November 15th, 2008 Greg Corwin
My sister Allison came down to NKY the week before my brother got married and joined us for a weekend in the Gorge. You are really starting to see that I love it down there right?
Well she loved it too. After I showed her our land down there she got bitten by the same bug and decided to jump into the pool. Yep, she bought a plot about 1000′ from ours! I think it’s great, ten years from now we will all be down there enjoying a Thanksgiving dinner with plenty of room for everyone since between us we will have about 6 bedrooms!
She and her son Luke came on a few short hikes with us (he’s only 3 so he can’t hike far), and we stayed at the King’s Point cabin.
Linky to the photos
Posted in Red River Gorge, Family | No Comments »
November 14th, 2008 Greg Corwin
Will we ever get enough of the Red? I doubt it! Here are some photos that I took on section “I” of the Rough Trail and Whittleton Arch.
Note the one of Alsatia counting the tree rings to see how old the tree was before it fell across the trail. My budding environmentalist!
Linky to the full Slideshow…
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November 1st, 2008 Greg Corwin
Halloween was a great one this year. I pulled out all the tombstones from last year and I made another one with a gargoyle on it. But the best part was this tree limb that I found.
Back in September we had this crazy windstorm, we got hit with 80 mph winds for about 8 hours, aparrently it was a leftover from Hurricane Ike (can you believe that?). Well after the storm i saw thing gnarly tree limb that had been blown off a humongous birch tree sitting on the side of the road. And I immediately knew what to do with it.
I recruited my father-in-law to help me hoist it up onto the top of his truck and them after I got it home I stipped off all the leaves and small twigs then stained it black. I put it out in our front yard and got it to stand up by running a piece of rebar through it an into the ground. I then tied some skeletons and bats and those blinking “Creepy eyes” on it. Wicked!
Then of course I had to dress up, and who else could I be in my Halloweentown? None other than Jack Skellington of course!
I’m a master of fright, and a demon of light
And I’ll scare you right out of your pants
To a guy in Kentucky, I’m Mister Unlucky
And I’m known throughout England and France
And since I am dead, I can take off my head
To recite Shakespearean quotations
No animal nor man can scream like I can
With the fury of my recitations
† Excerpt: Jack’s Lament from Tim Burton’s fantastic animated movie The Nightmare Before Christmas
Linky to the photos
Posted in Ackerly Antics, Friends, Halloween | No Comments »
October 22nd, 2008 Greg Corwin
WOW, he was right!!!
By “he” I mean Tim, my dive instructor. He suggested that I get the video of the jump because “you will never make that face again”. By “that face” he meant the look of pure exhilaration as I jumped out of the plane. But that is getting a little ahead of myself…
My brother Mike is getting married and he decided to have his bachelor party in Las Vegas. Now, I am not particularly fond of Las Vegas, I don’t really gamble, but when Mike said we were going skydiving I said “I’m all in”.
We got up on Friday morning and headed off to the Boulder Springs Airport about 30 minutes from downtown. They showed us the “scare the crap out of you, you could die, or get maimed, or be paralyzed” video then showed us how to fall correctly. Then they suited us up and took us out to the plane.
We took off and joked all the way up to 15,000′ (that’s 3 miles!) and then one by one they shoved us out the door. It was a tandem dive meaning that I was strapped tight to an experienced skydiver named Tim.
My brother was the first one out the door. His diver swayed him side to side towards the door and told him “On the count of three. One… Two…,” then he paused and joked “Are you sure you want to do this???” Mike went TOTALLY white and yelled “C’mon man, quit f*&%ing around and let’s DO IT!” and then they were gone!
I was next. Tim asked me on the way up if I get seasick, “not at all” I said, and he replied “great, we’ll have some fun and tumble a bit”. I thought I knew what that meant until we did it, first I saw the ground, then the plane, then the ground, then the plane! Crazy! The freefall lasted 44 seconds and was so intense, it’s hard to describe. Air is forced into your mouth and nose, and the sound of the wind rushing past you is the only thing that indicates you are even moving. We were so high up you can’t tell that the ground is coming at you ~120 mph (195 km/h). We would see all around, Las vegas, Lake Powell, Hoover Dam, the mountains, the desert. It was incredible.
Tim pulled the chute and that was a dichotomous feeling - on the one hand it was very comforting to have it open, on the other hand it wasn’t very comfortable on “the boys” if you know what I mean. LOL. The rest of the ride was very cool too, Tim let me use the controls on the chute and spin around in a circle a few times. We landed on our butts and then it was over. A perfect jump. Of course I bought the t-shirt because it says “Why gamble with your money when you can gamble with your life!”
I am definitely doing it again, mainly because it happens so fast I want to see what I missed!
Oh, and Rob & Andy - you are going with me next time!!!
Linky to the video
Linky to the fullscreen slideshow…
Posted in Las Vegas, Skydiving | No Comments »
October 17th, 2008 Greg Corwin
Here are some more photos of us at the Red, all taken the weekend we bought our property in Timber Ridge.
Linky to the full slideshow…
Posted in Red River Gorge | No Comments »