Today I did it, I went cliff jumping. It was my very first time and it was one of the best experiences of my life. I have very few words to express the time that was spent in Bloomington Indiana at the quarries. I'll post some pictures and videos to help out with the story telling. We first arrived at the 'spot' which was a church parking lot where we parked the car and discretely got our stuff together to make the forbidden trek out to Rooftop. These quarries are owned by a limestone company and are completely off limits to the public, except those rebels without a cause like us. I was doing some reading about the limestone quarries and apparently the limestone used to build the Empire State Building was taken from right where we were headed. There are also no directions online to the quarry, since it is 'illegal' to go there all the information is spread by word of mouth as to how to reach Rooftop. Luckily, I was going there with a friend of mine who had been before. The winding abandon paths to the quarries were breathtaking, trees shading the gravel walk with the sun peeking through was surreal. Right as your legs start to wonder when you'll ever reach your off-limits destination, you round the bend to the 'beach'. The beach is an area where you can go to chill and swim around, think of it as your first quarry experience. You get a feel for the aqua blue water as well as the nasty sludge at the bottom. Shoes are a must so it's good to practice swimming while lugging around some tennis shoes attached to your tootsies. DB and I didn't spend much time at the beach, we were craving the rush of the jump. He took my back to Rooftop and I went nuts. This place was so amazing. Again, the water was the perfect blue you'd see in a travel magazine, not to mention the beyond fabulous temperature once you finally took the plunge in. One thing that I thought was bizarre was the the place was deserted! Yeah, it's trespassing to go there but it's right next to IU's campus, tons of college kids should be out there! I guess it is summer so most of the hooligans are gone for the next month. I had to admit it was a tad creepy with no one there. There were 4 jumps to choose from in this particular quarry. Jump I: 20ish feet Jump II: 23ish feet Jump III: 30ish feet and Jump IV (Rooftop): at a soaring 65 feet. Not much of an in between, eh? I started with the 20-footer and never looked back. DB and I had a blast jumping and flipping from the limestone cliffs. We had even more fun when random groups of people showed up to join! Everyone went straight to Rooftop and kind of freaked out, we convinced them to come down with us and jump a few times before heading up to the big guy. Sadly I never made it up to Rooftop, I hiked up and looked over the edge with no intentions of jumping, it didn't actually seem that scary. I think I'll try it next time, you only live once! This is already quite a long post so I'll sum up the people we met quickly. First group: 3 random dudes from Boston (?!) who were on their way back from a road trip to Utah. These guys were crazy, like probably medically unstable or something. So fun to hang out with them, such a motley crew. Second group: 2 guys and a girl. Really nice people, did a group jump with us! They were from Indy, just lookin for some fun. I'd say they chose the right place. Last Group: 2 gangly lads. One of them was there for the first time and the other was a vet to the area, showing him around. Jumping off a cliff with 5 people you just met is probably the greatest way to start a friendship. I don't know if I'll ever see those people again; but for now, I can say that they're the only people I've jumped off a cliff with. I don't think I'll be able to say that again come next weekend, I've got an itch for some more cliff jumping.
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