After contacting Skydive Baltimore and Skydive Ocean City, I realized that skydiving in Maryland was going to be a little tricky. It turns out that all of the Maryland drop zones are tandem factories with absolutely no interest in helping a sport jumper and couldn’t be troubled to return my calls or reply to my emails. I even sent emails to a couple of Tandem Instructors that I have met at other drop zones and they didn't respond to any of my messages.
As a last resort, I put a message out on Facebook to see if any of my friends knew of a place to fun jump in Maryland. I discovered the only places for fun jumpers in Maryland are Skydive Chambersburg and Skydive Delmarva – NEITHER are in Maryland. I was getting frustrated.
Then, I found Skydive Deep Creek! Deep Creek Lake is located in Garrett County, Maryland – not far from my parents’ home. Awesome! I felt like I had found the Holy Grail, but when I dug a little deeper, I discovered that Skydive Deep Creek isn’t anywhere near Deep Creek Lake! In fact, it’s not even in Maryland. Skydive Deep Creek operates out of the Cumberland Regional Airport which isn’t located in Cumberland – it’s actually in Ridgley, West Virginia.
Ridgley is very close to Cumberland and my class reunion was being held on the weekend of July 25th. It would be the perfect opportunity for me to cross Maryland off my list without an extra road trip. I just needed a place to land. I looked online to see if there were any suitable landing areas not far from the airport. Having recently done a demo for DARE, I figured I could arrange for a demo and land in an open field. There was a ton of real estate at the new sports complex. Perfect! I contacted Jim Crouch to get info about setting up a demo. He told me that I should work out the details with the DZO for Skydive Deep Creek before I wasted my time figuring out where to land.
One of the women from my high school class, Brenda, is involved in the local government so I reached out to her to see if she knew anyone at the airport. She put me in touch with a man from the airport and he gave me the number for the owner of Skydive Deep Creek, Neil Porter. It turns out that the Mexico Farms Airport is just across the river from the Cumberland Regional Airport. He told me that it wasn’t a problem for us to land in Maryland - just bring a case of beer for the guy that cuts the grass.
I was getting pumped up about my class reunion and I put out a message on our reunion page asking if anyone was interested in skydiving while I was there. A few people chimed in, but the cost was a deterrent. A number of people wanted to come out to watch us land. When my reunion weekend rolled around, we grabbed our gear and our suitcases and headed for the hills. In an effort to avoid the traffic around Washington, DC, we took the scenic back roads through rural Virginia and West Virginia.
Normally, I would be detailing about the journey, but the road trip to Cumberland was happening regardless or rather or not I was skydiving. So, the drive isn’t really relevant to the cost of getting Maryland and we stayed at my parents’ house for free! So, no hotel expenses! Woo hoo!
As we drove into the city of Cumberland, we saw canopies in the air. We also noticed a sign for the Mexico Farms Airport. I had lived in Cumberland for nearly ½ my life, but I had never been there. We’d been in the car for right around 4 hours and we were very close to my parents’ house, but I had to stop to check it out.
It took as awhile, but we eventually found the airport and drove back to the hangars. An elderly man was working on his plane. At first, we thought he was the owner, but he was just renting a hangar from Mr. Donald Johnson. He told us we’d find Mr. Johnson on his Kubota (a grass cutting tractor thingy).
We turned the car around and headed down the gravel road and sure enough – Mr. Johnson was coming up the road on his tractor. After he pulled over to the side of the road, we introduced ourselves and asked his permission to land on his property. He didn’t hesitate to say yes. We asked him what type of beer he enjoyed because we wanted to give him a case of beer to thank him. He assured us that no compensation was necessary, but he does like Miller Light. We explained to Mr. Johnson that we would be landing sometime within the next 24 hours or so. We we’re sure when it would be.
As we drove out of the Mexico Farms Airport, Matt called the DZ to see how much longer they would be jumping. The DZO said we needed to show up at some point during the next hour. We went to drop Emma off at my parents and pick up a second car. We’d have to park one at the LZ (landing zone – Mexico Farms) and drive the second one to the Cumberland Regional Airport. We also had to stop and pick up the beer - a case for Mr. Johnson and one for Skydive Deep Creek.
It seems like everything was taking longer than I wanted it to take. Matt was following me in my mom’s car. When I pulled out onto the street, he hesitated and got stuck behind some traffic. He eventually caught up with me and he followed me back to Mexico Farms where we found Mr. Johnson cutting the grass. He was actually making a very nicely groomed landing area for us. He showed us where to park and we gave him the beer and took off for the other airport.
Things were running right on schedule, but all good plans are subject to change. When we left Mexico Farms, we discovered an accident in the tunnel that we had planned to take to the airport. UGH! Matt was using his GPS to find an alternative route. There were very few ways to get across the Potomac! We ended up taking an alternative route that was much longer.
If you have never been to the Cumberland Regional Airport, you’d be shocked to discover the massive size. I think it was designed with jets in mind. It’s HUGE! We followed the signs to the hangar. The DZO, pilot, manager aka Neil greeted us and we let him know that we had some beer for him. I asked if it was okay to bring it into the hangar. He said that was fine and he appreciated me asking instead of just walking in with it. We let him know that Mr. Johnson was cool about letting us land there. In fact, he told us to relay a message to Neil that they were welcome to land there anytime. There is very little air traffic flying in and out of his place.
We filled our waivers and went to the car to grab our gear and the beer. When we came back in, Neil was getting ready to fly a load. He said he could hot load us and that we should just leave the money on his desk. He’d drop us out at 3,500 above Mexico Farms for $15.00 each. SWEET!
It was very hard for us to tell where exactly the Mexico Farms Airport was in relation to the Cumberland Regional Airport. We knew it was close, but we weren’t sure how close. As soon as the plane took off, we could see that the airports are just barely ½ mile apart! Check out the picture! Mr. Johnson had cut a perfect oblong landing area for us. Matt was first out and I followed. The view was beautiful!
The picture was taken as I excited the plane. If you look closely, you can see Matt off to the far right of the wheel over the Potomac River. Not that we needed them, but there were a ton of outs - all beautiful green grass.
When you get out at 3,500 feet, the canopy ride is rather short and uneventful, but there was plenty of time to appreciate the spectacular view! I was also happy to see a few different wind indicators. Originally, we were planning to land to the North, but the winds were suggesting an alternative patter. I was happy to see that Matt was following the new direction. He landed first and then I came in and landed nearby. MARLAND…check!
We drove my mom’s car back to the DZ to pick up our car. We had only been in Western Maryland for two hours and we had completed our quest! Unfortunately, there I couldn’t put out a message to my high school friends because my internet reception sucked.
That night at the class reunion mixer, a couple of people were disappointed that they had missed a chance to “see” me skydive. I made arrangements to go back to the DZ on Saturday. Two classmates, Ellen & Brenda showed up along with Brenda’s husband, Greg. Greg was very excited about skydiving.
