Up, up, and away!
Jill and I, and our closest 15 other friends, climbed into the gondola and got ready for our lift off.
The gondola is basically a massive, woven material, box that we stand inside of and watch the world below us as we fly through the air.
It is set up like an oblong grid with 2 sections on each side for 4 passengers each and then one section in the middle for only the pilot. It blocked off so people can’t move from one side to the other since that would unbalance the load and make it very dangerous for everyone involved.
Our cabin mates were Abby and Brent. They were also from the USA, but not via China, and Abby was about to start her graduate schooling at University of Texas, Austin in psychology so it was a perfect match! Both were incredibly nice and friendly and we enjoyed spending our time with them.
We talked to Mike, our captain, a little bit as he was getting ready and then pretty much stopped speaking when we took off because we were so enraptured by the scenes that were pretty much didn’t speak a lot on the flight.
As you can see from the video, almost everyone else was quiet and stunned by the beauty of what we were experiencing.
At this point, we were only over the flats so we had no idea what really lay ahead of us. We had watched a few videos on what other people had experienced but it is nothing like the real thing.
That includes my video and what you will see by my pictures. This truly needs to be seen, and experienced, live and in person.
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- Getting into the gondola. Brent and Abby are at the edge of the gondola by us.
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- Getting ready for liftoff!
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- A perfect morning.
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- Up, up, and away!
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- Butterfly Balloons has a nice fleet of balloons.