Our great friends Ryan & Elaine gave us a certificate for a Hot Air Balloon ride as our wedding gift. First off, how cool and original is that?! (We gave them concert tickets for their wedding...I think it kind of became a tradition for us to get eachother something non-traditional...) It took a while for me to get around to scheduling it, but I finally did and on Halloween we got to go on our adventure! Let me tell you...it is so. stinkin. cool. I was quite nervous at first, because I am not always the biggest fan of heights - not to mention thinking about being in a little tiny basket with nothing but a giant balloon keeping you up. But folks, I'm telling you, it's not scary at all. It is just plain awesome! So as you can imagine, I took about a million and one photos. It was really hard to narrow it down to the 22 I'm blogging! There were just too many neat things to look at, and we were up in the air for about an hour. Anyway, on to the photos...enjoy!
First things first...gotta put the thing together!
This was crazy to watch. I'm telling you, a 100ft balloon came out of basically a duffel bag. Madness!
Matt was recruited to help while they blew up the balloon (no really, they blew it up...with that fan...)
It started off lying on the ground, and then everyone (other than me of course, I was busy snapping away :) heaved the thing upright.
And quite the audience gathered...
Going up!
Up, up and away!
The view was SPECTACULAR.
Becky (our pilot) said we got up to around 2,000 feet (holy cow!)...I'm thinking this was about there...
We flew over a golf course and the hubs got all sorts of excited...so I had to take 1,000 shots :)
My favorite golf course shot...
This is what it looks like if you look straight up-
See that flame?!
The flame shooter thingy (that's its technical name).
When we flew over a pond, I was able to get this sweet shot of our reflection.
This is that pond we flew over...this might just be one of my favorites of the day!
Two goofballs just hangin out in a balloon :)
And then we had to come back down to earth (literally), which also was not nearly as scary as I was expecting.
Back on the ground, ready to be rolled back into that duffel bag.
I would highly recommend that everyone reading this go take a hot air balloon ride. Seriously. It is just one of those things you probably only get to do once in your life, but it is so worth it becasue it is an experience unlike any other! The company who provided our ride is called Hot Air Balloon Adventures, and they are based out of Louisburg, KS. To visit their website, click here. Becky was such a great pilot, she made us feel completely at ease and she really knew her stuff! Give her a call and schedule a ride for yourself! DO IT!!
Ryan & Elaine - I know I've said it a bunch already, but THANK YOU so much for such a cool gift! We had a blast. The other couple riding with us was about to celebrate their 39th anniversary...so hopefully this is a sign that someday we will be there too! :)
1. i'm so jealous. this is what i've made VERY CLEAR to jeremy that i want as my wedding gift from him.
ReplyDelete2. your pictures are breathtaking. jealous of the basket-focused shot. jealous of the reflection shot. jealous of the sun flare you got 2,000 feet above ground.
jealous jealous jealous