Up, Up, and Away... Finally!

(Wauchula, FL)  Hi 87 Lo 57 -- Our special event finally got off the ground (so to speak).  But barely.  We got up at 3:30am (ugh!) and left at 4:15 for Kissimmee.  We went through patchy fog the whole way, so we were thinking, uh oh, here we go again.  But when we got there Jeff (our pilot) was pretty confident we'd go up. This was ground fog, which has a real low ceiling and burns off as soon as the sun comes up.

After signing the release forms (again) we loaded into two vans and headed for the launch site, a big field out in the country north of the Kissimmee/Disney World area.  There was one other couple assigned to our balloon, and a family of three in the second balloon.  We had our balloon in the back of our van and the basket attached to a platform/lift hanging off the rear bumper.  (Click on photos to enlarge.)

This is what the fabric part of the balloon (the envelope) looks like before it's unloaded.

 Here Jeff is attaching the propane burners to the basket frame.  These dual burners put out 19,000,000 BTU's each (!)  The fan is used to inflate the envelope.

 The completely assembled basket.  The basket is made of wicker, with a wood framed floor. The propane tanks are under the two seats.  He can carry 30 gallons of propane, and uses it all on a flight.

Unrolling the envelope.  It's made of a fairly lightweight nylon.  Just this fabric part of the balloon costs around $30,000.

While Jeff and the crew was assembling our balloon, I helped helped the crew assemble the second one.

Once all the fabric is spread out, they start the fan and blow air into the envelope and it slowly starts inflating.

Once the balloon inflates enough the propane burners are fired up and the heated air causes it to start standing upright.

Once it's completely upright and ready to go, everyone climbs aboard.  It's pretty tight quarters, and there's no door or gate so you have to climb over the side.  Here we are all loaded and ready to go.

We slowly started to rise, and there was no sensation of movement at all.  Jeff shoots the burners at the appropriate intervals to make the balloon rise at the rate he wants.  We looked down on the other crew as they were in the final stages of preparation.

Most of the area still had a blanket of low-level fog, which looked really neat.  Here's a resort hotel off in the distance sticking up through the fog.

The other balloon is finally lifting off.

And is in the air!

Here's a neighborhood, and a huge resort complex.

It turned out that the fog didn't lift as much or as fast as Jeff expected, so as we neared our landing area he used his GPS to guide him.  This looking down on our landing site, and you can barely see the ground crew's van.

We landed very softly, right on the road.  An amazing job by our pilot, Jeff.  Once we got out of the basket we helped Jeff push it over so the envelope could collapse, and then we rolled it up and stuffed it back into the bag.

Once the other balloon landed we all gathered for the traditional toast of champagne.

We then headed back to our original meeting place at the Best Western Lakeside where we were treated to a wonderful breakfast buffet.  And boy, were we hungry!  All in all it was a wonderful experience.  It would have been better if there wasn't so much fog around, but it was great to experience the sensations and beauty of ballooning.  When I first saw the small basket I got really nervous, and I was even a little nervous during the flight.  But it's so smooth and peaceful that it's hard to stay nervous for long.  Jim really enjoyed it, and he was standing and moving all around the basket the whole time taking pictures.

Speaking of pictures, all of the photos Jim took are on a Picasa web album, which you can check out here.  And, Thompson Aire posts photos of all their passengers on their website.  You can see our photo at this link.  Just click on Jim's name on the Feb 17th date on the calendar.

So, we can check this off our "bucket list."  I sky dived on my 52nd birthday, so I'm looking for another thrill. Maybe I'll have a chance to try one of those zip lines someday.  I know I won't be bungee jumping... that's just too scary!

We made another stop in Orlando, which I'll write about in tomorrow's blog.  We got home in time to watch the Gatorade Duel at Daytona, the qualifying races for this Sunday's Daytona 500.  We're both pretty pooped, so we'll watch some TV and maybe turn in early tonight.  Thanks for all the comments and anticipation of our "special event."  It was fun keeping you in suspense for a while.