Mosi Skytrail Ropes Course

Mosi Skytrail Ropes Course
Tampa, Florida, USA
Open Everyday
Monday - Thursday: 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Friday and Saturday:  10 a.m. - 8 p.m.
Sundays:  10 a.m. - 6 p.m.

After living down the street from Tampa's Museum of Science and Industry (MOSI) for four years, it was finally time to mosey on over (yes, I really made that joke) when the Skytrail Ropes Course opened last week.

First of all, MOSI is awesome!  Why did I wait all this time to go there?  Billed as a children's museum, the website makes it seem like if you remember Ronald Reagan, MOSI is not for you.  This is not true.  Walking around the museum on our way to the Skytrail, I was disappointed in myself for not visiting MOSI earlier in my Tampa tenure.  Maybe I'm just a sucker for large dinosaur bones and bicycles that float over open air, but it looked like there was a lot of interesting things to do for people with a few grey hairs.

As for the Sky trail:  For $10 per person, you get to climb on stuff and wander around with the apparent danger of falling, minus the risk of death.  What could be better? 

Waiting in line for my turn to face destiny, I watched people make their way across the swaying bridges.  I couldn't help but wonder why some people appeared to hesitate at every step.
"Do you think it's as scary up there as those people are acting like it is?" I asked Matt.  I mean, honestly, some people are so ridiculous.

It turns out they were not ridiculous.  Despite wearing a belay, walking across a swaying rope that cuts into your all-too-thin sneaker, all while shifting back and forth in the breeze is surprisingly scary.  Previously, I was never impressed with the common adventure movie scenario in which the hero faces a rickety rope bridge which invariably breaks.  I understood the apparent danger, however I never really knew what it was like to walk across something that I wasn't quite sure I should be walking across.  If anything, the ropes course is worth visiting just to gain a greater appreciation of action movies.

The Mosi Skytrail Ropes Course is three stories high, with various types of bridges and ropes and different types of hand-holds, so everyone can test themselves and face their fears.  I have to say, after successfully maneuvering most of the bridges in the course, I felt slightly more confidant in my outdoor abilities.  This is something I don't gain from my usual activities of movie-watching and eating. For ten dollars and an hour of your time, it's a great break from the usual weekly activities.  I would definitely go again!

New things

Over the course of the next two months, I will be: 

1. Packing up my home in Tampa and selling almost everything I own
2. Quitting my job
3. Driving my 7 year old Cavalier 1,400 miles from Tampa to my hometown in Massachusetts
4. Getting married
5. Embarking on a trip to every New England state (as requested by my fiance)
6. Moving to France
7. Starting a new job outside of Paris as a French Language Assistant

In light of all of this, I thought, "Hey, why not start a blog?  I can record everything I'm doing, and next time I decide to have an adventure and I start getting nervous, I can remember that I lived through this one!"

When I told Matt, my fiance, that I decided to write a blog, he was very supportive, as always.

"Well, what will you blog about?"
"Travel.  It's going to be a travel blog." I answered without pause.

A few days later we were sitting around on the couch, one of my favorite activities.

"Maybe it won't be a travel blog, I don't really go anywhere." I declared.
Matt laughed.
"I mean, I want to write a travel blog," I continued, "but I don't want to write reviews of beaches and restaurants. 'This restaurant was good, this beach was bad.' I want to talk about my experiences with the places, and how I felt, and how amazing it was to be there, or see something, or eat somewhere."
"Okay, so do that." He may or may not have said.
"Well, but then it won't be a true travel blog."
"You can do what you want.  You always get extra sensitive about new things." He told me while watching soccer.

It was true.  What if I write a bad blog?  What if it's a mistake to quit my job and move to France? What if my car breaks down driving up the coast of the US? What if I spill red wine on my wedding dress? What if I can't find an apartment in France?  What if I start my new job, and I don't understand anything that's happening around me?

These are the questions that run through my mind all day, everyday.  And yet I continue to live.  Jenmaggeddon has not yet occured.

So I've decided to tackle one more new thing: writing a blog.  It might be about travel.  As Matt may or may not have said, "It's your blog, write what you want."

So that's what I'm doing.