Day 15: Burnin' for you

The song was stuck in my head all day long. Want to know why?

That's right.

It was finally fire day.

A highly anticipated moment for me, I felt surprisingly calm going into the experience. As soon as I stepped up to be prepped, I went into a very zen state and felt completely prepared for what I was about to do. A little nervous, yes, since I definitely have a very, very healthy respect for fire, but the instructors helped us all feel prepared and comfortable. I was clothed in special long-john style undergarments, which were freezing after being soaked in a special gel, then stuffed (with a great squelching sound, I might add) into the four items I had purchased from Value Village last week. After that, I was walked outside to the special area that had been roped off for our burns. Every remaining speck of my skin and hair were covered in fire gel/goop for protective purposes. Think Ghostbusters II.... the gel was a lot like that, but clear in color and not as angry. Anyway, they wrapped my head in a gel-soaked bandana and hat (lots of layers of protection), "painted me" with accelerant, and lit me up. I moved around until I started feeling the heat from the flames, and then dropped to the ground to be extinguished. Watch me burn here:



Being on fire is a lot more fun than I even realized, and I had high expectations. I didn't stop grinning like an idiot for at least an hour after I had washed the remnants of the gel off in the makeshift shower that had been set up on site. I did get some slight singeing on my eyelashes (sorry, family), but I didn't even notice it happen. What's kind of strange is I felt like I'd done it before, sort of like deja vu but not quite. Go figure. All I know is I'd love to do it again sometime.

At about 8:30 a group of us went out to the bowling alley that's a short walk away from the hotel. My bowling game was terrible, as predicted. I'm much better at Wii bowling. But it was a lot of fun and it was nice to unwind. There was a skating rink inside, too, and I briefly had roller skates on (it was free) before I remembered the disaster of having wheels strapped to my feet. For those of you who might not know, the last time I had done something like this, I was wearing my rollerblades in my hilly, sharp-rock infested college town, and I ended up scarring my right knee up. That was over two and a half years ago, so it's not like I've been working to hone my skills as a skater. I didn't fall or anything, but I do have a rugburn on my right elbow from running into the carpeted wall to stop myself when I didn't feel like gliding to a halt. Glad I'm here for stunts, and not to train as an aspiring roller derby girl!