Day 55 - Come Fly With Me

4:15 am!! Wow it comes so fast. You're probably thinking, "now Timmy, why on Earth would you get us that early?". Well folks, it is because by 7 am I would be in flight in my first ever hot air balloon ride! Emma and I booked a ride over the Napa Valley! So we had to be at the hotel where the vans were by 6 am.

It honestly wasn't that bad getting up, mainly because I was so excited for the ride. We stayed south of SanFran/Oakland and Napa Valley is just a short two hours from our hotel. It was a bit cold that morning but I was hoping that the flame from the balloon would be hot enough to warm me up. At the hotel we signed the "you/family cannot sue us if you die" contract and we hit the road sitting next to strangers who had the same interests we did. They drove us to a starting location that I guess depends on which way the wind is blowing in the morning. We got out and the balloons were already in the process of being filled. Between the two of us, Emma is certainly the daredevil. She was excited, while I on the other hand was starting to feel a little anxious. I mean we were going to be a half mile up in the air! Sometimes higher! There were 48 people and only three balloons, and if you did the math in your head like I did, that means that 16 people (17 including the "pilot") would be in the basket all at once. I mean I get nervous when there are more than 6 people in an elevator. You could only imagine how I felt knowing almost three times that would be on the voyage with me.

Well it turns out I had nothing to worry about. Our pilot had been doing this since the 80s and estimated that he had done over 4,000 rides. That's a lot of rides. I was of course the nervous nelly that needed to ask the question, "how many times have you done this". We were the last balloon to take off and before we knew it we had lifted off. I was right about one thing, the flame coming from the heating mechanism was HOT!...So I felt very toasty even high in the air. It was certainly a "couples" kind of thing to do...go on the balloon ride that is. Very romantic one would imagine. So romantic that there were TWO, not one but TWO proposals that morning. One was just feet away from where Emma and I were standing in the basket!

What was great about flying over Napa is that we got to see the bird's eye view of all the vineyards in the area. From far above, it really looked like a puzzle with each vineyard having it's gradient one way or another. Some plots of lad must have had 10,000 (I kid you not) sticks int he ground for the vines to grow one. And of course the houses that were centrally located on the vineyard were not modest in the least!

As we began our decent to the ground I was relieved. Our basket made contact and I knew that I was going to live another day!

Well the rest of the day included a short trip back into the city of SanFran. I drove on Lombard Street (the very twisty curvy road that's on essentially a 45 degree downhill), and we also did some great people watching in Chinatown (the countries largest Chinatown). After that it was back to the hotel! The whole entire day seemed like two separate days for me.

The next day we were all excited to see a fellow friend of ours Sarah Summers. She as going to show us her scene.

Aramis

Posted in: Timmy