HOT AIR BALLOON

OK so Mindy and I finally got to go on our hot air balloon ride. This was supposed to be her birthday present a year ago, August 10th. So it's a year late but after all the shit I had to take to get this done (not from her, she was an angel about it), I finally did.

No, I did not get scammed. The weather just has to be perfect.
Yes, I already paid. It's standard practice.

Yes, it was awesome.

There were other people there who had waited over 2 years for it, too, which made me feel like I had brothers in this struggle to ride the balloon.

Was it scary?
Not really, but the only thing close to it happened on take off, when all of the sudden you just start going up and the ground starts to get further and further away from you. It kind of feels like when you go over one of "those" bumps on the highway that make your stomach kind of fly up into your chest and it tickles you, only different.

We also hit a couple of trees with the basket, and considering how high up we were, it was a little nerve racking. But the view was great, the people on there were great, and as a whole it was a fucking blast.

The pilot was very interesting, having ballooned in Katmandu, Australia, and all over the world. He's a real adventure type and he had some pretty amazing stories. He was British though he sounded Australian.

They have chase crews that follow on land to pick everyone up (and the balloon). It reminded me of caddies because it was mostly young, high schoolers. There is a high turnover and the pilot sometimes got annoyed with them because they didn't do things as he was used to.

I'll try to post more on this later.