Today is a beautiful day, you can see for miles.
It reminds me of the first time I rode in a hot air balloon. My friend Julian has one, and Louie and I met him on a day like today – and took off (launched). We ascended to a couple thousand feet, and just drifted with the wind. Beautiful, is all I can say…Peaceful…Quiet…until…
…we started floating over populated neighborhoods – and the damn dogs were barking like crazy. From one neighborhood to the next – bark..bark..bark.
Hot Air Balloons drive the dogs fucking crazy. It was strange.
Anyway, we’d been aloft for about 5 hours and Julian decides it’s time to set her down. We’d covered, as the crow flies, boo coo miles – and dusk was approaching fast.
We were crossing the river when we spied a field that looked promising for a landing controlled crash. Problem was: there were power lines between Earth and us, and it was almost dark.
Let me say – we had a radio, and had been directing the chase vehicle (full of some other friends) all day long. They were toe (lift leg) up – I’. Right.. Right.. no no I meant left.. OK OK good…we see you loud and clear. See not hear – whatever.
The Balloon Driver says – “I see a place where I think we can set down, but everybody get down in the basket – I’m going to go through the top of those trees to bleed off some speed.” WTF. Man – he did exactly what he said – we hit those trees and wood was flying everywhere. I shit you not; we went those trees like a bolt of lightning.
We fucking slammed into the earth, and bounced sideways almost upside down for about 100 yards.
It was GREAT!!!
2 Comments
You rode FIVE hours on one flight? How many fuel tanks were you carrying? The longest I ever went was three and the only other time the balloon went longer, they had to set down on an island in the middle of a freaking river. I was on crew that day, (my daughter was in the basket) and I had to swim across with a new tank so they could get out and land somewhere where we could actually retreive it. It turned out to be a cool flight though cause they managed to get back to the field they started from.
Well, that’s you, calm in the face of absurdity. Heh. If I’m ever with you – in ANY situation – and you actually panic, I’ll know it’s over for all of us.