Matt: For the past few months, I was in Montana recovering from Epstein Barr Virus. The mountain air was refreshing, but being away from all of my New York friends was difficult. Little did I know that my New York friends were coming to me! I opened my door two weeks ago and found David standing there for a surprise visit. Over the following days, we explored Montana and journeyed out to my friends’ parent’s house up in the mountains for a taste of Montana’s famous ‘Big Sky’.

David:A surprise for Matt Murphy was under way months before I arrived in snowy Missoula. Keeping the surprise a surprise was the true challenge. I told Matt I was going to Paris to work with a choreographer, which wasn’t a total lie. And was even on the phone with him as I was on my way to the airport… to ‘Paris’. He ate up the whole thing. Until about 9 hours later, when I was knocking on his bedroom door, and popping out from around the corner. Well worth the wait and suspense.

(Shoes off and ready to bounce.)

Matt:When I was a kid I lived across the street from a family with a trampoline. I knew it was there even though I couldn’t see it from the street, so whenever I could sneak away and steal a few bounces I raced out my door and through the trees. My mother was (rightfully) concerned about a young dancer spending time on what could easily be a dangerous device; one wrong landing and you’d fly off like a renegade popcorn kernel onto the hillside.

I spent more time thinking about jumping than actually doing it, and I added “trampoline freedom” to a long list of things, such as skiing and bungee jumping, that I would save for later in life. I’ve never been one to throw caution to the wind, but I’m so happy that I did for a few brief minutes a few weeks ago.

I never realized how freeing a trampoline could be until I was up in the mountains at the Cloud’s house with David. After making our way back from a morning walk, we had planned on going inside to gather our things and head back to Missoula; that was before David spotted the trampoline.

Before I knew it he was bounding over to the spring-loaded fabric like a five year-old racing for the tree on Christmas morning. He quickly undid his sneakers, grinning all the way, and then began to get a few preliminary hops in. Suddenly he was flipping through the air like a bona-fide gymnastic star and I grabbed my camera to capture the action.

There was no way I could resist for much longer, so I kicked my shoes off and cautiously started bouncing alongside him. We started to gallop around the circumference and I was completely in awe of the scenery that surrounded us. It’s not often that you can jump towards an open sky with enormous mountains towering all around you.

Not only did the mini-adventure result in some of my favorite pictures ever, but it put a smile on my face and got my mind off of my health crisis in a way I haven’t felt in the past 10 months. It may have just been for five minutes, but I’ll take it.

(Tight jeans make jumping over mountains difficult.)

(But you can still be abducted by aliens. They love the boot cut.)

David:My run in with trampolines started at a young age…

After BEGGING my parents for one, my brother and I were surprised on Christmas morning when we opened a very heavy box of springs. Seconds passed before we knew what the springs were going to hold tight. Putting the trampoline together was a blur but my first orbit into the air was not. On a crisp Christmas morning, I got my first taste of having a moon shooter all to myself. It was euphoria.

As a dancer in training, myself nor my parents took any real caution in the probability of hurting myself, possibly derailing my future. My parents words of advice… “Just don’t fall off”. I took caution to the wind. I started with my first back handspring. Then a back flip. Soon I had graduated to a whip back, a half, a full, and then counting how many back flips in a row. By the time I moved away from home I was up to about 14.

Nevertheless, the thought of a trampoline conjures up the most bittersweet of childhood memories. Jumping with my friends, brother, even parents, it oddly became an apparatus of sociability.

As Matt and I climbed on, we dug up the bliss of being/acting like a child again. Throwing away pretense and jumping like fiends. All the instincts of years past came back.

(Sometimes I like to think I’m Billy Elliot.)

(Or jump like this to see how many deer I can scare.)

(Here we are as our five year old selves.)

(Sometimes it’s easy to look both tired and psychotic.)

(How far do I have to bend until I can see my own toes?)

(Keri Strugg. Does that make Matt Bela Karolyi?)