Up, Up and Away

The alarm clock wrang at 4:30 am.  We slept like a rock and 4:30 seemed really early.  We headed to Starbucks, enjoyed a coffee and a breakfast sandwich and this is where we were meeting for the balloon ride.  We all piled into Shane’s  (the balloon pilot) truck and we drove around to a few different sites, where he would let off some helium balloons to determine the wind strength and direction.  We finally found a spot to set up (close to another balloon ride expedition).  Here they pulled out the basket, put it on its side and connected the balloon.  They started filling the balloon up with air from a fan.  Once it was filled to a certain point, it raised the basket up to its right side position.  We gracefully crawled into the basket (not!!).  When everyone was in, we left the ground with such ease and floated to about a 4000 foot elevation.  On top there was no wind at all and we merrily floated around enjoying the scenery.  While up in the air we were able to see the other balloon take off as well.  This balloon was quite a bit smaller than the one we were in.  For the landing we were told to hold on to straps in the basket and face the opposite way we were travelling.  We were also instructed to bend our knees to take in the impact of landing.  Just before we landed we saw a Road Runner  but because we were instructed to hold on tight with bent knees we could not take a picture (boo).   While they were setting down the balloon and folding everything up again, we enjoyed some champagne and orange juice and were told the history of why they served champagne when a ride was complete.  We also enjoyed some apple slices with peanut butter and some cheesecake or cream puffs.  What an awesome experience.  So much fun.  Afterwards we went to Cave Creek where they had a Western Festival going on.  We enjoyed a delicious lunch at The Horny Toad and walked through the town.  On our way home we stopped at 2 of the golf courses we will be playing, Rancho Manana and Grayhawk.  Both looked like they will be a lot of fun to play.  We ended the day with a nice meal at The Elephant Bar and than we went to purchase a cooler so we could keep some waters cool and ring them along to Sedona with us in the morning.