How high is 1200 feet??

This high.

Since the honeymoon seemed like an ideal time to do a bunch of cool things that we don't normally do, I jumped on parasailing the second I saw that it was an option. I'm one of those people that's really really good on rollercoasters, so of the three options--600, 900, and 1200 feet--I went ahead and booked the highest-altitude option. It was kind of a no-brainer. Especially after the less-than-complete success I experienced as a very large hang glider, I was excited to do some legitimate flying. Better yet, Hannah and I could go together, on a side-by-side duo flight.

We made our appointment, waited for a few minutes at the dock in Manteo, NC, and got on the boat. The first "oh boy" moment was when I saw what would be supporting us as we dangled hundreds of feet above the ocean: two straps around each leg, held in place by one plastic buckle. Hannah captured this moment of realization on camera:

"Ohhhhh boy...."

However, we did not get very long to dwell on this idea. In the next minute, the chute was out...

"Y'arr!"

and we were airborne.

"Oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap oh crap oh cra..."

Immediately after our knees left the boat deck, Hannah and I knew that this would be our last time doing this. The winds tipped us to and fro as we rose into the air, ever so conscious of the fact that the full weight of each our lives rested one plastic buckle and two caribiner clips. Hannah and I have since determined that, throughout both of our lives, there is only one moment in which one of us was more scared than we were right then. Needless to say, we lived to tell the tale, and after a few minutes of... let's call it "settling," we did manage to relax and enjoy it.

This is what "enjoying it" looks like.

We got to snap some cool pictures and do something we'd never done before. In retrospect, I'm actually very glad we did it... personally, it's the kind of thing where if I hadn't done it, I'd still be wanting to right now. Instead, we've been there, done that, and won't need to ever do it again. But since it was something really different and since being scared absolutely shitless makes a good story, I'm glad we did it and rather enjoyed the experience--just in a different way than I thought I would.

Anyway, in other news, we got home late last night. We ended up cutting our trip a couple of days short, as a result of several factors: anticipating bad traffic for the weekend because of July 4th, feeling sunburned and dirty after spending the whole week in the sun, lacking a sufficient place to clean/cool off because of our relocation to a remote and remarkably Jeff Foxworthy-inspired campground, and just general exhaustion after such a busy and awesome week.

Ultimately, objective #1-A-prime for our honeymoon was to recover and relax following the stress and insanity of putting the wedding together, and when it appeared that we were getting more stressed, we figured it was time to just come back home, where we can relax and decompress further. As I recall, the amount of time from "Maybe we should just go home" to being in the car and on the road was about 40 minutes.

It was an awesome time and we're hoping to make it back this fall. For now, we're spending our time cleaning a little bit, sorting through pictures, relaxing, and reminiscing about how utterly incredible these past couple of weeks have been.

We'll keep you posted. Talk soon!