Up, Up, and Away!

On Friday evening, just as Mike was getting ready to head home from work, he got a phone call from the father of a previous employee he had. Rocky Neal owns and flies a hot air balloon as a hobby. He invited Mike to take our family for a ride in the balloon the following morning. Cari and Trevon invited some freinds to go with us, as "man-power" was needed to set up and take down the big balloon.

Saturday, we woke at about 4:30am to get ready. We needed to be in Washington no later than 6am, and had to leave our home by 5:30am to arrive on time. The invited friends met at our house at 5:15am. It was an early start to our day. We kissed Sadie goodbye as she had other fun plans that I'll post about later.






We drove out to the Washington fields area and helped put the balloon together. We used a cul-de-sac to spread out the balloon, hook up the basket, and fill it with air. Trevon had to help keep the envelope of the balloon open while Rocky filled it with air using a fan. Then, after it was blown up, he heated it up so it would rise!





The noise of the torch was pretty loud and sent Corban running down the street. He did not like it! The younger kids would plug their ears whenever Rocky pulled the fire starter.



He invited Mike and Elise and me to have the first ride. My heart jumped a little as I was nervous. I crawled in the cozy basket and before I knew it we were floating above everything. It was an easy, smooth ride and beautiful to see the world from a different perspective.

Another balloon was being set up as we took off, and soon joined us in the air.



We flew 700 feet above the ground and Rocky sprayed shaving cream over the side of the basket to test the direction of the wind. This gave us an idea of where we would drift to and eventually land. We landed at the edge of a plowed field.

Next to ride was Cari and her friends: Zak Mitchell and Nathan Gowans.
On their ride, they learned that Rocky charges $400 an hour to give balloon rides (That's per hour for how ever many people you want. The basket is not very big and will hold about four at a time. So, if you have a bigger group than that, he'll give turns during that hour's time). They enjoyed looking over some really nice homes with swimming pools, trampolines, tennis courts and more!






A little boy named Hudson, Kristi, Trevon and his friend Braydon Gubler had the next turn. They were surprised at how smooth a ride it was. When they landed, they picked a number to see which one of them would get a second ride. Kristi picked "15" and the number was "16." She got to stay in the basket for the last ride with Brandon Gowans (Trevon's other friend) and Hudson.




When we weren't in the balloon, we followed behind it in our cars. That way, when it landed, we could quickly switch occupants. We were the "chase crew," ready to help should the need arise.




At the final landing, we spread out some tarps, laid the basket on it's side and pulled the balloon down across the tarps. Then, we "milked" the envelope, getting the air out of it (which was comfortably warm), unhooked it from the basket and tied and rolled it up. Everyone worked together to get the balloon into its case and back into the trailer.

I asked how much the balloon itself weighed. Rocky said that without the basket, the envelope is about 200 lbs.

This picture is looking up into the balloon:




It was interesting to learn that ballooning seems to be a dwindling hobby, meaning not very many younger people are doing it. At meetings that Rocky attends of ballooners, there are a lot of gray headed fliers and not so many younger ones. Rocky has been flying for about 17 years. He says he could do it every day, he enjoys it so much. (He really can't do it every day though - and will not be able to fly it as the weather gets warmer.) We were very appreciative of his thinking of us. We all had a very enjoyable morning together.THANK YOU ROCKY NEAL!