Sheilaclapkin's Blog;

You probably cannot get a better-unobstructed view from a helicopter ride than flying with the doors off.  Why choose this kind of experience?  You decide that once and for all, you are going to take a chance, get your adrenalin rushing, and give yourself a memory for a lifetime. After all, one comes to realize that you do fold into yourself as you age and become a bag of memories. Unless you continue to add to your bag, you will become a limited memory bank.  When considering a helicopter ride, you make the decision to do it and then you decide; doors on or off.  So it is your first helicopter ride, you don’t know if doors off or on will be your bet?  But, I considered something extreme for me, why not if it is offered? There is very little you have to do except sit there and let it all happen. The two-way talking headsets serve talking back and forth, but they also protect you a bit from the wind and noise.

The flight begins and you are holding your camera, where the handles are also draped on your neck, but still you are too afraid to move. Will the wind grab the camera, sweep you off of your seat; will it blow you to bits? No, actually you make friends with the wind and the elements that come your way.  Still, you feel a type of pain; maybe I’d better call it discomfort at being exposed.

Soon you are working the camera, talking photos because you know you will not remember each of the individual sights and you come to realize weeks later that all you do remember of the sights are in your photos.  What you do remember are sensations of wind, your calculated breathing, the pilot saying something every once in awhile, other passengers asking questions, and when you realize you are doing this doors off thing, it is time to return to the air field and land.

Folks, there are NO spirits up there. There is nothing up there but air and your entering into it causing the wind.  All that we are, all that we want to be, all that we have, all that we need, all that we dream, all that we understand, all that we hope, all that we believe is down there. Down on the ground called earth is our life, unless you are a NASA scientist or an astronaut and then this would be another realm for discussion.  Maybe I sound a little negative, but I am not. I am just saying it was over in a flash of wind, memory, discomfort and the marveled fact that I learned why early fliers wore caps.  You cannot, and I mean cannot comb your hair after a flight in the brutal air. Wind tangled hair is the single most challenge of the encounter and the most lingered memory.

So that you can experience a bit of the doors off flight, with a view from above, here are a few photos, which only hope to capture the beauty of the land below. It was more than a bird’s eye view, it was more than you get on your own physical means, it was more than fun, it was more than a theme park ride, it was unlike what you expected, but not what you thought it would be…soaring, idyllic, tranquil, relaxing, otherworldly, perhaps mystical. Sometimes expectations and inexperience get onto our path of reasoning.

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