Adrenaline Junkies

[Velocity]

With your hands on the top of your head, constantly shifting your weight from your left to your right foot and back again, a long exhale is about the only thing you can do to calm your nerves. At the moment your balls win the battle against your brain, a rush of endorphins hits and you find a way to push off with your legs. You open your eyes again only to see nothing but air for 2 miles below you and your brain gloatingly says I told you so while maintaining your endorphin high so that you don't panic and end up doing something stupid. Your body rushes towards the fields below and you notice another poor soul moving his arms in a quite unnatural manner. In an instant, the 6 hours you spent on the ground learning hand signals and safety from the instructors rush back to you, and you realize you need to straighten out, and activate your parachute. Your sudden deceleration jolts your body, yet when you finally hit the ground, your knees feeling the pounding and begin to buckle beneath you. Finally, as you walk back towards the road where you will be picked up, you ask yourself, "Why on earth would I do that?" as well as, "When can I go again?"

I highly recommend if you go skydiving to choose the option where you begin your certification and dive alone the first time. The feeling of being unhindered and unattached to anything in the sky is amazing, and worth dealing with the class so you don't have to tandom jump. My brief summary of the experience does not come close to doing it justice, and I don't think I could give words to accurately describe how it feels.

I live in Iowa which limits my discussion on extreme sports due to the lack of mountains and water. What else can give people a similar rush? I'm guessing windsurfing on an ocean would be fairly intense, and blistering down a mountain strapped to skis is fun. Please share experiences that had your heart pounding in your chest so that all of us can have more enjoyable free time.

Though perhaps on a lower level than me, as we can see from the plethora of amusement parks filled with roller coasters, most Americans enjoy feeling like they could die at any second. Is there something wrong with us for enjoying "near-death" experiences? What drives us to do this?

Also, as an aside, this guy is ridiculous: Crazy Heli-Diver