basic of human reasons, Z would be it.

walking to the plane as a group, in cool outfits, as though they're in a

movie about walking to the plane as a group, in cool outfits...to save the world

practicing the mid-air join up

Here're Luke and Heather observing the jumpers with binoculars as they get rides back to camp.

(Is this as riotously funny to any of you as it was to us?

I guess it helps you to know that this was the closest we got to the jumpers that day;

they had to land up the road, because the field in front of us was still being hayed.

This was our way of saying, "Oh, there you guys are.")

two of my mom's pics . . .