Up, Up, Up, and Away

One of the items on my list to do before turning 40 was to go on a hot air balloon ride.  This is something that have wanted to do for many years.  My husband has a fear of heights and so the told me it was something I would need to do alone!!  Thankfully, I found out, my friend, Karen wanted to go up, up, up, and away too, so we started making plans to make it happen.

My husband graciously did lots of research and found Hot Epectations Balloon Company to be the best option for us.

Bill and Susan were wonderful to work with and they have a true passion for the art of hot air ballooning.  I had no idea the skills involved.

We met up with Bill and Susan at 6 am and they had already been up for awhile, checking wind conditions, wind direction, and weather reports.  We patiently waited until we got the go ahead to launch.  We had to drive north to find an appropriate launch site.   We ended up a school yard.

It was quite a process to blow up the balloon.  It took about 30 minutes to get us up in the air.

The scenery was breathtaking.  For the first 15 minutes, I felt very nervous, but my the end, I felt like the excitement in me beat down the nervous feeling!  We could see all the way to Longview Lake to the east and the KU campus to the west.

Dogs hated us - they don't like the sound the hot air balloon makes, but most people that saw us, just had to stop and stare.  Kids were yelling and screaming with delight.  My favorite reaction, was this one who came out on her deck to see us over her house and she yelled, "How cool is that!!"  She quickly went back in to get her camera.

The ride was so peaceful and just lovely.  I would totally do it again!!  Landing was another process that was pretty wild.  Basically, when a hot air balloon needs to land, you just look for an open space!!  When we were coming in for a landing, I was worried we would run into power lines or a building, but Bill gracefully glided us onto a baseball field at another school.  Bill had to really work to get us to where he wanted to deflate and we just had to stay put.  

Once we got everything packed back up, Bill and Susan prayed over us and "christened" us with a bit of earth and bit of bubbly!!  

Thanks to Bill and Susan at  Hot Expectations for an amazing experience and to Karen for joining me!!