You know what’s crazy? I’ll tell you what’s crazy.
Whizzing through the trees at 40mph.
“What do you want to do today?”
“I don’t know, what do you want to do?”
What do you want to do is an irrelevant question in Gatlinburg because this is a region of sensory overload taken to the Nth degree.
We are seated in the Bear Skin Lodge at the base of the Great Smoky Mountains. The room is filled with brochures from the Gatlinburg chamber of commerce inducing us to come to the haunted house, The Ripley’s Believe it or Not museum, Hill Billy Putt Putt Golf.
One of my kids picks up the brochure that says ZIP LINE.
“How bout this?”
The picture shows a middle aged woman smiling as she descends through a canopy of trees. She looks like a modern day Maid Marian defying gravity secured by a safety harness.
“Why Not,” I say.
We check in to the Zip Line office. Iimmediately I wonder why I hadn’t taken that pre law class in college.
The young twenty something behind the counter pushes a document at me.
“Fill this in.”
I look at the waiver. It’s filled with a lot of legal terminology.
“I “fill in the blank” hold Zip Lines of Gatlinburg Harmless blah blah blah.
“If there is a severe head injury blah blah blah”
“Should someone in your party be impaled on a tribal stake blah blah blah”
“should a rabid raccoon descend from the wire and gnaw off your arms blah blah blah”
“Should the wire come uncoiled and sever your head, you, fill in the blank, promise to hold us harmless from all legal and monetary repercussions.”
You want my first born too? Sure where do I sign?
With that we go into another room where we will get some preliminary instruction. Pierre is standing by the counter. He is tall and angular and has a beard made of redwood husks. His pony tail is tied behind his head with not one, but two rubber bands.
He hands out zip line helmets which make everyone look like they have had a brain injury at one point in their life.
He instructs us to slide into the harness on the floor. It is a spider web of straps and caribeaners. If Pythagorean Theorem could be reduced to ropes and wires, this would be it.
I look around at the others who begin to place their feet inside the two large spots that appear to be for your legs.
It reminds me of an adult diaper as I grab hold of the straps and pull it up over my shorts.
Of course the straps stick to the bottom of my pants and as I tug upward, my shorts become more loin cloth like. I feel ridiculous as the white of my upper thigh is exposed for anyone to see.
I unwedge myself and pull the straps over my shoulders.
WEDGE
I feel the thigh straps pull tight across my groin.
I yelp slightly as I wonder if more children are possible.
“It’s suppose to feel snug,” the mountain man guide bellows from the front of the room.
We are lead to a church van with no air conditioning and lead up a steep hill.
There are signs that say Brake Now.
I wonder why they would need signs warning to people to brake going up hill.
We get to the top of the hill and observe our first challenge.
It’s a wooden bridge suspended with ropes. The bridge is over a 20 foot crevice that looks more harrowing as you stare at it.
Pierre starts rattling off important safety information that seems simple enough.
“Don’t put your hand on the wire or you might lose a finger.”
“Don’t horse around on the platform because if you fall, all of us fall.”
The rules seem simple enough.
All of us make it across the bridge with little difficulty and move to the harder tasks ahead.
We are now standing on a platform that surrounds a large tree. There are a dozen of us on this small tree stand and someone jokes about taking a shower.
It is a bit of comic relief during a moment that has some of us on edge.
I for one have never zip lined before and it looks a little radical.
We are standing in the middle of a forest in the middle of God’s great outdoors. The sun is dancing on the canopy above us, slithering shafts of light down through the leaves and tree trunks. The air is thick and whatever breeze there might be is vacuumed into the tree top like so much lint in a Dyson. I feel my core body temperature rising and beads of perspiration dripping from my armpit down the side of my chest.
I would like to wipe it but to raise my arm means someone would fall.
I look up at our tree. It has been decorated with eyes and nose and a mouth. The tree, one of a million in this zip line mecca, suddenly has a personality, a life force.
This tree looks like a wise old man of the forest who seems to be saying “why are you people trusting your lives to Pierre?”
The sun flickers through the tree tops as a hawk sails by on a silent ether. I feel a bead of sweat trickling under my brain damage helmet.
My eye glances down the wire that stretches a hundred yards to the next tree. I estimate the zip line is about 50 feet in the air. Just high enough to break bones or worse I think to myself.
Pierre shows us how to hold the caribeaner and how to position our legs. He tells us about the braking system at the bottom of the run.
“Move your head to one side or the other,” he says. “When that brake engages it’s a jolt, and if your face is right behind your caribeaner it could jar loose a few teeth.”
Great, I think to myself. More things to remember at forty miles an hour flying between two trees.
The brochure in the lodge said nothing about dental insurance.
I watch as a five year old jumps into the great beyond with barely a thought.
Then a teenage boy descends down the line.
The forest is alive with the energy and sound of his ride.
ZZZZIIIIPPPP!
Now it’s my turn.
Pierre is talking to me about position and hand adjustments. I look up and the tree is frowning as if it knows something I don’t.
“Bravo Three Ready to ride,” Pierre screams into the woods.
From the next tree stand a voice responds. “Bravo Three, Line clear.”
“OK, step off. have fun.”
I move to the edge and peer down. 50 feet looks pretty far down.
I gulp and go.
I fall for a millisecond and then feel the harness grab my loin and hips and snugly hold tight. I feel the line above me grow tight and I’m suddenly whizzing down the wire.
I feel the wind in my hair and I feel a sense of exhilaration.
What am I suppose to do, I wonder as my speed intensifies.
Head to the side. Check. Feet out. Check. Fingers out of the way of the sliding mechanism. Check.
The sun splashes my face through the trees like a strobe light at a pine scented disco.
Suddenly, the other tree stand comes into focus. I see the ramp and the other members of our zip line group.
Then the brake hits, ZIIIIPPP.
The deceleration is rapid and I maintain control as I brace my feet for impact with the ramp.
I’m still going too fast and my feet hit the plastic step stool on the front of the platform.
WAM.
The plastic step rockets against the tree in the center of the stand.
Suddenly I’m being caught by Pierre.
“Need to use your feet to slow your ride,” he says sternly.
I look up and the the new tree face is scowling as if I have broken some forest law of gravity.
I take my place around the platform and we all critique the following zip liners as they come barreling in.
The day proceeds wonderfully with no amputations or broken bones.
We take the church bus back down to the main office and we all shake hands and say goodbye.
We have forged a brotherhood. We are first time zip liners who achieved success in a forest of heat, on a wire of courage.
“That was awesome dad,” the kids say. “What do you want to do next?”
“Where’s the brochure,” I say with a chuckle.
Famous last words.
And that is crazy.