"people are falling from the sky"

"I have to let you go now, people are falling from the sky!"

That's what Dawn said to her Mom on the phone as we approached Skydive Arizona in elegant Eloy on Saturday. It's a pretty cool site.

First you hear the airplane go by at 13,000 feet or higher. If you watch very carefully, you can see a smattering of black dots escape and trail behind the straining machine. They don't do much else for what seems like a long time. Just a bunch of dots against the clouds like black pepper on mashed potatoes against fine china.

Then one by one, each dot swoops away and transforms like a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis and the sky is filled with a visual percussion of flourescent colors. Like a dozen unique rainbows indignant at having to share the atmospheric pallet with their siblings.

Then, before you have fully appreciated the spectacle, the butterfly storms into the landing area like a peregrine falcon on the hunt only to pull up short at the last second, legs stretched to terra firma and the canopy of colorful nylon collapses into just another fluffy pile of fabric and string, spent dreams and smoke.

Here are some of Dawn's terrific pix: