Pumpkin Parachutes
October 19th, 2006Last Friday left me scrambling for a date idea. When I thought it had come down to carving pumpkins or rollerskating, Jeff Harmon gave me the idea to build a pumpkin parachute.
After picking up my date, I took her to the grocery store where we bought garbage bags, string, duct-tape, and pumpkins. After about 45 min. of cutting, taping, and tying; we had a parachute with about a 9 foot diameter. It’s 16 cords used all 100 feet of the sting we had purchased. I was surprised by how much my date seemed to enjoy building a parachute.
We took the chute and the pumpkins to Rock Canyon in Provo. We went to a popular repelling cliff called “The Green Monster.” It’s a 175 ft. vertical wall. We hiked in the dark to the top of the cliff. It’s not a dangerous hike, but I think it took my date out of her comfort zone. She laid on her belly and held the flashlight over the edge while I lobbed the pumpkin and parachute into thin air.
It took about 50 ft. of free fall before the chute fully opened, but once it did, the pumpkin floated down gently.  Our screams and yells echoed off the canyon walls as we congratulated ourselves. Later inspection of the pumpkin showed that it suffered a minor crack on the landing, but otherwise escaped intact.
I’ve seen a few lists of dating ideas posted on the web, but most are pretty cliche. Jeff and I are compiling a list of more orginal, adventerous dates. Jeff is creating a wiki where he will post them. I will link to it ASAP.
For now, coupons4dates.com has a decent list. It’s more directed towards marrieds, but I like some of their “get to know each other on a deeper level” dates. For example, go to a bagel shop and talk about how to fix world hunger. If you succeed in developing a real conversation even though the topic is very idealistic, you’ll probably find a lot out about your date.
