Balloon Weekend

Balloon Classic 2011, here we are! Woke up at 5:10am to get ready to head to the balloon field with Brad and Aimee to help crew. Brad is crew chief. Dave and Aaron, the pilots met us there, and then we were off. Dave was really great about explaining things to me as we set up. When we first pulled up to the spot we were going to take off from, I just had a big grin on my face.

It was soooo cool to just see these huge balloons filling up and taking off. Wow! Then, here I am helping set one up... then, they tell me I get to fly this morning. I went with Dave and Aaron. I wasn't expecting to fly my first time out there. It was a really great morning for it and we flew for about an hour.

These are some photos I took:

Aimee took these:

After landing, I helped pack it back up.

When we returned to the big balloon field for them to fuel up for the next flight, Brad said it was time for initiation. Brad told me we were going to do the balloonist prayer. He asked me to get down on one knee, he recited the prayer, and then they sprayed me. hahaha I had a feeling something like that was coming. Aimee caught some good photos of it.

So fly times are about 6:30am and 6:30pm all week. So, I went and helped again Saturday night, which actually was the Grand Ascension night. All the balloons took off from the field, which was really cool to see. Brad had said how I'd feel like I was walking amongst giants.... Definitely true. We had more help tonight, so things went really smoothly. Then after we had them up in the air, I got to ride in the chase car. :-)

I asked Tom, one of the crew members, to take this photo for me.

Then the crew got together at the Simpson apartment the pilots are staying at for a pasta feast.

Back up at 5am again Sunday. Two days in a row waking up while it's still kind of dark out. haha Did that 5 days a week last summer when I was working at Lindsay.

Got a nice sunrise shot while the pilots were in their meeting.

In the chase car again today after take-off, and we actually caught some really great photo ops. I was pretty excited.

 

I about fell over when I saw this."Aaaaaaack look at the reflections". Kevin backed up the vehicle for me to take this one. Perfect photo stop :-)

Then, when we were stopped somewhere else, I saw a little barbed wire fence and decided I'd try to frame the balloon in a shot.

Another great flight! I'm heading out again tonight to help, but I'll be ready for bed when I get back, soI figured I'd post now. Right now I'm planning on going to help crew every night through Thursday I believe. Sooo much fun, and I feel so lucky to have this opportunity. It's really cool just to be a part of this big community. Gotta love the Midwest.