In the upcoming chapter, Rafael's dare devil ways may get Jessica and Rafael kicked off their very first zip line! Get in touch with your adventurous side and experience what it is to zip line by following along with Raf and Jess.
HAPPY READING!
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Chapter 9: One, two, JUMP!
There isn't anything quite like it: that moment right before you step
off the edge of a cliff to experience your first zip line. The anticipation has
been building; courage is running strong. There is trust in the tour guides and
trust within the mechanical soundness of the contraption you are harnessed
to. Or, at least you are telling
yourself over and over that those things are true.
“Are you ready, Jessica?” Brian asks me as he pulls on the
rope that is attached to the harness around my legs.
As he pulls it, I rise up to the stepping block. When I’m
ready, all I do is step off and I will go flying down the mountain side at 70 miles
per hour. He pulls me up so high that I can barely touch the stepping block
with the tips of my toes. All of my weight is being held by the harness around
my legs. Every muscle that I pulled during that darn Rugby game with all the
professional athletes start to tighten up again, causing me to cringe just a
little.
“Dang it,” I think to myself. This is going to hurt like
hell. This is probably the worst thing that I can do for my recovering body,
aside from playing another game of Rugby. Still, I’m here; I have a threshold
for pain and I’m dying to fly around the Catalina mountain tops like
Superwoman.
“Ready!” I yell back. I quickly glance at Rafael who is
beaming with the same excitement we all feel.
Brian moves out of my way and I use my long legs to take a
giant step off the cliff.
“Woa! Holy mother of…ahhhh!” I scream just a little as I
start to glide down the mountain. Remembering the zip lining instructions, I
pull my legs up into the cannon ball position. As soon as I do this, my speed
triples.
“Wooohooo! I’m flying!” I say to the trees. No one else can
hear me. It’s just me, nature and the zip line.
The ballerina in me is dying to point my toes and try some
dance moves in the air. Yet, I know that we are supposed to remain in the
cannon ball position until we see Larry, who is waiting on the other side of
the zip line to help stop us. So I remain a cannon ball and simply enjoy the
pure exhilaration of flying.
Before I know it, I see Larry waving his arms so I drop my
legs and pray to God that I don’t take Larry out on my way in. I start to get a
little nervous because I’m flying at Lord knows what speed and I don’t see how
I will slow down enough to make a smooth landing.
Larry pushes a wooden block down the zip line. It meets with
my harness and shakes my whole body. It slows down my speed immensely and I am
able to put my feet down in the landing area while Larry catches me so that I
don’t fall.
“Don’t forget to turn at the end,” Larry says to me, but the
high that I’m feeling from my first zip lining experience makes it impossible
for my brain to process anything but the endorphins and adrenaline that are
pumping through me.
“Are you OK? How was it?” Larry asks me, looking a little
concerned.
Realizing that I haven’t spoken since I arrived on this side
of the zip line, I try to make my mouth work.
“Huh? What? Oh! It was amazing!” I finally answer.
Larry smiles and focuses his attention on the zip line once
again. Rafael is coming down next. I join the group of chatty zip liners who
are all sharing what their first experience was like. I just want to watch
Rafael. He loves this kind of thing.
Suddenly, I hear Larry yelling at Rafael unlike he did with
any of us. Clearly, he is really concerned about what Rafael is doing. I squint my eyes to see what Rafael is up to.
Oh no. He is trying to do the “Superman.” This is where you stretch your arms
out in front of you and your legs behind you, so that you look like Superman
flying. Apparently, this move is illegal
to do on the zip lines because it can cause the zip line to become unbalanced
and the zipliner could get stuck in the middle of the zip line, which is what
we are all trying to avoid.
I know that the “Superman” move is illegal because Rafael
asked the tour guides about it before we started. They told him it was illegal
but there was one zip line that people could safely do it on, and they wouldn’t
say anything. This isn’t the right zip line for doing the “Superman.”
Great. We still have five zip lines to go and Rafael is
going to get us kicked out on the very first one. This is pretty typical.
Rafael is an adventurous dare devil who enjoys trying physically challenging
tasks everywhere we go. I’m used to it and find it rather entertaining. Larry
the tour guide doesn’t seem so amused.
Well, if Rafael gets himself kicked out, he will be leaving
by himself. I’m finishing this tour. Still, I really hope he charms his way out
of this one. Zip lining around the mountains won’t be nearly as fun without my
partner in crime.
“Put your legs into a cannon ball!” Larry yells at the top
of his lungs for the third time.
Rafael is finally close enough to hear him and puts his legs
into a cannon ball seconds before he is supposed to put his feet down to land.
Superman is beaming with one of the largest grins I’ve seen when
he lands.
“That was GREAT!” he yells. “YEAH!”
Then Rafael notices that Larry is shaking his head in a
disapproving manner. Oh boy. Here it comes. Rafael is going to get kicked out. I
start to muster up all my cute girl,
he-didn’t-mean-it-and-will-never-do-it-again energy to work on the tour guide.
I’m pretty good at getting us out of trouble as I’ve had a lot of practice.
“What?” Rafael asks Larry. “Did I do something wrong?”
“You did the Superman. The Superman is illegal on this zip
line. We told you that you can only do it on the last one,” Larry states.
“Oh!” Rafael says in surprise. “I thought this was the zip line we could do tricks
on, since it’s the smallest one.”
“No,” Larry replies. “It’s the last one.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry!” Rafael says with an incredible amount of sincerity. The fact
that he could very well be booted from the rest of this adventure is sinking
in. I can see the worry in his eyes.
“I really thought we could do tricks on this zip line. I’ll
do the cannon ball from now on, I promise,” he says.
Now, some may think that Rafael knew what he was doing was
wrong. All of us heard the conversation about illegal moves prior to the tour.
But what I know about Rafael is that he has selective hearing, especially when
he is excited.
Rafael’s innocence is pretty convincing, but just to be
sure, I put a supporting hand on Rafael’s back, smile my kindest smile, and say
to the tour guide,
“We understand the rules now. It won’t happen again.”
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Will Raf get kicked off the zip line? Will Jessica continue zip lining without him? Please come back for Chapter 10 to see what happens!
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