Up, Up and Away!

17 Aug 2010--Yesterday was the highlight of Marie's stay with us. You just can't top a hot air balloon ride!



Here you can see Marie and Cathy waiting patiently while the balloon fills and pulls the basket into the upright position.



There is a huge flame blowing into the balloon, so you have to wonder how they don't burn a lot of them. Notice how gracefully we get into the basket...once again, age is playing a role here! haha

Surprisingly, the balloon company people didn't take their own pics and videos to sell to us, but at least before we took off a couple of the worker bees took our cameras and took pics for us. The 2nd pic is just as we are getting off the ground. We were actually off the ground before we even knew it. It is a much smoother ride than I expected.

This is a great view as we get really high in the air...2500 ft he told us, and because of the altitude of the city, 9,000-10,000 ft above sea level. We are flying over the town of Heber, UT and looking out at the Wasatch Mountain Range.

This is a wheat or alfalfa field below us as we look down. It looks like a series of big circles because of the irrigation system used to water the fields.

The balloon you see in the pics and this video is what I refer to as our "sister" balloon. It took off right after us, and we could often tell just how high or low we were in relation to where it was flying. The whooshing sound you hear sometimes in the background is the propane/flame the pilot is applying to lift us higher. The last pic in this series is a stitch pic.

You can get an idea of how fast these balloons rise and fall by watching our sister balloon as it attempts to land. What is surprising is that when you are in the basket you can barely feel it.

As we were coming down we heard a lot of barking, looked down and saw these 4 massive dogs in some one's backyard. They almost looked like bears from our vantage point.

The balloonists never really know exactly where they are going to land, so we ended up in a neighborhood subdivision...we were just happy not to be on some one's roof. Our pilot was actually the owner of the balloon business, and something about him just told you he was probably a jerk to work for. Here his worker bees are trying to chase us down and to grab a rope to hold us...they almost got us when the pilot said "never mind, meet us over there another 100 ft"!

Because the pilot changed his mind about the landing spot, he had to fire up the balloon again to lift us up a bit, and because of that he actually burned a hole in the side of his balloon...worker bees probably felt it served him right. (haha) You can see the hole in the balloon in the shadow of it in the video.

Here we are safely on the ground. Look at the older woman in the 1st pic, a fellow passenger of ours, dragging the basket while Marie and I are posing for pictures (haha).

Here are 2 videos, one each of Marie and I getting out of the balloon basket...age, oh age!!!!

Here is the pilot presenting us with our certificates...in the upper right hand corner of the diplomas is the "Balloonist's Prayer".

On our drive home we stopped at the Olympic Park to see if anyone was practicing, and we saw these kids practicing their hot-dogging ski skills. The people here attend "camps" where the kids learn to ski jump and do tricks but fall into the pool to break their fall. It is really fun to watch.

This 1st video is of a kid in about the intermediate level of ability, while the 2nd is a kid about 7-8 yrs old just beginning. The 3rd video is obviously of an accomplished skier.

And finally, after getting back to the base we stopped at the Hill Aerospace Museum so Marie could get some pictures of airplanes to show Jack. These planes were all outside the museum. Marie is standing here below the engine of an old transport aircraft, at the nose of a small bi-plane, and then below a helicopter. We took these pics so that Jack could hopefully realize just how big that 1st plane is. Marie is obviously dwarfed by it.

Most military aircraft have something painted on the nose of the plane, especially fighters. In the old days of WWII it was usually a barely-clad woman, this Indian Chief was during Vietnam, and today it would be of something more politically correct.

Inside the museum were a bunch of planes/helicopters/missiles, etc, most of which no one is interested in, but we did come upon a section with a podium for ceremonies. I prevailed upon Marie to make a speech, so make sure your volume is turned up.

There is also a big section for kids to play in and use static displays to get an idea of what pilots do. They have little uniforms that the kids can dress up in, too, but I couldn't get Marie to go that far!!! Does she look like a simpleton here, or what?! haha

As opposed to Cathy who looks totally series playing "Top Gun".

This is a young Air Force Airmen who was kind enough to take a picture with Marie. He is a cop, and we thought Jack would like to see him in uniform with his gun strapped to his leg.

And as Marie is leaving here tomorrow, and Cathy and I are headed south on Monday, we allowed Marie the honors of placing "UTAH" on our tracking map. We keep this map and place each state in it's place as we travel the country...we are already up to 12 states!!! (Marie pointed out that there are only states on the map, but that is because just before she placed Utah, Maine fell off!)