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Hot Air Balloon Ride
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In the early summer of 2005 Julie treated me (and herself) to
a hot air balloon ride!
We had to get up at 4:30am
(!!) to meet at 5:30am. We drove out to a country
airstrip where the team went to work.
Here's the sun
rising.
The first they do in the
setup is test the heaters. They make quite a loud noise!
The balloons are spread
out on the ground.
There were three balloons going up
this morning.
Three cows watched
curiously from a nearby field.
Then the balloon is spread
out.
Big gas powered fans are
used to inflate the balloons. Yeah, I'll bet you were
wondering how they would get the balloons filled with
air without burning them! I know I was.
Inside "our" balloon.
The three balloons
inflating.
No pics in between the
last one and this one, as I had to scramble and get in
for liftoff.
Here we are heading away from the launch
place.
Looking up into the
envelope of hot air that is keeping us aloft.
The
flame from the heater is just visible.
These heaters had to be fired frequently in order to
keep the air warm enough to keep us up.
Here's a closeup of the
heaters, taken after the flight.
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