By Sue Staton

Sun columnist

One day last month when I was feeling ambitious, adventurous or a little bit nuts, I called my good friend, M.K. She likes to live life adventurously, and I told her I had an adventure for us to do.

After all, wasn’t she driving when she was barely able to see over a steering wheel? Now, she and I have been friends for over 63 years. Believe it or not, as soon as I told her what the adventure was she told me she knew exactly what I was going to say. We do think alike.  Anyway, I had told her I wanted us to go ziplining.

Now, I am scared to death of heights, but I think I would feel really good about myself if I could accomplish the feat of ziplining. Anyway, I talked her into going with me. By now, we will have zipped across Rupp Arena or I will have wished I had zipped my mouth.

I decided Rupp Arena rather than Red River Gorge because I think if something happened to go wrong, they could at least find me easier if I landed in Rupp and not in a mass of trees. None of these thoughts have I discussed with anyone else.

You see, I have encouraged several other ladies around my age group to become adventurous also and to go ziplining too. One friend, Deloris Segress, has zip lined before and said she would be willing to go and take our pictures. Then she told us she had gone ziplining across Rupp Arena before. She said once she was all strapped in, she looked out and said, “Oh, I think I have changed my mind.” When about the same time her foot slipped and she was flying across Rupp Arena. She said about half way across she let out a whoop of “yooo-hooo!”

Now I am hoping I will feel the same exhiliration. Somewhere during all the inviting and telling everyone how much fun it is going to be, I told them if they went I would go first. My mouth overreacted that day. To be perfectly honest, I was thinking I will have to get it over with because the more I would wait, the more I was sure I would dread it or be tempted to back out. Several of my classmates said they ziplined several times before and they loved it. One made me feel better when she said if she was here instead of Florida she would go with us.

I have to say I do admire people who step out of their comfort zone and do things. I couldn’t help but think of getting to watch Pres. George H.W. Bush jump out of the helicopter on his 90th birthday. I was blessed and got to see it happen that day in Kennebunkport, Maine. Then it hit me. That was not his first rodeo — so to speak — since he had done that before on several other occasions. I have never done anything like this before except stand with my knees knocking at the Grand Canyon and Natural Bridge or places such as that.

Besides that, George H.W. Bush was a president and they were not going to let something happen to him that day. I am imagining if something went awry when I get in the bucket to zipline how the news would read, “Some crazy old woman wanted to take a turn at ziplining. You would think they would leave this kind of stuff to the kids.”

Now, I have already taken precautions to keep that from happening. I have already called the Red River Gorge and told them to make sure everything is working at its best that day since there will be a group of some very special ladies coming to zipline and I would like to be able to remain friends with them after our experience. They assured me they would do just that.

I will let you know how it all turns out and if I keep my eyes open or closed and my mouth zipped or ready for my next great adventure.

We all decided to wear Kentucky blue on zipline day. As I was relating everything to my husband and told him who all was going and that  we were all wearing Kentucky blue, he told me it might not be a bad idea if we all wore a pair of Depends also.