For a birthday gift, Julie wanted to hot air balloon. We went last Sunday with Gentle Breeze, and it was a pretty good time. Much different than expected, we were kind of expecting to show up, hop in a balloon cruise, around and go home. But not so fast!

It’s quite a bit of work! First we helped blow up the balloon, and that got interesting when 75% of the way through the wind picked up and started dragging us around. We’re tied off to a Suburban, but the knot didn’t hold; just the metal eyelet at the end did. So there’s 6-7 of us hanging onto this balloon doing everything we can to keep it on the ground, hoping this rope doesn’t come free. But we got in (quickly) and got off the ground w/o further incident.

The flight itself was pretty nice, 4 of us passengers plus the pilot. One drawback to being tall, was the searing heat of the gas heaters. I’ve never stuck my head inside a propane grill, but now I’m pretty sure I know how it would feel. Tight quarters as well.

As for direction, it turns out you just go with the wind and then the “chase car” picked us up after an hour or so in the air. We had champagne once we landed, and headed home.

Julie, on Woody's couch cushion

Julie just had a birthday, and that morning I leave for work and there’s a huge gift bag sitting on the front porch! Turns out, it was a couch cushion from Uncle Woody’s in Clifton (and beer), given to us by Julie’s brother and his wife. Julie and her were frequent Woody’s visitors in their senior year of college, and Woody’s is no more; Julie thought it was pretty cool.