High Jump

It is a bright sunny day in mid August of 2009.

I am camping in the Boundary Waters paddling over to a great swimming area that we found.When we got to the Island after our boat and the other people that we came with parked our boats the kids ran over into the water. The parents observed us and every once in a while they came in the water.
After about 15-20 minutes Ellie got out of the water and saw a little cliff that she wanted to jump off of so she asked, "Dad can I jump off of this little cliff?"
Ellie's dad Tom replied, "How high is the cliff?"
"About ten feet high."
"OK, just jump out from the cliff."

So Ellie did jump then Andy asked Ellie if it was fun and she replied yes so he jumped too.
After about 4 minutes of splash after splash after splash I decided that it might be kind of fun. So I walked up and looked over the edge and just chickened out.
"Matt" Ellie yelled, "Jump!".
When she said that I decided just to get it over with so I walked up to the edge, thought twice, leaped, and Plummeted to the waters surface. The water was wet, a little cold, and pretty clear. When I resurfaced I wiped the water out of my face and yelled "THAT WAS AWESOME!".
So I went again and again and again. Finally after a while I tried to get Ellie's older sister Anne to jump and she said "NO". I kept trying to get her to jump for about three minutes then Ellie and Anne's mom told me to just go and play. Later that day after a lot of fun we didn't want to leave.
"Mom can we please stay 15 more minutes?" Ellie asked.
"No but one more jump for each of you." Teresa responded.

Later that night I was lying in my sleeping bag and thought to myself That I was brave to jump off of that cliff today and I thing there goes my fear of low heights.



Matt B.