Wow!

Will and I went for a hot air balloon ride a few days ago. It was a wedding gift, and we had tried 3 times to go, but everytime it was cancelled. The weather has to be JUST right. We finally were able to go last Thursday, and it was quite the experience.

Update: Ballon Ride pictures viewable in the Photo Gallery

We watched as they unloaded the huge basket, tipped it on its side, then unravelled the deflated balloon and spread it out, then filled it with air blown into it by 2 9.0 horsepower fans. We all watched in amazement as the balloons spread open (I just wanted to go run inside there, as it was like some balloon funhouse), then they had to tip the basket up and quickly fill the rest of it with hot air. We all (there was 10 of us) had to quickly climb in to the basket (before it took off, I suppose), we were untethered, and up we went. We were almost unsure of whether or not we would take off. The other 2 balloons already took off, and we were still filling up with air. But sure enough, we lifted.

It didn’t take long to get high up, and it was a little spooky to be so high, and not be behind glass. All we had to do was look over the edge of the basket. Sometimes we flew low enough to wave to people, and other times we were over 1000 ft above the ground. Whenever he filled the balloon with more hot air, I felt like my hair was going to burst into flames, it was so hot. We floated over Doon Heritage Crossroads (and I spotted the Martin house, where I used to work), Conestoga college, Fairview mall, and eventually ended up in farm country. All the textures of land were so fascinating; I just wanted to reach down and touch it all.

Soon it was time for landing, and I think we were all apprehensive about that. Due to the nature of hot air balloons (being blown by the wind), our driver (hot air dispenser guy?) had no control over where we would land. He could only somewhat control how high we floated and for how long, but even that was finicky. It looked like we were heading for this factory parking lot, and at the rate we were descending, I thought we were going to land on a huge pile of cement cylinders. No, we just missed those, and we were headed dead on for a tree and some heavy duty barbed wire fence. We brushed against the tree and got stuck in the barbed wire. I had visions of us getting tossed over onto the other side. No, the basket just broke through the barbed wire (after a little fight) and after sliding a bit on an angle, we landed right side up! Phew!

Only then did we hear other landing horror stories. One balloon landed sideways on a farmers field, and got dragged by the wind, through soil that had just been freshly covered with liquid maneour. Fun! Our driver (hot air dispenser guy) told us stories of landing on mountain tops in other parts of the world. I then realized our landing was PRETTY good.